strange and random happenstance

The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman
Published by: Penguin Books
Publication Date: August 5th, 2014
Format: Paperback, 416 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Quentin Coldwater saved magic. Quentin Coldwater saved Fillory. So what was his reward? Banishment. Back to Earth. He found his place, his home, his reason for being in a fantastical world and now he's been cut adrift. He goes back to the only other place he's ever thought of as home, Brakebills. Thankfully he's able to get a teaching job there while he studies his only connection to Fillory, a spell he found in the Neitherlands which he can't even begin to understand. He finds a kind of contentment there. But his life is going to face much more upheaval. First his father dies and he leaves Brakebills for the funeral. At "home" he realizes, now, more than ever, how he never fit into the "real" world. Brakebills though won't be his safe haven for much longer. There's a group of students called "The League" founded by Plum Purchas. They mete out justice on those they feel have done wrong. Like Wharton who purposefully withholds libations during dinner. There prank against Wharton goes horrifically wrong. The magical wards protecting Brakebills are endangered. The incursion is someone Quentin knows. It's Alice. But she's a niffin. Plum is expelled and Quentin is fired. Of their own accord they both show up at a meetup looking to hire magicians for a heist. It was inevitable they'd meet on the outside, they're both magicians and they're both in need of money. The heist fails. Spectacularly. Though they end up in possession of a book written by Martin Chatwin. Fillory is calling to Quentin again. Or so he thinks. But maybe this time it's calling to Plum. Because she has a secret. She's Martin Chatwin's great-granddaughter. On her mother's side. The two of them hide out in New York City in a bolthole that Plum has had for awhile in case they're on anyone's radar after the heist. There they discover a spell in Martin's book to create a new magical land. Having nothing better to do they attempt it and instead of getting a mini Fillory they get an eerie mirror version of the house they're staying in which happens to be inhabited by Alice, the niffin. Who Quentin is able to restore to her human body thanks to the spell from the Neitherlands. Something she is very furious about. She saw everything, she knew everything, from the dawn of time until it's demise and now she's stuck in a meat sack which craves bacon. But everything has a purpose and Alice's return coincides with Eliot's. He has come to inform them that Fillory is ending. The apocalypse has begun. There are no keys to save it this time. Though there's Alice. She saw the beginning of Fillory on her "travels" and her knowledge could save Fillory. Can they save Fillory? Rebuild that world? Or do they want to build their own?

For those of us who grew up on The Chronicles of Narnia, The Dark is Rising Sequence, The Chronicles of Prydain, and The Neverending Story, this series was written for us, though with far less nightmare fuel. We might have been jaded by life but after three books, like Quentin, we are able to find the wonder and joy once again in the world. Or find it at least temporarily with an ending reminiscent of the epic cataclysmic nothingness of The Neverending Story that brought back to life a whole world at the hands of one broken little book nerd. A world ended and a new one began. Because of book nerds. Never forget our power. We are legion. Though there's one thing that every book nerd who has read this series has fantasized about and that's actually being able to read the five Fillory and Further books by Christopher Plover. Yes, there's the small matter that they don't exist, nor does Christopher Plover, but Lev Grossman could conceivably write them. In fact if you go on a deep dive into Reddit there are rumors that at one time he considered doing just that. Obviously this never came to be because otherwise I would be reading them right now. Though if they did exist the question arises, would they prove worthy of their supposed compatriots? Could they rise to the level of C.S. Lewis or Michael Ende? Because we have learned a fair bit about The World in the Walls, The Girl Who Told Time, The Flying Forest, The Secret Sea, and The Wandering Dune over the course of Lev Grossman's three books. We've even learned there are secretly two more books; The Magicians written by Jane Chatwin, and The Door in the Page: My Life in Two Worlds by Rupert Chatwin and could they really meet expectations and known storylines? Well, it's this second book by Rupert that we finally get to read in The Magician's Land. And after reading Rupert's account I can safely say that I think Lev Grossman is well capable of this Ploverian feat. Fillory and Further could be real if Lev Grossman would just make it so. While the whole series has callbacks to other famous children's tales, this one felt more real, more like Narnia, if just because of structure, the story within the story. I also really started to think about the Chatwins being real people, not just characters in a book. And how being nobodies in the real world and being kings and queens in Fillory must really fuck with your head. I mean, no wonder Martin became a psycho, the stuff with Plover notwithstanding. I'd never really thought about this disconnect. You go to the magical world and everything is fixed, unless you know C.S. Lewis kills you all. But this series has been all about how magic doesn't fix you, a magical world doesn't make everything right. And while we've seen this again and again, this somehow was the first time it really struck home for me. That disconnect. Not just the coming back to reality and growing up, but the whole, this is really fucked up. And who created this "purity" rule? And how did that get broken, was it because of Martin breaking the rules? Selling his humanity to Umber? And is that how the Brakebills crowd got in? I have questions. I will always have questions. But I also have certainty. Certainty in my love of this series, in the fact that Lev Grossman could write Fillory and Further if he so wanted, and in the fact that magic can be found anywhere because this world is just as fucked up as any imaginary one.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Brakebills, Christopher Plover, Fillory, Fillory and Further, Lev Grossman, Martin Chatwin, Neitherlands, Niffin, Plum Purchas, Quentin Coldwater, Summer School, The Magician's Land, The Neverending Story

