The Magicians by Lev Grossman

I must say that the book blurb on the jacket of this book is misleading, in a way. It let me to believe that this was a book about students at a magical school who graduate and live in Manhattan, and happen upon an adventure. While all of those things did happen, it was not what I expected.

The Magicians starts out with Quentin, the main character, being bored and unhappy with his life. He then finds out he is a magician and is admitted into an exclusive magic school. From there, the book drags on and on through four years of school, with nothing very interesting happening. Quentin then moves to Manhattan with his friends, where they basically drink all day every day, getting nothing accomplished. It isn’t until one of their classmates comes to them with a magic button that the story gets interesting.

While I was excited for the book to finally be moving along, it had too much of a Chronicles of Narnia feel. The friends find a magic button that transports them to an in-between land of pools, which, if one jumps in, transport you to any number of worlds. This is exactly like The Magician’s Nephew. The world the group is trying to reach is Fillory, which is the basis for a series of books they all read as children. Even this series resembles Chronicles of Narnia. Siblings (the Chatwins) are playing in their uncle’s house, where they were sent to escape World War II, when the oldest comes across a new world that he found through the back of a grandfather clock. They all have wonderful adventures in this new world, Fillory, but are always sent back to Earth at the end. That is, until the oldest finds a way to stay. His siblings search for him, but never find him and are forced to leave him in Fillory. That’s the only part of this that doesn’t resemble Narnia.

Once Quentin and his friends arrive in Fillory (or faux-Narnia as I started calling it), they follow a walking tree to an inn where they are given their quest. They are told to find the crown of Martin Chatwin, the oldest sibling from the stories, so that they can rule Fillory as kings and queens. They set out on their merry way with two guides, and reach their destination (some sort of cave) within two pages. From there, they fight their way to the bottom level of the cave, where the crown is hidden. This takes maybe five pages. Once they get to the crown, they find that Martin Chatwin is still alive, but he is no longer human. Fillory has turned him into a monster. Quentin and his friends fight Martin, but one of them dies in the battle, and Quentin is almost killed. Many months later, when Quentin is healed and back on Earth, his friends find him again and announce that they are going back to Fillory to rule. Of course, Quentin goes with them. That’s where the story ends.

I was displeased with this book in general. It was split into five sections, with the first four the longest, and incredibly boring. The fifth section was the events in Fillory, and therefore the most interesting. It was also the shortest section. I feel like Grossman spent too much time building up the characters and relationships before getting into anything interesting. Once things did get interesting, it moved too fast and was too short. I hoped that most of the book would be the events of Fillory, which could have been more drawn out and detailed.

It was only after I finished reading The Magicians that I found out it is the prequel to a series. The other two books, The Magician King and The Magician’s Land, might not grace my bookshelf. While well written, this book was not engaging enough for me. There were many times where I almost stopped reading, but I pushed myself to finish, as I don’t like leaving things unfinished. There was too much cursing, drinking, and amoral behavior throughout this book. If you do not enjoy those types of things, then The Magicians is not for you.


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