The Magician King by Lev Grossman

Hey all,

so it's official this is the first sequel reviewed on the Cyber Book Club. What can I say about the Magician King, well once again we're back in Quintin's shoes. This time he's the king of Fillory and decides to go on a quest, which grows into a quest to restore the world's magic.

But let me just stop there because as I was discussing this book to my friend tonight, this book has all the trappings of a Narnia story or dare I say a childish quest tale. The characters move from one location to the next, but Grossman is a man who writes fantasy but one who isn't really interested in exploring the glitz and glamour of it. No Grossman very brutally exposes the grime and that there are no "true fairy" stories. Time and time again in the Magicians Quintin was reminded that magic would not magically solve his own inner issues, so too in the Magician King do we see a similiar arc happening with the character Julia.

Only let me be honest, it is perhaps one of the most depressing stories I have read. The bits with Quintin are a bit lighter, but the Julia sections are dark and bleak. This is literally a person who cannot and will not fit in and as his characters often do, well his Main one's at least Julia like Quintin in the Magicians finds ways to make herself miserable and she will not give up her quest to be a magician, which turns to an obsession. She unlike QUintin did not make it in through official channels. So she truly had to struggle for magic and gave up literally everything else and as for the climax of Julia's story...I'll just say it's pretty horrific what happens.

Now Quintin. It's interesting to see how far Quintin has come. He's no longer the whiney person he was in book one. He still seems dis-satisfied, but by the end of this novel I think he has come to a place where he doesn't believe in the conceit of the fairy story. And honestly I think this is the whole point perhaps Fillory is just a metaphor sometimes the things that happen appear so random and revolve so closely around Quintin (we're talking cosmic events here) it makes it feel as though Fillory is his world. His quest is yet another reflection of his failures as a person that he is constantly seeking that thrill, seeking in a way to escape from reality.

There are a few moments. Nice moments actually where Quintin reflects that he may not have given the real world  enough credit. It's hard to describe the Magician King in terms of plot, because for me the plot isn't very meaningful sure, alot of cool things happen. But alot of the things that happen seem very random and coincidental and so to me what Grossman here has achieved is to create a very powerful exploration of two psychologically disturbed characters and wrapped it up in the trappings of a fantasy quest story. The thing that always intrigues me about Grossman's style is his characters and his world pokes fun at itself and is very aware of how much it is ripping off of other authors.

In a way The Magician King deals a lot with the theme of what is real, but on a deeper level it might be seen as a criticism of stories like Narnia, because even though this has all the trappings of Narnia. Instead of that blinding conviction in the reality of the world you get from CS Lewis. In Grossman's writing as in the narrative voice of Quintin there is nothing but disdain and cynicism that Fillory is in fact a real place and that the fact he needs to find seven magical keys does in fact make any sense whatsoever.

I really enjoyed The Magician King. It seems quite a simple world on the surface, but as I perhaps elaborated in the Magicians review there is something Grossman does that is so dark, twisted and above all really tugs at your heart strings. God does he pull at those emotions. I highly recommend The Magician King and I'm hoping that...sooner rather than later there will be another Magician book of his, because as miserable as Quintin is I have to admit I kinda like the guy.

Anyway happy reading everyone! Next time I'll be looking at a very different but also very emotional novel "The Speed of Dark" By Elizabeth Moon and I'm really loving it.