The Magician King by Lev Grossman
Published by: Penguin Books
Publication Date: August 9th, 2011
Format: Paperback, 432 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Being a beloved ruler is all well and good, but sometimes it can get a little staid what with the daily balcony appearances for the common folk and the governing. Which is why the High Kings and Queens of Fillory, Eliot, Janet, Quentin, and Julia are hunting for one of Fillory's prophetic Unique Beasts, the Seeing Hare. Things don't exactly go to plan, the Master of the Hunt, Jollyby, catches the Hare and it predicts horrors and then Jollyby drops dead. Poor Jollyby. He had some memorable assets. But it's Fillory, it's a magical world, weird shit is bound to happen. Plus, how exactly do you follow through with investigating an omen? When trying to figure this out the rulers discover that the Outer Islands haven't paid their taxes in years and Quentin decides that sailing the Eastern Ocean and collecting some back taxes could be an interesting quest. Quentin resurrects and refurbishes the Muntjac and he and Julia and a few fellow compatriots head east. Which is how they meet Elaine and learn about the magic key that winds the world. Or, as Quentin realizes, the quest he should be on. They journey further east, to After Island, where he and Julia find a key and are sent straight home. Not to Castle Whitespire. To Earth. Which means they have to find a way back to Fillory. Logic dictates that they could return via the method that got them there in the first place, but Josh was the last one seen with the button and who knows what quest he's currently on. The first place to look therefore is Brakebills. But they are unable to get through the school's defenses and therefore Quentin is about to have a steep learning curve into what Julia has been up to the past few years. Because Brakebills rejected her and she had to learn her magic in other ways, through magic safe houses. Rough and crude magic that Quentin is baffled even works. Hedge Witches know the real cost of power and Julia gets a lead on someone who can help them. That someone turns out to be Josh. Who has sold the button. Because palazzos in Venice aren't cheap. But thankfully Venice has its own dragon who breaks it all down for Quentin. The magic that Julia summoned before ascending the throne in Fillory has gotten the attention of the Gods. All of them. And they don't like humans using their magic. So, not only do Quentin and Julia have to get back to Fillory, they have to save it and magic. Or else be beyond deity screwed.

