I'm just going to come right out and say what many of us have been thinking since "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" (2011) came out this summer: As the camera zoomed out to show one final panorama of Hogwarts, a gaping void opened in my life. It's not that I haven't read other enjoyable books since, but there's just something about a really good fantasy story — particularly a fantasy story that adults can't be mocked (too much) for reading.
The Harry Potter generation has a problem, and Lev Grossman has a solution. Two years ago, he published "The Magicians" (2009), a novel that follows Quentin Coldwater, a half-likeable 17-year-old math geek obsessed with magic tricks and a Narnia-esque children's book series. Though the story opens with Quentin en route to an interview with Columbia University, he instead gains admission into the far more elite Breakbills Academy, a secret school of magic. Readers, rejoice! What we have here is a boy-wizard story for grown-ups.
"The Magician King" is the sequel to Grossman's 2009 bestseller, and it picks up in the magical land of Fillory, the setting for Quentin's beloved kiddie books. It turns out that, to Quentin's initial delight, Fillory is real, and he and his fellow magician friends now rule the kingdom from a picturesque castle.
The royal life, however, turns out to be not as much fun as Quentin expected, so he and his friend Julia embark on an adventure, seeking a legendary key that, supposedly, winds up the universe. (Grossman, a TIME magazine book critic, offers perfect fodder for puns by including rampant clock imagery throughout this series.) In actuality, the key opens up a portal in midair — a portal that dumps Quentin and Julia in the decidedly un-magical suburbs of Chesterton, Mass. There, the real journey begins: Quentin and Julia's quest back to Fillory.
Though magic is certainly one of the components that makes "The Magician King" and its predecessor so much fun to read, Grossman's real triumph lies in the complexity of his characters. His anything-but-vanilla protagonists are more anti-heroic than not, and their nobility tends to shine through only in the moments that really count. Quentin can be selfish, callous and juvenile; Julia can be power-hungry, vacant and calculating. One character, Eliot, has a deformed jaw, alcoholic tendencies and a rarely discussed need to be sexually dominated. Oh, yeah, there's sex in this book — casual sex, at that.
As a result, they're interesting — sometimes even more so than Harry, Hermione and Ron. After all, when is that famous trio ever seriously in the wrong? Sure, their hatred for Snape is misplaced, Ron runs away for a few weeks, blah, blah, blah. When have they really succumbed to hubris and felt its consequences? In J.K. Rowling's world, Voldemort is the only character with those repugnant qualities, which suggests an extremely definitive line between good and evil. Grossman's characters traverse a blurrier divide, and they are more realistic for their moral ambiguity.
In a way, it's unfortunate that Grossman's novels must be examined alongside the Harry Potter series, but that necessity seems intentional on the author's part. Both "The Magicians" and "The Magician King" refer directly to Harry Potter, as well as the fictional Fillory books, which are reflections of C.S. Lewis' "The Chronicles of Narnia" series from the 1950s. Julia studies the origin of magic, which entails deep readings of ancient mythologies.
In a way, "The Magician King" serves as a commentary on adventure reading itself, and the way adventure novels cause young readers to form unrealistic assumptions about heroism and nobility. Though Quentin and Julia are in their early twenties, this novel is a coming of age story that highlights the very real sacrifices both make in pursuit of childish dreams.
Of course, that means the book is occasionally depressing. Fortunately, Grossman's razor-sharp wit will help you whistle in the dark. There's some serious snark in these pages, ranging from snobby banter between Quentin and his elitist Breakbills friends to some legitimately risque situations.
The humor is as down-to-earth as the characters are, and it will satisfy the part of you that rudely wished Ron and Hermione might do more than snog, or that Harry would drop the f-bomb just once in his final chat with Voldemort.
Time will tell if Grossman's series will become anything near a worldwide phenomenon, but his books are certainly worth a read for fans of magic, adventure and whip-smart wisecracks.
