Warning: I have never taken a comparative literature course. This are merely my musings about a novel I very much enjoyed beyond the story. It's quite possible I have completely missed Grossman's point. It's also possible I'm full of shit and committing intellectual masturbation. Whatever - I was bored.
To deconstruct something, literally, means to take it apart. In a literary sense, to deconstruct something means to take apart the structure and expose the assumption that things have a fixed reference point beyond themselves. I am of the opinion that The Magicians is a deconstruction of the young adult fantasy novel (almost, I'll come back to this later). It strips down each of the components that represent the genre, exposes them, knocks them into unfamiliar shapes, and ultimately uses them to tell a narrative that's still familiar. If Magicians is the beginnings of a deconstruction, than Lev Grossman's sequel, The Magician King, is a reconstruction of that same paradigm.
To anyone who's read Grossman's first novel, everything will be familiar. Quentin is now a King of Fillory. Along with his old friends from Brakebills (Eliot and Janet), he is joined by Julia - one of his closest friends from his days as a normal person, or as normal as Quentin gets. It turns out ruling a magical kingdom gets rather boring and Quentin soon finds himself in search of a quest. He sets off on a benign sea journey to an island called Outer to check up on their unpaid taxes. Joined by Julia, the pair find themselves caught up in a larger war that sends them bouncing between worlds trying to save Fillory from destruction.
In many ways I think Magician King is the novel Magicians detractors wanted to read. It doesn't have near the level of nihilism or self-loathing that's so present in the first novel. Nor is it full of the boredom and minutia of learning magic at Brakesbills. What results is something far more akin to the standard fantasy novel - there's a quest, a wrench gets thrown into it, and then ultimately the quest is resolved. Characters undergo change and demonstrate growth concluding with some measure of closure for all of them. What survives from the first novel is Grossman's tremendous prose, clever integration of modern culture, and warm vulnerable characters.
A major departure structurally, half the novel is told from a point of view other than Quentin's. Julia's flashbacks detail her journey to becoming a magician on the "mean streets" and draw a juxtaposition to Quentin's rather posh education. Since anyone reading Magician King should have read the first installment, being able to see what became of Julia will be like remembering a dream thought forgotten. Her absence from the second half of Magicians was a glaring omission and Grossman's resurrection of the character works beautifully. Even outside the flashback chapters where she is viewed only through Quentin's point of view, Julia shines as a character emerging onto the stage as Alice and Eliot did in the first novel.
Julia's story arc is primarily where Grossman begins his reconstruction. The components of this narrative are in familiar shapes and move through a very linear process where she is identified, inducted, educated, and graduated from her learning phase only to move on and join a quest to save the world. Sure she's a lot more Draco Malfoy than Hermione Granger and her education is more on par with what Harry might have expected if Snape taught all his classes, but the fundamental plot movements are that of a coming of age tale - albeit of someone in her early 20s.
Contrasting that throughout are Quentin's points of view from the present where he continues to lack direction or the ability to properly produce serotonin. For a deconstruction to work (I'm coming back to it now), at least as I'm applying the term here, the disparate pieces that were exposed in Magicians have to ultimately come back together into a recognizable shape. Otherwise, what's the point? Through Julia and her growth as a character, Grossman pulls Quentin along by his bootstraps providing a completed arc that is recognizable as a young adult fantasy (again, there is an irony here given Quentin is closer to 25 than 15).
Now if that's all Magician King had going for it, it might be a successful bookend to Magicians, but it would be a pretty boring read. Beyond the main story arc Grossman delves into cultural mythology frequently paying homage to and poking a little fun at European legend. Many called Magicians Harry Potter for adults. The comparison is hardly accurate, but if it were then this part of Magician King might be American Gods for teenagers. Overlaying the themes of mythology and de/reconstructed YA fantasy, is the edge Grossman gives to everything he writes. Removing all of the novels undertones, Grossman still leaves his readers with an adventure romp that can be enjoyed purely on surface value alone.
Additionally, as I mentioned earlier, Grossman's deftly applies modern culture to alleviate what is an oftentimes dark tale. Sure he sometimes tries overly hard to cram in some hilarious references to an internet meme or incorporate a rap lyric such as "suckers walk, players ride." But for the most part these references provide laugh out loud moments.
In my review of Magicians I said I wasn't sure it demanded a sequel. I thought it stood on its own and adding to it would only weaken the original novel. I feel simultaneously vindicated and chastened. In many ways Magician King is a superior novel. It has a more complete plot and works better as a narrative. At the same time, it lacks some of the inherent charm that comes from tearing down and exposing long held conventions. I still believe Magicians stands on its own as a piece of fiction. That said, I also believe that Grossman's intended thought experiment isn't complete without the second verse. What to do?