Because of the tonal shift it's kind of hard to believe that The Magician King was written by the same author as The Magicians. Especially in regard to Quentin Coldwater. It's kind of like he's had a personality transplant. Whereas The Magicians was riddled with his angst and how he kept trying to find something to magically "fix" his life, which ironically couldn't be fixed with magic, here he's hopeful. He's full of the spirit of adventure and his love of Fillory. The angst is out the window and he's somehow grown into accepting what life throws at him and rolling with the punches instead of bemoaning his fate. And while this is fascinating, and something that should be dwelled on as part of the "hero's journey" he embarks on over the course of this book, it's Julia and the "heroine's journey" that is important here. Because this is Julia's book. The Magician King is like a mirror of The Magicians. Whereas Quentin viewed his life was ruined by Brakebills, Julia's actually was ruined by Brakebills, but because they didn't let her in. So she finds magic the only way she can, on the mean streets. OK, technically in magical safe houses, but still, it's not the hallowed halls of Brakebills. Which I find ironic because everyone who disliked the staid poncey pedagogy of The Magicians would embrace Julia's journey but they probably wouldn't give this series a second chance. Which is a shame. And also makes me glad that I was willing to stick with this series. Because I love this weird mirrorworld that Lev Grossman has created. And there are parts of me that are geeking out over things that are just little Easter Eggs for uber book dorks like me. For example, The Magicians pays homage to Brideshead Revisited. But it pays homage to the main characters of the novel, Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flyte, Quentin Coldwater and Eliot Waugh by another name. In Brideshead Revisited Sebastian Flyte's father, Lord Marchmain, is the outcast of his family, abandoning his wife and his home for Venice where he is in residence with his mistress. He is the black sheep, the other side of the coin, he is the opposite of Quentin, he is Julia. So what do they do in The Magician King that makes me so giddy? Quentin and Julia go to Venice. The sanctuary of the outcasts. Heck, that's where Josh has been hanging out all this time. They could have literally gone anywhere and yet Lev Grossman writes that they went to Venice to find Josh and talk to a dragon. Perfection. Now if I could just get past my squick at Julia's "rebel nerve endings [that] attempted to send pleasure signals to her brain, whereupon her brain burned them out... never to feel again" when she's being raped this would be a perfect book.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Brideshead Revisited, Charles Ryder, Eliot Waugh, Fillory, Hedge Witch, Julia Wicker, Lev Grossman, Lord Marchmain, Quentin Coldwater, Sebastian Flyte, Summer School, The Magician King, The Magicians, Venice

The Magicians by Lev Grossman
Published by: Penguin Books
Publication Date: August 11th, 2009
Format: Paperback, 402 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Quentin Coldwater is special. He has a GPA higher than most people realize they go. But every time he reaches a goal he no longer wants it. He is dissatisfied and disillusioned with his life at seventeen. Then something happens to him that feels like it could be lifted straight from his favorite book series by Christopher Plover, Fillory and Further. On a cold bleak fall day in Brooklyn after discovering a dead body and having an odd interaction with an attractive paramedic, Q walks through a community garden and ends up on a sea of freshly cut summer lawn. There's someone waiting for him. His exam is about to start. Never mind that Quentin knows nothing about this mysterious place or this exam, something in him tells him that the fictional Chatwins would rise to the challenge and so will he. After a series of honestly baffling tests he is told what he has started to suspect since he walked onto that lawn; magic is real. Not only that but he has been accepted to the prestigious Brakebills University for Magical Pedagogy. Here, after five years of matriculation, he will graduate a magician. His former life will be left behind and a new world will be opened to him. Quentin leaps into his new life but is distressed that his dissatisfaction seems to have followed him. His new life is nothing like his old life and yet the depression is seeping in. He has a new group of friends, the Physical Kids, Eliot, Janet, Josh, and Alice. Especially Alice. They are a prestigious clique, hanging out in their cottage and just drinking in their youth and their powers. But this grows stale. Eliot, Janet, and Josh graduate a year before Quentin and Alice and by the end of their final year at Brakebills Quentin seriously doesn't care about anything, not even his relationship with Alice, which he spectacularly destroys by sleeping with Janet and Eliot. And just when the entropy of his life is almost too much to bear in walks what might save him, what has to save him... The knowledge that Fillory is real and that they can go there. These books saved Q's life again and again. Who knows, maybe they will save him again? Or perhaps he's doomed to a life of despair and disillusionment.

