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No magic available
By Michael Agger |
September 13, 2009, Sunday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
FANTASY novels involve magic and are a little bit like magic themselves. To work, they require of readers a willingness to be fooled, to be gulled into a world of walking trees and talking lions. They affect us most powerfully as teenagers, but then most of us move on to sterner, staider stuff.
Lev Grossman's third novel is a homage to that early wonderment.
The main character, Quentin Coldwater, is a Brooklyn teenager obsessed with "Fillory and Further," a Narnia-like pentalogy. One day, after his alumni interview for Princeton is aborted, he's mysteriously conveyed to Brakebills College, which is kind of like the M.I.T. for magic.
Even though Quentin discovers that magic is eminently real and that he's got talent for it, he still pines for the imaginary land of Fillory.
Brakebills will remind readers of Hogwarts and Grossman has written what could crudely be labeled a Harry Potter for adults. He takes the rudiments of that story and injects mature themes.
"The Magicians" is a jarring attempt to go where those novels do not: into drugs, disappointment, anomie, the place and time when magic leaks out of your life.
Sounds like fun, but aren't we a little old for this?
No magic available
Michael Agger
Fantasy novels involve magic and are a little bit like magic themselves. To work, they require of readers a willingness to be fooled, to be gulled into a world of walking trees and talking lions. They affect us most powerfully as teenagers, but then most of us move on to sterner, staider stuff.
Lev Grossman's third novel is a homage to that early wonderment.
The main character, Quentin Coldwater, is a Brooklyn teenager obsessed with "Fillory and Further," a Narnia-like pentalogy. One day, after his alumni interview for Princeton is aborted, he's mysteriously conveyed to Brakebills College, which is kind of like the M.I.T. for magic.
Even though Quentin discovers that magic is eminently real and that he's got talent for it, he still pines for the imaginary land of Fillory.
Brakebills will remind readers of Hogwarts and Grossman has written what could crudely be labeled a Harry Potter for adults. He takes the rudiments of that story and injects mature themes.
"The Magicians" is a jarring attempt to go where those novels do not: into drugs, disappointment, anomie, the place and time when magic leaks out of your life.
Sounds like fun, but aren't we a little old for this?
Lev Grossman's third novel is a homage to that early wonderment.
The main character, Quentin Coldwater, is a Brooklyn teenager obsessed with "Fillory and Further," a Narnia-like pentalogy. One day, after his alumni interview for Princeton is aborted, he's mysteriously conveyed to Brakebills College, which is kind of like the M.I.T. for magic.
Even though Quentin discovers that magic is eminently real and that he's got talent for it, he still pines for the imaginary land of Fillory.
Brakebills will remind readers of Hogwarts and Grossman has written what could crudely be labeled a Harry Potter for adults. He takes the rudiments of that story and injects mature themes.
"The Magicians" is a jarring attempt to go where those novels do not: into drugs, disappointment, anomie, the place and time when magic leaks out of your life.
Sounds like fun, but aren't we a little old for this?
No magic available
Michael Agger
Fantasy novels involve magic and are a little bit like magic themselves. To work, they require of readers a willingness to be fooled, to be gulled into a world of walking trees and talking lions. They affect us most powerfully as teenagers, but then most of us move on to sterner, staider stuff.
Lev Grossman's third novel is a homage to that early wonderment.
The main character, Quentin Coldwater, is a Brooklyn teenager obsessed with "Fillory and Further," a Narnia-like pentalogy. One day, after his alumni interview for Princeton is aborted, he's mysteriously conveyed to Brakebills College, which is kind of like the M.I.T. for magic.
Even though Quentin discovers that magic is eminently real and that he's got talent for it, he still pines for the imaginary land of Fillory.
Brakebills will remind readers of Hogwarts and Grossman has written what could crudely be labeled a Harry Potter for adults. He takes the rudiments of that story and injects mature themes.
"The Magicians" is a jarring attempt to go where those novels do not: into drugs, disappointment, anomie, the place and time when magic leaks out of your life.
Sounds like fun, but aren't we a little old for this?
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