Book Log #38: The Magicians, by Lev Grossman

[annathepiper]

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

With all of the fuss I’ve seen made over Lev Grossman’s The Magicians, I feel like I rather missed something–because I outright loathed this book. And it takes a lot to make me loathe a book.

First of all, I kept seeing it get pitched over and over as “Harry Potter for grownups”, which came across to me as completely ignoring the fact that grownups all over the world have been cheerfully reading Harry Potter right alongside the children that are its primary target audience. Part and parcel with this was the corollary that The Magicians is a more grownup, nuanced, mature world, presumably because it’s darker or grittier or something, since the last couple of Harry Potters were of course all sunlight and rainbows and ponies. (Except, oh, wait a minute, no they weren’t.) I take issue in general with the idea that a book “for grownups” by definition has to be darker or grittier. Some grownups like to read stuff that isn’t unremittingly grim, and I happen to be one of them.

Second, if I’m going to have a book try to make a point to me about how very much it’s Not Being Harry Potter, you know what the last thing is that that book ought to be doing in order to keep me engaged as a reader? Reference Harry Potter repeatedly within the actual narrative, to drive home points like how our protagonists can’t just fix their teeth like Hermione Granger to make everything better. This happened at least twice that I can remember off the top of my head, and all it did for me was make the book come across as if it were jumping up and down yelling in my face, “HEY! I’M NOT BEING HARRY POTTER! LOOK HOW MUCH I’M NOT BEING HARRY POTTER! YOU KNOW WHY I’M NOT HARRY POTTER? BECAUSE LOOK HOW THE HARRY POTTER BOOKS ACTUALLY EXIST IN THIS UNIVERSE AND HOW I AM CLEVERLY REFERENCING THEM!”

And yes, the all-caps are pretty much how I felt about it, because it felt like the book was trying to drive that point home with a railroad spike into my skull, and pounding on it with a sledgehammer.

But third and most importantly, the main problem I had with this book was that I wanted to climb into its pages and punch each and every single person in the cast. All of them. I found absolutely no one in this story engaging, and I don’t care how realistic Grossman’s scenario of “in the real world, a school of magic would just generate a bunch of self-absorbed pricks with magical powers” might actually be. You know what you get in this scenario? You get a bunch of self-absorbed pricks, and the fact that they have magical powers does not in any way, shape, or form lessen their massive self-absorbed prickery.

And I don’t want to read about people like that. Especially our so-called hero Quentin, who spent the entire book being an emo little whiner and who showed no redeeming characteristics whatsoever. If he’d gained even a shred of nobility by the end, I might have thought differently about this book, but no.

To be fair, the first chunk of the story when our protagonists were going through all of their classes–despite the heavyhanded LOOK HOW MUCH I’M NOT BEING HARRY POTTER! screaming the book kept doing–was interesting. But once they graduated and we got into the sequence full of nothing but relationship angst, my urge to punch the lot of them rose dramatically. And by the time we got the big reveal of Fillory’s reality (which I can safely mention since that’s not a spoiler), I was so thoroughly disenchanted with these people that all that kept me reading to the end was a wisp of an acknowledgement that the author did have a compelling enough command of the language to keep my attention.

It’s just that no matter how well Grossman wrote, he was writing about thoroughly reprehensible characters in a setting that was unremittingly bleak. And I don’t need that in my life. The real world is bleak enough without subjecting myself to it in my reading. One star.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

Comments

[mojave-wolf.livejournal.com]

I didn't hate this book, I have to admit on the whole I kinda liked it, but I for damn sure understood your desire to punch out Quentin (among many other characters). I wanted to do this very, very often.

The characters were totally the weak point. Tho the "Less Than Zero" comparison on the jacket sort of prepared me. One of the best first lines of a book ever, but it I loathed as much as you loathed this one. I did like Alice, tho. And, um, wtf was her name? Janet? Other than one or two moments where I was also ticked off, kinda liked her.

I was really strongly ambivalent about this one.

Oh, speaking of bleak settings but not such bleak psyches, I'm only recommending Santa Olivia to you (even tho I loved it beyond love, not sure if post-apocalyptic desert noir is your thing) because of its sequel, which I'm not done with yet. But based on what you've said about other books, I think Saints Astray might really be to your taste. Plus, I think you mentioned an interest in lesbian romances? The two leads are adorable, and the setting and plot are much cheerier and its overall lighter in tone than Santa Olivia. Or maybe skip straight to the sequel, I dunno.

Hey, you clearly have a shortage of books to read; just trying to help out.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Hey, you don't know me, but I also have an interest in lesbian romance; thanks for pointing me at these. If you (or anyone) find any other good ones, I'd be delighted if you'd consider popping into my journal and mentioning them.

[mojave-wolf.livejournal.com]

Saints Astray is the only one that fits that moniker (and I don't read things categorized "romance fiction" at all, so it may only fit it in my head, but I will pop over and describe these a little more.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I tend to like things that are not classified as romance but have a romantic subthread, going on at the same time as the main storyline that's about something else.

[mojave-wolf.livejournal.com]

Okay. I can say almost unequivocally these will both be for you. Tho the romantic subthread doesn't start till more than halfway thru Santa Olivia, it's a strong component throughout the sequel.