I have now read this book three times in order to write a review that will do The Magicians justice. The problem is that each time I have read it my opinion has been so vastly different I don't know how to take in all these variables. I mean, how much of my opinion was shaped by my love of the television series? Well, the second time I read it, a lot. I was even changing Janet to Margo in my head. But four years after the show has ended so much has changed that I feel like I'm seeing the book with new eyes. There's such a jaded quality to Q. Nothing will ever bring him satisfaction or contentment. This is postmodernist Brideshead Revisited, or, as my friend Flavia said, nothing more than a "wall of pure nihilistic snobbery." And yes, that is true. But given the way of the world and all that we've been through over the past few years, I'm feeling in a very jaded and nihilistic mood. What really connected to me this time though was the fallibility of authors. Christopher Plover's Fillory and Further series is like Narnia or Harry Potter. That comfort read that so many children retreat to even as they age. Because the more adult you are the more you need that comfort blanket. Though much like real authors of that era, J.M. Barrie, Lewis Carroll, Plover had a dirty secret. A secret that changed Fillory forever. But time and time again these older authors aren't mentioned, it's J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter that is entwined with The Magicians. And J.K. Rowling is such a problematic author I don't even know where to start. There were rumors for years that she wasn't the beacon of light many people took her to be. It was only in 2013 when she started writing under a pseudonym chosen because Robert Galbraith Hall created conversion therapy that the mask started to slip. Though not many people picked up on the significance of her nom de plume. By Troubled Blood, the fifth book published as Galbraith in 2020, the mask was fully off. She's a full on TERF. The hate she spews is almost incomprehensible, unless you look at the world around us. Make America Hate Again! That disillusionment with her means this hit just right. Throw in the horrors of what Amazon and Netflix are frantically trying to cover up about Neil Gaiman, and well, this book reads less postmodernist, less open to interpretation, and more, the world sucks, magic isn't going to help, everyone is horrible. And somehow that was very cathartic. Unvarnished truth.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Brakebills, Brideshead Revisited, Christopher Plover, Fillory, Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling, J.M. Barrie, Lev Grossman, Lewis Carroll, Magic, Neil Gaiman, Nihilism, Quentin Coldwater, Summer School, The Magicians

The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman
Published by: Penguin Books
Publication Date: August 5th, 2014
Format: Paperback, 416 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Quentin Coldwater saved magic. Quentin Coldwater saved Fillory. So what was his reward? Banishment. Back to Earth. He found his place, his home, his reason for being in a fantastical world and now he's been cut adrift. He goes back to the only other place he's ever thought of as home, Brakebills. Thankfully he's able to get a teaching job there while he studies his only connection to Fillory, a spell he found in the Neitherlands which he can't even begin to understand. He finds a kind of contentment there. But his life is going to face much more upheaval. First his father dies and he leaves Brakebills for the funeral. At "home" he realizes, now, more than ever, how he never fit into the "real" world. Brakebills though won't be his safe haven for much longer. There's a group of students called "The League" founded by Plum Purchas. They mete out justice on those they feel have done wrong. Like Wharton who purposefully withholds libations during dinner. There prank against Wharton goes horrifically wrong. The magical wards protecting Brakebills are endangered. The incursion is someone Quentin knows. It's Alice. But she's a niffin. Plum is expelled and Quentin is fired. Of their own accord they both show up at a meetup looking to hire magicians for a heist. It was inevitable they'd meet on the outside, they're both magicians and they're both in need of money. The heist fails. Spectacularly. Though they end up in possession of a book written by Martin Chatwin. Fillory is calling to Quentin again. Or so he thinks. But maybe this time it's calling to Plum. Because she has a secret. She's Martin Chatwin's great-granddaughter. On her mother's side. The two of them hide out in New York City in a bolthole that Plum has had for awhile in case they're on anyone's radar after the heist. There they discover a spell in Martin's book to create a new magical land. Having nothing better to do they attempt it and instead of getting a mini Fillory they get an eerie mirror version of the house they're staying in which happens to be inhabited by Alice, the niffin. Who Quentin is able to restore to her human body thanks to the spell from the Neitherlands. Something she is very furious about. She saw everything, she knew everything, from the dawn of time until it's demise and now she's stuck in a meat sack which craves bacon. But everything has a purpose and Alice's return coincides with Eliot's. He has come to inform them that Fillory is ending. The apocalypse has begun. There are no keys to save it this time. Though there's Alice. She saw the beginning of Fillory on her "travels" and her knowledge could save Fillory. Can they save Fillory? Rebuild that world? Or do they want to build their own?

