Go on a book bender with The Magicians!

I recently tore through Lev Grossman's The Magicians, a clever book that is very hard to put down. It's both of the fantasy genre and about it. The main characters are students at a school for wizards and they all grew up reading books about a magical place that sounds an awful lot like Narnia. Many reviewers have dismissed The Magicians as derivative, but those people are totally missing that that is exactly the point. Grossman borrows from fantasy favorites like the Harry Potter and Narnia series in order to make some very sharp observations about how we relate to fantasy, how we seem to need the escapism it provides, and how it is ultimately unfulfilling. He literalizes the metaphor by imagining how real people would behave if magic existed. It turns out that the ability to do magic isn't a cure for ennui or loneliness. In other words, it doesn't fill the hole.

Essentially, The Magicians is a coming-of-age story, but it's a lot more realistic than your typical young adult novel because it actually acknowledges feelings of emptiness. Many have suggested that this isn't an appropriate book for young adults because of all the sex and drugs, but I think they're afraid of something deeper. It explores the anomie that often accompanies our loss of manufactured innocence. Children's fantasy books are part of that contrived innocence, but Grossman doesn't blame them. He's not angry at them. He elaborates in an excellent interview with the A.V. Club:

[I]t was of the utmost concern to me that I not pathologize escapism as some neurotic strategy. It’s much more than that. Escapism has value, even if I don’t know what its value is, exactly. Maybe it’s just part of some healthy way that we deal with the world. I didn’t want this book to say, Set aside your childish fantasy world and live in the real world, because the real world has its own magic. The real world is horrible. And horribly, we need them both.

The Magicians is about the heartbreak of realizing that you've been lied to. Good and evil are all mixed up. Life is inherently without purpose. So now what? It's pretty damn depressing.

But it's also funny. The characters often make self-deprecating jokes at the genre's expense. Grossman explains in the A.V. Club interview, I didn’t want to seem like I was making fun of Harry Potter. I love Harry Potter. I just felt that my characters would make fun of Harry Potter. You have to actually like fantasy to appreciate the jokes because they come from a fan's perspective. Plus, Grossman's a strong writer who doesn't psychoanalyze his characters the way lesser writers do. He allows you to figure out the characters based on their behavior and interactions. He doesn't spoon-feed you.

I highly recommend The Magicians. And always remember: the real world is horrible, kids!!!