The Magician’s Land by Lev Grossman
This is, I think, the best of the three of Lev Grossman’s Magician’s series. Even though the main characters are separated in the last book, their stories continue independently and eventually together.
Grossman’s greatest strength, I think, is his creativity, and it really shines in this novel. Every scene, every chapter, is studded with fascinating and bizarre anomalies, creatures, and locations. The scene about the mobile books flapping around with each other in the Brakebills’ library, breeding (and producing derivative works) and the faculty’s discussion of literary eugenics made me laugh out loud and recant it to other people. If I’d been reading a paper book instead of listening to an audiobook, I would have read it out loud to everyone who’d listen.
Grossman also has a brilliant knack for description, using unusual metaphors that make even the most fantastic ideas picturable. And sardonic. Just about every character in here has a jaded and sarcastic way of looking at the world, with the exception of the humorless and universally despised Penny, who makes a reappearance. The description on the book says they go to the Netherlands, but it’s actually the Neitherlands, which is much cooler.
I loved all of these novels for their wit and sense of wonder, or as I like to call it, “Gee-Whizery.” The magicians are so powerful that the need for food, shelter or any other mortal concern is never brought up. They can go where they want to go, whenever they want, unless prevented by an antagonist. They fly, teleport, walk on water, hang out at the south pole, turn into giant creatures, and fight otherworldly monsters with a world-weary sangfroid which is often hilarious.
This had been the weakest part of the first two novels; all the characters are so powerful and so endowed with resources that they had no motivation to do anything except because of boredom. They’re also a bunch of whiny spoiled brats, most of the time. In this book, their whiny self-entitlement seemed kicked down a notch. They’re still bitchy and sardonic, but you don’t feel as great of a desire to punch them in the face. It’s as if being bitten and stabbed and squished and having loved ones die or disappear actually made them grow up.
The second weakness endemic to the first two novels, alas, is still present in this one. It has no plot. Not a good plot, anyway. It’s basically like a music video, a fascinating montage of largely unrelated bits. True, Elliot and Janet want to save Fillory, and Quentin thinks maybe he ought to do something about Alice his ex-girlfriend/blue demon, and there’s a section in the middle where they’re trying to do a job to earn some money, but it’s not like they’re really goal-oriented. Mostly they do things by whim, or because they decide the best way to fix something is to go on a quest, so they wander around looking for whatever, y’know? When they do solve a problem, it’s because they had the knowledge hidden inside them all along. If this were a mystery novel, the detective would spend 400 pages travelling around the world meeting strange and exotic people, and on the last page, the victim’s widow would confess. Honestly, I think the charm and wit of Grossman’s writing makes up for it, but don’t go expecting a plot, as you’ll be disappointed.
Even though I absolutely adored this book, and feel like I’m going to have to study it and see how it can improve my own writing, and I’m thinking of buying hard copies of the last two (I only have them in audiobook) and an audiobook for the first one so I can (gasp!) listen to it a second time (!). I hesitate to recommend this. There’s something about the way Grossman looks at the world that I find irresistibly amusing, but humor is subjective, and I know my sense of humor is on a different frequency than most people. If you liked the first two books, you’ll like this. If you didn’t like the first two books, you probably won’t.