For those of us who grew up on The Chronicles of Narnia, The Dark is Rising Sequence, The Chronicles of Prydain, and The Neverending Story, this series was written for us, though with far less nightmare fuel. We might have been jaded by life but after three books, like Quentin, we are able to find the wonder and joy once again in the world. Or find it at least temporarily with an ending reminiscent of the epic cataclysmic nothingness of The Neverending Story that brought back to life a whole world at the hands of one broken little book nerd. A world ended and a new one began. Because of book nerds. Never forget our power. We are legion. Though there's one thing that every book nerd who has read this series has fantasized about and that's actually being able to read the five Fillory and Further books by Christopher Plover. Yes, there's the small matter that they don't exist, nor does Christopher Plover, but Lev Grossman could conceivably write them. In fact if you go on a deep dive into Reddit there are rumors that at one time he considered doing just that. Obviously this never came to be because otherwise I would be reading them right now. Though if they did exist the question arises, would they prove worthy of their supposed compatriots? Could they rise to the level of C.S. Lewis or Michael Ende? Because we have learned a fair bit about The World in the Walls, The Girl Who Told Time, The Flying Forest, The Secret Sea, and The Wandering Dune over the course of Lev Grossman's three books. We've even learned there are secretly two more books; The Magicians written by Jane Chatwin, and The Door in the Page: My Life in Two Worlds by Rupert Chatwin and could they really meet expectations and known storylines? Well, it's this second book by Rupert that we finally get to read in The Magician's Land. And after reading Rupert's account I can safely say that I think Lev Grossman is well capable of this Ploverian feat. Fillory and Further could be real if Lev Grossman would just make it so. While the whole series has callbacks to other famous children's tales, this one felt more real, more like Narnia, if just because of structure, the story within the story. I also really started to think about the Chatwins being real people, not just characters in a book. And how being nobodies in the real world and being kings and queens in Fillory must really fuck with your head. I mean, no wonder Martin became a psycho, the stuff with Plover notwithstanding. I'd never really thought about this disconnect. You go to the magical world and everything is fixed, unless you know C.S. Lewis kills you all. But this series has been all about how magic doesn't fix you, a magical world doesn't make everything right. And while we've seen this again and again, this somehow was the first time it really struck home for me. That disconnect. Not just the coming back to reality and growing up, but the whole, this is really fucked up. And who created this "purity" rule? And how did that get broken, was it because of Martin breaking the rules? Selling his humanity to Umber? And is that how the Brakebills crowd got in? I have questions. I will always have questions. But I also have certainty. Certainty in my love of this series, in the fact that Lev Grossman could write Fillory and Further if he so wanted, and in the fact that magic can be found anywhere because this world is just as fucked up as any imaginary one.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Brakebills, C.S. Lewis, Christopher Plover, Fillory, Fillory and Further, Lev Grossman, Martin Chatwin, Neitherlands, Niffin, Plum Purchas, Quentin Coldwater, The Magician's Land, The Neverending Story

