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| The Magicians House by Oliver Wallice |
To say the least the Magicians is a delightful tale of a young wizard and his journey through Wizarding School, Brakebill, and beyond. As we follow our main character, Quentin, he undergoes a form of transformation of character which he blazes down with full force. The time span is roughly 4 years but in that time he goes from being an awkward third wheel, nobody to essentially a weathered king in another dimensional universe… wait what? I wish I was making this up. Even though it is a tad of a stretch I frankly willing to overlook it considering half of this journey is spent in an alcoholic daze which I wish I could say I couldn’t relate to.
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| Pretty much every night |
I was enthralled by the pure amount of events that happen in the story as well. We start off rather slow through his wizarding school years, mostly experiencing drugs, learning wizarding hoopla and cultivating a long life of alcohol addiction. Then the pace immediately slaps us in the face when the kids are turned into geese and forced to migrate miles to a secret society training grounds where they promptly have kinky fox sex and shove demons into their spines. Yaaay
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| Are you trying to seduce me? - Isabella Rossellini |
There was an interesting take on the philosophy of magic as well. A lot of them were almost depressed to have it. Magic was definitely not this wonderful, mystifying feat of nature but rather a skill set you found within yourself whether it be for the better or not. Magic also seemed to be the secret ingredient for a lot of characters changing’s. The obvious ones would be the main party such as Quentin and Alice but even characters such as Julia. Julia, a high school crush which failed the entrance exams to Brakebill, went mad after just a taste of it and made another changer her appearance for love which ultimately brought grave bearings on her life and others.
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| Magic works something like this |
Addiction plays a giant role in this novel as well. Whether or not it’s directly attached to magic or not (usually is) the kids go through bouts of constant party and liquor the second year in. The drains run yellow with vomit as the kids live out their years through Brakebill. Sex also is a huge element as well. The only monogamous couple seems to be between Alice and Quentin which doesn’t last long before he drunkenly cheats on her and she returns the favor. Not saying having a bout of fun here and there is bad but it gets to the point of polygamy on steroids. Another serious addiction seems to be in Quentin’s need for the once thought fictional Fillory. He is always wishing he was at Fillory and is very dissatisfied until he goes there. Even then he spends a very long time in the aftermath of the civil war trying to get out of Fillory from being stranded by his friends due to him being in a coma for so long only to skip and hop with his friends right back into it at the very end of the book… reminiscent of a recovering addiction anyone?
There is a whale-ton of references in this book! Most of them are even directly spoken about and made fun of. It starts out almost exactly like Harry Potter with the exams being the sorting hat and him entering the school (Hogwarts) through a secret maze (the train station) which normal people who aren’t supposed to know where Brakebill can’t enter or find Brakebill (Hogwarts. Hogwarts. Hogwarts.) Then the wizarding chess game seems copy and paste from Harry Potter as well but Grossman admits this and carries on with the novel. It then switches gears to Chronicles of Narnia as Fillory becomes Narnia for Quentin and the troop and even the Fillory and Furthur series within the book are loosely following the Chronicles of Narnia. Oh and let’s not forget her last minute nod to Tolkien’s Middle Earth in the end.
Essentially this book is one giant magic satire rip on other novels who write about magic with a down and dirty real feeling to their adventures while under toning magic as this self-destruction element given to these young adventurers. One for the shelf indeed
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