[annathepiper]

If Alice was the Hermione-analog character (I'm not remembering specifically), then yeah, she was almost tolerable--except in the parts involving the teeth-grindingly annoying relationship drama. And let's not even get into my hatred for Grossman killing off the only almost tolerable character in the group!

So noted re: Santa Olivia. And yes, I'm interested in F/F stories in general. They don't have to be outright romances; in fact, I tend to prefer stories that are primarily some other genre, with the romance on the side. But I've been aware of Carey for a while, though I have yet to read her work. I'll put this on the library list. Thanks!

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

*laughs* for a whole lot of reasons, i heart this review. thank you.

fwiw, i did enjoy austin grossman's "soon i will be invincible" which is about supervillians.

i admit i have been known to refer to the werewolf novel as "harry potter in grad school at mit", except that frankly harry potter wouldn't get in, nor would any of grossman's chararacters. hermione perhaps :)

[annathepiper]

You're very welcome!

And hee, Soon I Will Be Invincible is a great title, and hey, I don't have enough superhero fiction in my life! I'll check it out! Also, supervillains, if done correctly? Automatically awesome!

I remember the werewolf book being "Harry Potter goes to grad school" for you, yeah! And you're right, your school's way, way over the Lev Grossman characters' AND the Harry Potter crowd's heads. Except for Hermione. ;D

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

hee! thanks again :)

i think that "soon i will be..." is just pretty awesome. consider it a rec, & i'm curious what you think. (if you like i will mail you my copy as a loan?)

i only hope the werewolf novel doesn't go over readers' heads...! :)

[annathepiper]

You're most welcome!

And no need to loan me a copy, the book's available for library checkout, so I can scarf a read that way. Living uphill from a library, in a city where the libraries are full of SF/F, is a definite win. :)

[batyatoon]

Ugh. If there's one thing that will make me despise a story, it's not being able to root for anyone in it.

[annathepiper]

Yeah. I will grant that Grossman's writing was compelling, but if a good writer chooses to tell me a story about people I want to punch, that's still not going to engage me at all. I kept hoping at least one of the characters would show a character development arc, but in vain!

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

One of my biggest complaints against a lot of books people tell me are terrific is that I don't like any of the main characters as human beings. It's nice to know I'm not alone in that!

[annathepiper]

Not alone at all. I was discussing this with solarbird, who does not share this particular reading taste, but I pointed out to her that if a character is otherwise suitably compelling, even if I don't actually necessarily like them, I'll still want to read their story.

mizkit accomplished this with The Queen's Bastard, wherein I was not at all sure I liked her protagonist. But the story was compelling enough anyway, and the character was still very effective, so I still very much enjoyed the story. In that case though, the character in question still had a few likeable characteristics. In the case of The Magicians, I couldn't find much at all to like about most of the characters, and even the one character I halfway sympathized with lost all of that sympathy during the parts of the book that were nothing but relationship drama. None of these characters were sufficiently awesome to make up for being severely unlikeable.

(For another example of characters who are all repellent human beings yet in an awesome and compelling story, Dara brought up the movie The Lion in Winter, with Katherine Hepburn, and she's absolutely right!)

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

I see her point about The Lion In Winter, although there, I felt that the relationship between Henry and Eleanor was likeable enough in itself that I could have a rooting interest in it, independent of any of the individual characters (including those who comprised it). And I did like Eleanor in some ways, and Henry in some ways, even though in others they were both obnoxious as all get-out.

Sometimes, I can root for something gratifyingly unpleasant to happen to someone I dislike, and that can make a book or performance interesting for me. When my former husband, who knew me well, was trying to get me to read Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan books, I refused because, while I was actually quite interested in some of the side characters, from the bits and pieces I'd picked up from friends who'd read the series, I absolutely loathed Miles. When I explained this to him, he promptly picked out Mirror Dance and Memory, and told me, "Here. You'll like these. He spends most of the first one dead and the second being hoist by his own petard."

[annathepiper]

Yeah, the relationship between Henry and Eleanor in The Lion in Winter is I think an example of what I mean when I say that if there's something suitably awesome about a story, that will go a long way to make up for the individual characters being generally unlikeable. :)

And hee, I still haven't read any of the Vorkosigans myself.

[magnet5.livejournal.com]

I think we're on the same page. I really liked the magic school and I liked the feel of magic--weird, illogical, strange. But yeah, the post-college drifting, I couldn't give a damn about any of them (even enough to hate them).
The tossed off line that "my brother turned into an evil magician because he was sexually abused" did make me want to slap some sense into Grossman. It's a cheap cop-out rather than characterization and it's a very cliched cop-out.

[annathepiper]

I daresay that in a weird way, given that I did actually muster enough giveadamn to want to actively punch all these characters, this means Grossman was effective on the level of "getting an emotional reaction out of me". I am not however certain whether "wanting to actively punch all his characters" was his writerly intention!

And oh god yes I was avoiding even going into the whole sexual-abuse-as-cause-of-villainy thing, but you're absolutely right. It's very, very cliched.