The truth is, the sequel is just as good Magicians. For many it will be a more rewarding read and it would not surprise me if many who were turned off by the first novel will find a lot more to like in The Magician King. But to me it will never approach The Magicians because of its audacity to challenge its readers....more
Lev Grossman's The Magicians has engendered no small amount of vitriol since its release two years ago. I'm not sure there's been a more divisive bookLev Grossman's The Magicians has engendered no small amount of vitriol since its release two years ago. I'm not sure there's been a more divisive book released in recent memory. Most of the negative comments seem to hover around the the novel's bleakness and the notion that it's extremely derivative. Strangely enough, that's why I like it. Grossman has taken the young adult fantasy genre, poked it with a stick, and then told a darkly beautiful coming of age story within that framework.
Quentin Coldwater is a brilliant and depressed high school senior. He's secretly obsessed with a series of fantasy novels he read as a kid, about the adventures of five children in a magical land called Fillory. Compared to Fillory, everything else is listless. As it turns out, Quentin is one of the few born with a talent for magic and is chosen to become a student at a prestigious (just ask them!) magical university in upstate New York, where he receives a rigorous education in sorcery. He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: sex, alcohol, and boredom. But magic doesn't bring the happiness and adventure Quentin thought it would. Then he makes a stunning discovery: Fillory is real.
First of all, Fillory is Narnia. It's not even derivational - it just is. Quentin's college is a university level Hogwarts. Alice is Hermione (kinda). Eliot is a gay Ron (kinda). There are references to almost every young adult fantasy novel of any repute. Many of Grossman's critics have called this derivative. I call it intentionally subversive. He doesn't twist the genre tropes so much as he uses them didactically. The result is that there's nothing remotely young adult about this novel. Yes, he uses a young adult frame work, but the thematic underpinnings are adult.
So adult that most of Magicians is disturbingly depressing. There's very little happiness for any of Grossman's characters. It's raw and real in a way that is so divorced from traditional fantasy. Even Quentin's study of magic is benign. In that way, I get why people pushed back on it. To someone looking for a more adult Harry Potter (as the book was often advertised) there is going to be some intense dissatisfaction. Unlike Harry Potter, where magic and "fantasy" are the point, Magicians uses these things as a thematic device to deliver a message - life is hard, even when it should be easy.
Quentin is nearly a nihilist. He is a vortex of woe-is-me at a school full of tortured teenagers who until they became magicians were socially awkward and painfully excluded. What Grossman is trying to do it well summed up by Quentin's professor. He said:
"Most people carry that pain around inside them their whole lives, until they kill the pain by others means, or until it kills them. But you, my friends, you found another way: a way to use the pain. To burn it as fuel, for light and warmth. You have learned to break the world that has tried to break you."
Quentin, carrying this pain around is looking for an escape. Go to any fantasy message board right now and ask, "Why do you read fantasy?" The common answer is - escapism. That's what fantasy is all about (or at least, was about). Quentin wants to be able to turn the page and go away. He keeps chasing a carrot for what will make him happy instead of recognizing what makes him unhappy. When magic isn't enough, he tries love and then ultimately he pins all his hopes on Fillory - a magical land imagined in his youth. Want to guess how that works out? I guess I'm saying Quentin is a metaphor for fantasy readers. He wants to escape so he throws himself into one new adventure after another. Instead of escaping he just ends up ignoring everything around him. Hmm, now I feel kind of insulted?
That's not to say that the novel doesn't have some "bright" spots. Most of these are moments of comedy when one character or another uses some cultural reference to great effect. As a fan of a few on-line shooting games in my youth, I couldn't help but blow milk out of my nose when I read:
"Or we're in some kind of really high-tech multiplayer video game." He snapped his fingers. "So that's why Eliot's always humping my corpse."
These moments are fairly frequent, especially later in the novel once Quentin and his "party" go on a dungeon crawl reminiscent (again, intentionally) of a misguided D&D session with a power tripping dungeon master.
And that's the rub, isn't it? The novel is knows it's borrowing, bastardizing, and in some cases copying what's come before in an effort to parody it. This clearly puts off readers that aren't invested enough in the genre to enjoy what Grossman is doing or are looking for the notion of escapism he's lampooning.
