more on The Magicians

[bedlamsbard]

I am still putting my thoughts together before I start writing up a review post for The Magicians -- and while I don't usually review books, this one I really have to because it hits close to home -- I do have to say that the rage cherry on top of the insult sundae is this bit from Jane Chatwin at the end:

"Try not to judge Martin too harshly," she said from the doorway. "Plover used to diddle him whenever he could get him alone. I think that's why he went to Fillory in the first place. Why else would he try to crawl into a grandfather clock? He was looking for somewhere to hide."

Christover Plover is, of course, the author of the Fillory books, the C.S. Lewis and (as an afterthought, since Fillory seems like a mashup of Narnia and Wonderland, but I haven't actually read Through the Looking Glass) Lewis Carroll equivalent. I am so embarrassed on C.S. Lewis's behalf, especially because it's completely unnecessary for the plot. Dear Clive, I am so sorry. I thought my work would make you roll over in your grave.

Note to self: Post from last year on an interview with Grossman. *rereads* Oh, gods, I didn't know he was writing a sequel. THAT IS REALLY NOT NECESSARY.

Comments

[alyndra]

Okay, that sounds pretty horrible. Reminds me a little of trying to read Wicked, perhaps, three whole times (I wanted to like it!) but I just couldn't deal with the ... muck he was slopping all over Oz. I don't know why fanfiction is different but it just is! For all that it can be fucked-up and filthy and destroy your innocence, at least it's done with love! If that even makes sense, IDK.

I don't know if it would help at all but I wrote a little fic about Lucy being scary with knives, which was totally inspired by your stuff. And probably a little too removed from canon, but oh well. http://alyndra.dreamwidth.org/14476.html If you want to read it, though I remember you saying somewhere you don't read Narnia fic anymore so you don't have to. ;)

[bedlamsbard]

Huh. Yeah, I read Wicked last year and had problems with it as well.

Yeah, I think that's one of the major differences between The Magicians and the Narnia fanfic that tries to unpack some of the baggage that Lewis has laid in there. Because I really didn't get the feeling at all that Grossman actually enjoyed Narnia (and it's clearly a Narnia allegory; I'd know that even if I hadn't read his interviews; it's about a family of British schoolchildren that keep being mysteriously drawn to another world by a pair of twin rams who are really gods), it was as if he was stomping all over it, painfully. At least the fans love and enjoy the source material, whether we're coming at it from the movies or the books. *sighs*

I do want people to read the book, because I'd like to discuss it with people who are familiar with HP, Narnia, and this book.

[alyndra]

Well, I'll read your review but I can't promise to read the book even though I fit the other qualifications.

Did you ever read Guy Gavriel Kay's one trilogy that was a Tolkien knockoff? That one didn't leave quite such a bad taste in my mouth but I still didn't think much of it, especially once I got further into the series. I'm starting to wonder about this weird effect; I apparently can read fanfic all day unless it's published. Does that have more to do with my brain, or the kinds of things it's considered suitable to publish, or the kinds of things professional authors feel obliged to write?

[bedlamsbard]

The Fionavar Tapestry? I've heard of it, but I haven't got round to reading it yet because I don't trust myself to buy it because I might hate it, and my town library doesn't have it. My university library does, though, so I'm planning on checking it out when I get back to New Orleans.

I don't think it's just you, I think it is some combination of what pro authors write and what's suitable to publish. *muses* I think this came up recently in the last go-round about the definition of fanfiction, but only briefly. Wicked was a direct engagement with Baum's text, The Magicians a direct engagement with Lewis's -- I can't really think of anything else in the fantasy/sci-fi genre, though I know there are quite a few published works that deal with Gone With the Wind and Jane Austen and so on. Hmm.

[metonomia]

Hm. I followed the link thread and just finished reading the excerpt of the book that the NPR article had...it reads a lot like The Mysterious Benedict Society, to me - maybe it's just that specific scene, with a mysterious test being taken by a mysterious bunch of kids with different types of genius, and the people who make it through aren't the ones you think might (except they are, because that's the trope, of course).

I sort of want to go read this book now? Your posts on it are making me wary of it, but it is intriguing at the very least. *plots library run*

[bedlamsbard]

The first half of the book isn't too bad; it's...well, it's been compared to Harry Potter quite a lot, so it's basically a school story. There's a really cool scene near the beginning, as part of the exam sequence, that I'm quite fond of. It's only after they leave the school that things get really weird, and then they start referencing Narnia in earnest and I see red.

I want people to read it! Mostly because I really, really want to talk about it with people who are familiar with Narnia, HP, and The Magicians.

(Also, the privilege, oh my god, it kind of pains me and I don't usually notice that sort of thing.)

[metonomia]

From that excerpt at least the writing itself looks pretty good, so I think I will give it a try. I'm prepared to be a bit weirded out, maybe. I love HP, and I love Narnia, but the two have never really come at all together for me apart of course from the fact that they're both fantasy series, so this should be interesting, I think.

Library tomorrow, definitely.

[bedlamsbard]

Yeah, it's not necessarily a bad book -- the writing is very good -- but it's very aware of the weight of the other stories that have come before it? Like, I'm intimately familiar with both HP and Narnia, so I can't read the book without thinking of those two. HP less than Narnia, but I'm more emotionally involved with Narnia, so it's hard to tell. (It does rip off a lot from Narnia, though, and I'd recognize it even if I didn't have Narnia in my head 24/7.)

It's like...hmm. It's like as if Harry Potter was obsessed with reading the Narnia books while he was growing up, there was no Voldemort, and then he found out Narnia was real.

On the other hand, far be it from me to accuse someone of taking the fantasy out of fantasy, but oh my god.

