Book Review: The Magicians by Lev Grossman
This book review was a reader request! Feel free to comment below or visit @TheBookishSheep on Instagram to give me suggestions on what to read next!
The first installment of The Magicians series follows Brooklyn-born Quentin Coldwater from his senior year of high school through the year or so immediately following his graduation from college. He unexpectedly attends Brakebills -- a college of magic located in upstate New York -- and, over the years, his perception of the supernatural transforms from a source of pure joy to one of dark resentment.
Let’s get this out of the way: I think the underlying message behind The Magicians is sheer genius. Quentin spends the entirety of the first novel in a state of constant grasping: he’s dissatisfied in his day-to-day, in his relationships and friendships, and, most of all, with himself. I love when authors tell human stories in magical worlds. Here, Grossman attempts to capture the inevitable post-grad blues, the sensation that adulthood isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and maybe some childhood dreams we were told were possible if we just worked hard enough won’t ever come to fruition. Magic disappoints Quentin. He thinks it will make him happy, yet he continues to struggle. Achieving his ambitions isn’t bringing him joy like he thought it would.
As I was reading, I saw Grossman pointing a harsh light at his characters’ imperfections. In The Magicians, young men are stupid, binge drinking and drug overuse are the norm, and college kids are obsessed with having sex, finding freedom, and perfecting their images. Unfortunately, in an attempt to be real and raw, Grossman has also managed to create the most irritating, unpleasant, and unlikeable set of characters I’ve ever encountered, particularly his protagonist. Quentin sucks. He’s self-destructive and manages to be both deeply insecure and pompous at the same time.
Now, fans of the book may say, “yes, Nika, that’s the point.” I get it. I’ve read many books with characters that struggle, that are far from perfect. I love a good anti-hero. The problem with Quentin is that his only character trait between pages 1 and 402 is miserable asshole with a real confidence problem. We don’t get any new insight about why he is the way he is. Maybe it’s because he’s neglected by his parents; that’s discussed for all of two seconds. When he’s good at magic, all he can do is talk about how gifted he is compared to everyone else. There’s nothing else for readers to latch onto, to give us hope that Quentin will ultimately do the right thing, even if it’s for the wrong reasons at first. He reads as nothing more than a self-absorbed, mopey 20-year-old with no sense of perspective whatsoever.
I also really struggled with Grossman’s portrayal of female characters in The Magicians. Now that we’re in the days of the coronavirus, my fiance is almost always home with me, so I’ve been doing most of my reading with him close by. He can attest that, every 15 to 20 minutes, I’d interrupt whatever he was doing to share one of Grossman’s overtly sexualized or completely de-sexualized descriptions of every female character that came onto the scene. Each new female character is described as “slender,” “pretty,” and “vibrantly sexy” or “devastatingly competent,” “big,” and “blocky.” Demonstrating a character’s misogyny is one thing, but these descriptions came through Grossman’s third person narration. His tone objectifies female characters throughout the book, to the point that it was a constant distraction for me as I read.
One legitimate criticism of this review is that I’ve only read the first book in what is meant to be consumed as a trilogy. I understand that characters need room to grow. It’s possible by Book 3 Quentin becomes a mature, self-aware feminist and learns to appreciate the little things in life. That said, I struggle to get on board with a series in which the protagonist makes no forward movement in Book 1. Perhaps I should finish the trilogy before writing a review, but I’ll be honest that the first book left me with no desire to spend more time on The Magicians series.
Has anyone out there read The Magicians and vehemently disagree with me? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!