The Magician King by Lev Grossman
Published by: Penguin Books
Publication Date: August 9th, 2011
Format: Paperback, 432 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Being a beloved ruler is all well and good, but sometimes it can get a little staid what with the daily balcony appearances for the common folk and the governing. Which is why the High Kings and Queens of Fillory, Eliot, Janet, Quentin, and Julia are hunting for one of Fillory's prophetic Unique Beasts, the Seeing Hare. Things don't exactly go to plan, the Master of the Hunt, Jollyby, catches the Hare and it predicts horrors and then Jollyby drops dead. Poor Jollyby. He had some memorable assets. But it's Fillory, it's a magical world, weird shit is bound to happen. Plus, how exactly do you follow through with investigating an omen? When trying to figure this out the rulers discover that the Outer Islands haven't paid their taxes in years and Quentin decides that sailing the Eastern Ocean and collecting some back taxes could be an interesting quest. Quentin resurrects and refurbishes the Muntjac and he and Julia and a few fellow compatriots head east. Which is how they meet Elaine and learn about the magic key that winds the world. Or, as Quentin realizes, the quest he should be on. They journey further east, to After Island, where he and Julia find a key and are sent straight home. Not to Castle Whitespire. To Earth. Which means they have to find a way back to Fillory. Logic dictates that they could return via the method that got them there in the first place, but Josh was the last one seen with the button and who knows what quest he's currently on. The first place to look therefore is Brakebills. But they are unable to get through the school's defenses and therefore Quentin is about to have a steep learning curve into what Julia has been up to the past few years. Because Brakebills rejected her and she had to learn her magic in other ways, through magic safe houses. Rough and crude magic that Quentin is baffled even works. Hedge Witches know the real cost of power and Julia gets a lead on someone who can help them. That someone turns out to be Josh. Who has sold the button. Because palazzos in Venice aren't cheap. But thankfully Venice has its own dragon who breaks it all down for Quentin. The magic that Julia summoned before ascending the throne in Fillory has gotten the attention of the Gods. All of them. And they don't like humans using their magic. So, not only do Quentin and Julia have to get back to Fillory, they have to save it and magic. Or else be beyond deity screwed.

Because of the tonal shift it's kind of hard to believe that The Magician King was written by the same author as The Magicians. Especially in regard to Quentin Coldwater. It's kind of like he's had a personality transplant. Whereas The Magicians was riddled with his angst and how he kept trying to find something to magically "fix" his life, which ironically couldn't be fixed with magic, here he's hopeful. He's full of the spirit of adventure and his love of Fillory. The angst is out the window and he's somehow grown into accepting what life throws at him and rolling with the punches instead of bemoaning his fate. And while this is fascinating, and something that should be dwelled on as part of the "hero's journey" he embarks on over the course of this book, it's Julia and the "heroine's journey" that is important here. Because this is Julia's book. The Magician King is like a mirror of The Magicians. Whereas Quentin viewed his life was ruined by Brakebills, Julia's actually was ruined by Brakebills, but because they didn't let her in. So she finds magic the only way she can, on the mean streets. OK, technically in magical safe houses, but still, it's not the hallowed halls of Brakebills. Which I find ironic because everyone who disliked the staid poncey pedagogy of The Magicians would embrace Julia's journey but they probably wouldn't give this series a second chance. Which is a shame. And also makes me glad that I was willing to stick with this series. Because I love this weird mirrorworld that Lev Grossman has created. And there are parts of me that are geeking out over things that are just little Easter Eggs for uber book dorks like me. For example, The Magicians pays homage to Brideshead Revisited. But it pays homage to the main characters of the novel, Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flyte, Quentin Coldwater and Eliot Waugh by another name. In Brideshead Revisited Sebastian Flyte's father, Lord Marchmain, is the outcast of his family, abandoning his wife and his home for Venice where he is in residence with his mistress. He is the black sheep, the other side of the coin, he is the opposite of Quentin, he is Julia. So what do they do in The Magician King that makes me so giddy? Quentin and Julia go to Venice. The sanctuary of the outcasts. Heck, that's where Josh has been hanging out all this time. They could have literally gone anywhere and yet Lev Grossman writes that they went to Venice to find Josh and talk to a dragon. Perfection. Now if I could just get past my squick at Julia's "rebel nerve endings [that] attempted to send pleasure signals to her brain, whereupon her brain burned them out... never to feel again" when she's being raped this would be a perfect book.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Brideshead Revisited, Charles Ryder, Eliot Waugh, Fillory, Hedge Witch, Heroine's Journey, Julia Wicker, Lev Grossman, Lord Marchmain, Quentin Coldwater, Sebastian Flyte, The Magician King, The Magicians, Venice

