Adult magic
Summer’s steamy new read gives sorcery an R rating
SO you’ve torn through all the volumes of “A Song of Ice and Fire” (aka “Game of Thrones”), and you’re a little over the whole dystopian young-adult thing. What’s an adventure-minded reader to do for a fat beach book this August?
Look no further than Lev Grossman’s “Magicians” trilogy — the latest and final installment is out Tuesday. “The Magician’s Land” concludes the saga of Quentin Coldwater, a Brooklyn teen who, in the first book, learns he’s got the supernatural skills to attend a magical Hudson Valley high school (visible only to its students and teachers) called Brakebills.
With its sardonic characters and contemporary language — including a liberal scattering of F-bombs — Grossman’s series is a cheeky, grown-up homage to fantasy’s greatest hits.
Brakebills bears an undeniable resemblance to Harry Potter’s alma mater, though its students are older, less inclined to follow the rules and into drinking and sex. Fillory, a magical world Quentin and his friends love from a childhood series of books and discover is real, is evocative of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia — as well as significantly more twisted: The main antagonist in Fillory looks like a mild-mannered businessman and eats people whole. Quentin himself has been frequently compared to Holden Caulfield, the sarcastic narrator of “The Catcher in the Rye.”
A recently released trailer for the third book features fans reading from the first chapter, including some notable fellow authors: Gregory Maguire (“Wicked”), Peter Straub, Gary Shteyngart, Neil Gaiman. There’s also praise from “Game of Thrones” author George R.R. Martin: “Hogwarts was never like this!”
At Comic-Con last month, advance copies of the book sold like hot cakes, but Grossman — much in the spirit of his protagonist — bemoaned the commodification of “nerd culture” on his blog: “Every time I’m walking the floor of Comic-Con, and I see one of those dudes with drive-time DJ voices flogging plastic promotional objects at me, in the tone of a farmer calling pigs to the slop . . . somewhere a fairy dies. Or maybe a dark elf.”
Grumbling aside, Grossman, a 45-year-old book critic for Time magazine, has made an indelible contribution to nerd culture. Fan art of his series is rampant online, the highlights of which are collected in a Tumblr named “F - - k Yeah Brakebills.” Both of his previous books were best sellers, and this one seems poised to do the same.
Adding to the buzz about the new release is the announcement that the Syfy channel is shooting a pilot for a “Magicians” series. So now’s the time to catch up on the source material.
In “The Magician’s Land,” Quentin, now exiled from Fillory and ignominiously teaching at Brakebills, finds himself ensnared in a heist that may be his ticket back to the magical land. Not that Fillory is faring so well: In fact, ominous signs say it’s irrevocably coming apart at the seams, which is worrisome to Eliot and Janet, fellow Brakebillians who are still there, ruling as king and queen.