[snacky]

Yeah, The Magicians. I actually liked the first part of the book (despite wanting to smack Quentin ever other page) - the school setting was pretty cool, and I felt like there was some nice set-up for the Fillory stuff there. But god, way too much with the drinking.

But then we got to the second half of the book and OH MY GOD RAGE! Okay, yeah, meta, I get it, but I don't even think he read the HP books if this was his commentary on them. And Fillory, seriously, wtf. I mean, talk about missing the joy of Narnia completely. God knows I have issues with Lewis and what he did with/to his characters and world, but oh my god, making Martin/Peter a monster? Not even remotely close And Plover/Lewis a pedophile? So not even meta, just, as you said, unnecessary.

And I can't even imagine what he'll do with a sequel. How can there be a sequel?

[bedlamsbard]

Yeah, on latter thought, there's no real tie-in to HP aside from it being a school of magic, so I think people are really missing the point when they say it's Harry Potter for grown-ups. Quentin's no Harry Potter, and that's probably Grossman's point -- he's not the typical hero. (On the other hand, oh my god the privilege it burns.)

And the thing is -- Grossman clearly knows his Narnia. It's obvious. It's so obvious that to be fair, I am actually really surprised that Lewis's heirs are sueing the hell out of him for copyright infringement/plagiarism. The Neitherlands are clearly supposed to be the forest from The Magician's Nephew (they even use pools of water to travel from world to world! he combined Charn and the forest!), Ember's Tomb reads exactly like Aslan's How to me, the four thrones in Castle Whitespire, the fact that only "children of earth" can rule Fillory -- it goes on, and on, and on. (Although I'm really surprised he didn't bring up issues with The Last Battle; maybe that will be the sequel. *rolls eyes* Or maybe next he'll try and deal with Lord of the Rings and piss off the Tolkein fans, too.)

And what's interesting is that while Grossman was clearly engaging with the canon in a familiar, fannish manner, but he was doing it on a different level. I want to say he was engaging with the mechanics of the world rather than with the characters, while fans are significanly more likely to engage with the characters rather than the world? Does that sound close? Sort of similar to what Gregory Maguire did in Wicked, but even Maguire engaged with the characters more.

I said earlier that it was as if he made Peter a monster and Lucy the White Witch, but that's not right. It's as if he made Peter the White Witch (or even Tash, by Lewis's definition and not mine?) and Lucy the Lady of the Green Kirtle. God, and the Plover pedophile comment was just -- oh my god, so unnecessary. Not even meta!

[snacky]

What bothered me about the HP connection was that I think he was trying to say that not only is Quentin no Harry Potter, that no one is, and that no one could be a hero, just because or even if they went to a school for magic. Like you said, way to take the fantasy out of fantasy.

And I think his take on HP was that "hooray, you got to go to a school for magic, you're basically useless for life" as shown by all the problems they have when they graduate, and by Alice's parents, which, just...really seems to have missed a big part of HP itself - the expanded world and how big and rich and full it is, outside of Hogwarts.

You're right about the Narnia/Fillory parts - I remember being particularly astonished at the The Neitherlands and the Charn/Wood Between Worlds connection. And I almost wished afterwards he had explored more of that, because the Fillory scenes were kind of cringingly painful to me.

And yes, that does make sense, especially because his characters are so....dull. Alice is the only one who was really engaging at all, and I don't even get the sense that Grossman liked his characters all that much, so my sense is that with the Narnia analogues, he didn't care about exploring or expanding (unlike fic authors) but more about creating the worst case scenario he could.

[bedlamsbard]

I keep coming back to the privilege, for some reason, because it bothers me more and more every time I think about it. (And again, this usually isn't the sort of thing I pick up on, so, uh, congrats to Grossman?) Nearly all the kids at Brakesbills come from incredibly privileged backgrounds -- there are, what, two that we meet who sort of don't? Eliot and the girl whose parent is a receptionist at a car dealership? Which is against the basic tenet of this sort of fantasy: underprivileged youth rises up above his circumstances. So maybe Grossman's trying to work agains that sort of thing, but it kind of ends up coming off like he doesn't know the genre at all. *prods* But all the kids are at the tops of their classes in high school, they're usually from rich private schools, and...I think they're all white. I don't pay much attention to descriptions, but I think they're all or mostly WASPs. Oh, he brings up Wiccans, in a seriously mocking sort of way, but there's no one else, and the Christians are pretty strongly mocked too. (OMG, and the line about only the girl from LA knows how to drive? Here's the thing: I can buy that Quentin can't drive, he's from Brooklyn, my friend from Queens still can't drive, but none of the others, seriously? Eliot should know how to drive, especially if he grew up on a farm in Oregon. Farm kids are driving before anyone else, and he would have learned quickly in order to get away the best he could. Farm kids are out driving tractors at age ten or younger.)

There are one or two really beautiful magical moments -- the house of cards Quentin does at the end of his exam stands out, but I'm not entirely certain there's anything else. Maybe the goose scene -- but the rest is so...dull. I mean, Christ, way to take the fun and the magic and the beauty out of fantasy. Even Fillory.

And the Questing Beast, a.k.a. the White Stag! Seriously! Going west! JUST LIKE THE PEVENSIES CHASING THE WHITE STAG INTO THE WESTERN WILD. And an ivory horn to be used when all hope is lost! I mean, yes, I'm a fic writer, but how the fuck did this get past the Lewis estate? Narnia's still in copyright! (I...suppose because it's not a direct rip-off, but it is, and that final crushing insult.)

I kind of liked Eliot, but -- okay, I will admit that there was a moment of yay, LGBTQ characters!, and that was just presented as normal and nothing to be alarmed about and not a major plot point -- but...yeah, I kind of hated everyone. Or not even hated, just didn't care. *sighs* Why do pro writers do so poorly what fic writers do so well?