The Magicians by Lev Grossman
Published by: Penguin Books
Publication Date: August 11th, 2009
Format: Paperback, 402 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Quentin Coldwater is special. He has a GPA higher than most people realize they go. But every time he reaches a goal he no longer wants it. He is dissatisfied and disillusioned with his life at seventeen. Then something happens to him that feels like it could be lifted straight from his favorite book series by Christopher Plover, Fillory and Further. On a cold bleak fall day in Brooklyn after discovering a dead body and having an odd interaction with an attractive paramedic, Q walks through a community garden and ends up on a sea of freshly cut summer lawn. There's someone waiting for him. His exam is about to start. Never mind that Quentin knows nothing about this mysterious place or this exam, something in him tells him that the fictional Chatwins would rise to the challenge and so will he. After a series of honestly baffling tests he is told what he has started to suspect since he walked onto that lawn; magic is real. Not only that but he has been accepted to the prestigious Brakebills University for Magical Pedagogy. Here, after five years of matriculation, he will graduate a magician. His former life will be left behind and a new world will be opened to him. Quentin leaps into his new life but is distressed that his dissatisfaction seems to have followed him. His new life is nothing like his old life and yet the depression is seeping in. He has a new group of friends, the Physical Kids, Eliot, Janet, Josh, and Alice. Especially Alice. They are a prestigious clique, hanging out in their cottage and just drinking in their youth and their powers. But this grows stale. Eliot, Janet, and Josh graduate a year before Quentin and Alice and by the end of their final year at Brakebills Quentin seriously doesn't care about anything, not even his relationship with Alice, which he spectacularly destroys by sleeping with Janet and Eliot. And just when the entropy of his life is almost too much to bear in walks what might save him, what has to save him... The knowledge that Fillory is real and that they can go there. These books saved Q's life again and again. Who knows, maybe they will save him again? Or perhaps he's doomed to a life of despair and disillusionment.

I have now read this book three times in order to write a review that will do The Magicians justice. The problem is that each time I have read it my opinion has been so vastly different I don't know how to take in all these variables. I mean, how much of my opinion was shaped by my love of the television series? Well, the second time I read it, a lot. I was even changing Janet to Margo in my head. But four years after the show has ended so much has changed that I feel like I'm seeing the book with new eyes. There's such a jaded quality to Q. Nothing will ever bring him satisfaction or contentment. This is postmodernist Brideshead Revisited, or, as my friend Flavia said, nothing more than a "wall of pure nihilistic snobbery." And yes, that is true. But given the way of the world and all that we've been through over the past few years, I'm feeling in a very jaded and nihilistic mood. What really connected to me this time though was the fallibility of authors. Christopher Plover's Fillory and Further series is like Narnia or Harry Potter. That comfort read that so many children retreat to even as they age. Because the more adult you are the more you need that comfort blanket. Though much like real authors of that era, J.M. Barrie, Lewis Carroll, Plover had a dirty secret. A secret that changed Fillory forever. But time and time again these older authors aren't mentioned, it's J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter that is entwined with The Magicians. And J.K. Rowling is such a problematic author I don't even know where to start. There were rumors for years that she wasn't the beacon of light many people took her to be. It was only in 2013 when she started writing under a pseudonym chosen because Robert Galbraith Hall created conversion therapy that the mask started to slip. Though not many people picked up on the significance of her nom de plume. By Troubled Blood, the fifth book published as Galbraith in 2020, the mask was fully off. She's a full on TERF. The hate she spews is almost incomprehensible, unless you look at the world around us. Make America Hate Again! That disillusionment with her means this hit just right. Throw in the horrors of what Amazon and Netflix are frantically trying to cover up about Neil Gaiman, and well, this book reads less postmodernist, less open to interpretation, and more, the world sucks, magic isn't going to help, everyone is horrible. And somehow that was very cathartic. Unvarnished truth.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Brakebills, Brideshead Revisited, Christopher Plover, Fillory, For the Love of Book Clubs, J.K. Rowling, J.M. Barrie, Lev Grossman, Lewis Carroll, Magic, Neil Gaiman, Nihilism, Quentin Coldwater, The Magicians