Despite all of the games Grossman is playing, the heart of the story is the coming of age tale and a tragic love story. If he removed all the fantasy elements, the novel still has a fairly compelling story - albeit not remotely something the typical fantasy reader would be interested in. If I had to classify all the fantasy novels ever written into "beginners, intermediate, and advanced" categories. The Magicians would be decidedly placed in the latter. Not because it's a difficult novel. Grossman writes an eminently readable book. But it's a novel written to and about fantasy readers , but not necessarily for them.
Despite my enjoyment of The Magicians I'm a little concerned about his sequel due out next month. This novel stands on its own, but it only stands up because of the thematic game Grossman played. To use the same trick of subverting the genre would leave me feeling cold. Still, I enjoyed the first novel so much that I can't help but look forward to the second. Color me cautiously optimistic....more
You open up the packaging from Doubleday Books. There's a certain anticipation that you expect as the novel within is revealed and this one doesn't disappoint. A black and white starburst, alternating between matte and glossy, surrounds the title which is lettered in a fire engine red. The pop of color amidst the contrasting blacks and whites entices you in a visceral way. Your eyes run down it as your fingers trace the edges to the inscription at the bottom.
It reads:
The Advanced Reader's Edition Entitles the Holder to Unlimited Admission
Not for Sale Violators Will Be Exsanguinated
You quirk an eyebrow, wondering if any reading experience could be so rewarding as to warrant the desire for "Unlimited Admission". Your fingers slide down the right edge feeling the separation between the cover and the coarse pages beneath. The cover lifts and you pause the image of your body paling as the blood drains from it. You shiver and assure yourself you have no intention of selling the book. Shrugging it off you open the book and begin the journey knowing only that you have no idea where it will take you.
I wrote the above as a bit of an homage to Erin Morgenstern's beautiful asides that begin and end her novel, The Night Circus. Written entirely in second person these asides (also interspersed throughout the novel) take you right into the circus - experiencing the sights, sounds, smells, and wonder that accompanies a visit to each tent. In that way the novel is both a narrative and an exhibition. No matter how the novel is classified it is a spectacular work of fantasy that transcends genre, age, and gender. I did not want it to end, but at the same time knew that it must. Sound a bit like a kid at the circus don't I?
The core of Night Circus is a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco. Trained from childhood for this battle by their father and instructor respectively. The circus, or
Le Cirque des Rêves,
is the stage where they will display the talents they possess in an exhibition that will ring throughout the world. But it is also a love story, and Celia and Marco despite their misgivings possess a deep, magical love that literally makes the world shake at a touch. Bound by magic the game cannot be stopped. True love or not the fate of the circus, and the thousands who adore it, hangs in the balance.
Written from three perspectives in time, Morgenstern's novel oftentimes reads as a series of set pieces designed to dazzle the reader more than a continual narrative. The aforementioned asides, the "present" that constitutes the meat of the plot, and the near "future" that features a young circus lover, are interwoven throughout differentiated only by a date printed in each chapter header. If I have one complaint about the novel it is that these titles were subtly printed belying their importance. Bringing these three lines together in the final pages cements Night Circus as more than a vehicle for lush prose and gorgeous imagery unveiling it as the fairy tale it is meant to be.
On the subject of prose Morgenstern made an interesting choice to write the novel from the present tense. This choice, a brilliant one I might add, made me feel as though I was the narrator. Night Circus is not a story related by some unknown omniscient entity rather I was a voyeur observing just off "screen". Interestingly two characters in the novel also fit into this category. While they do on occasion actively grace the pages, Hector (Celia's father) and Alexander (Marco's instructor) are functional voyeurs to the story as they watch their proteges battle in amusement. I have no idea if there's a literary device at play here, but I found the comparison interesting. Is Morgenstern hinting that maybe the "narrator" is an unseen magician watching all that goes on?
I think I want to stop here. If I keep writing I'm going to give away parts of the novel that shouldn't be spoiled for anyone. When a novel receives the kind of hype Night Circus has it's always difficult to live up to. I think it's unfortunate that some have billed it as a young adult novel trying to cash in on fans of Harry Potter and Twilight. I suspect those comparisons have largely come from the fact that Summit (producer of the Harry Potter and Twilight film franchises) has already purchased the film rights. In reality the novel is far more in the mold of something from John Crowley, or Cathrynne Valente, or maybe Téa Obreht (who I've not read, but blurbs the book). It is lyrical and atmospheric and not remotely young adult in any way I understand the classification.
Yet it is also a novel for everyone - young and old. Readers of genre fiction, mainstream fiction, or even those who read infrequently will find themselves sucked into The Night Circus. I seriously hope that come this time next year we're talking about how Erin Morgenstern won a major literary award or was robbed by weird voting and nominating practices. Go read this. Right now... well, tomorrow when it comes out. ...more
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