If you follow my goodreads feed you sometimes glean things that aren't readily apparent here on my blog. You might guess what I'm planning in the coming months, or you might, for example go "how the hell does she like The Magicians when she hated the book so much that she hasn't even bothered to write a scorching review because she probably views it as a waste of time." FYI I do view it as a waste of time. Well, this is one of those rare instances where an adaptation is so much better than the source material that it's best to forget that source exists. Although I will give a tip of the hat to how clever the showrunners are in circling around and sneaking in something from the books when you least expect it. Though they have a way of making it work where Lev Grossman didn't. Because, for those who've read the books, there's no denying that the protagonist Quentin Coldwater with his Fillory obsession is a bit of a wet blanket. He's mopey and just best avoided, hence here comes Elliot and Margo to the rescue. Secondary characters elevated to a bitchy king and queen of Fillory? Oh. My. God. Yes. Please. They not only add levity to the show, they seriously make the show what it is. Watch how much more screentime they get in season two compared to season one and you'll know what I'm talking about. And THAT is what I love most about The Magicians, they see areas where they need to improve and actually improve! This is the "dark/adult Harry Potter" I expected when I picked up the book series. This is what fantasy television is about!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Adaptation, And the Emmy Goes To, Book Review, Elliot, Fantasy, Fillory, Goodreads, Lev Grossman, Margo, Quentin Coldwater, SyFy, The Magicians

Fall. The time of year when thoughts turn to the new TV season while also lauding the past year's work. While I love award shows and the Emmys are certainly a favorite, especially in a year when Stephen Colbert is hosting, it also makes me sad because my favorite shows are considered "genre" television so no matter how amazing the acting or the writing they just never get their plaudits just because they may have vampires. So I decided, I'm going to change that right here, right now. No, I'm not rigging the votes or casting my own statues, but I am going to pick my favorite shows that aired over the last year that just happen to have started out in book form and convince you to give them a chance! Be it science fiction, graphic novels, horror, some of my favorite shows got their start on my bookshelves. So let's hear it for Oz and Fillory and Midnight, Texas, and all the places in between that the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences looks down on. Let's hear it for the underdogs, the Ross Poldarks of the world! Here's to who the Emmy should be going to...

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Adaptation, And the Emmy Goes To, Award Show, Emmy, Emmy Award, Fillory, Genre, Midnight Texas, Oz, Poldark, Ross Poldark, Stephen Colbert, TV Show

It was inevitable that I would eventually create a theme month named after a Queen song. Seriously, I don't know how it hasn't happened sooner. Sing it with me! "One dream, one soul, one prize, one goal, one golden glance of what should be... The bell that rings inside your mind, is a challenging the doors of time!" Yes, it's from the movie Highlander. Don't judge. For the last two years I have spent the Spring months celebrating "Regency Magic." After doing four months dedicated to that theme I've kind of decimated the subgenre. Though don't be bereft my fellow lovers of "Regency Magic" I have very recently stumbled on new books and that theme month will return next year! But the problem became this year. I'd kind of started craving magic and fantasy in the Spring so I figured, why not just give into it? So the books I've been reading, they're not "Regency Magic" but they are "A Kind of Magic!" Get it? I knew you would. As fate would have it I had planned to do lots of different authors and then I kind of got sucked in by Earthsea, so, this month is a little heavy on Ursula K. Le Guin, and by a little heavy, I mean it's an Ursula K. Le Guin month but I still wanted to introduce "It's a Kind of Magic" that will be used going forward whenever there aren't enough "Regency Magic" books around. Because I'm sure their will be future "Regency Magic" droughts but there is never a drought of other kinds of magic! Unless you're in Fillory and Ember takes a shit in the Wellspring. Yeah. I kind of love that show.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Earthsea, Ember, Fillory, Freddie Mercury, Highlander, It's a Kind of Magic, Queen, Regency Magic, The Magicians, Theme Month, Ursula K. Le Guin