The Magicians (Grossman novel)


The Magicians is a new adult fantasy novel by the American author Lev Grossman, published in 2009 by Viking Press. It tells the story of Quentin Coldwater, a young man who discovers and attends a secret college of magic in New York. The novel received critical acclaim and was followed by a sequel, The Magician King, in 2011 and a third novel, The Magician's Land, in 2014.
A television series adaptation of the novels premiered on Syfy in 2015. Grossman has also worked on two comic books stories based on his novels.

Plot

Quentin Coldwater is a high school student from Brooklyn who, along with best friends James and Julia, attends an advanced school. He loves a series of books called "Fillory and Further," which involve the children of the Chatwin family discovering a Narnia-esque land called Fillory. On the day of his Princeton interview, Quentin instead interviews at Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy, the only school for magic in North America, and is accepted as one of the twenty new students. Julia also takes the exam but fails. As per protocol, Julia's memory is wiped to prevent her from remembering magic's existence or the school itself.
After beginning his studies at Brakebills, it soon becomes apparent to Quentin that magic is difficult and tedious to learn, as each spell must be varied in dozens of ways, depending on factors such as the phase of the moon and the closest body of water. The curriculum involves learning many old and lost languages, and innumerable hand positions. Despite this, Quentin and his classmates Penny and Alice are allowed to move up a year by compressing their first year of studies. Penny fails the special exam and stays behind, then later fistfights Quentin out of jealousy. One day during class, a bored Quentin tampers with a spell and an otherworldly horror referred to as "the Beast" enters Brakebills. It eats a student before the rest of the faculty are able to drive it away.
Third year students are assigned a Discipline. Although Quentin's Discipline does not manifest itself to the teachers, he and Alice are sorted into the Physical magic group. The Physical Kids also include Eliot, Josh, and Janet, who are a year above them. During the spring semester of their fourth year, they are all sent to Brakebills South in Antarctica where they practice in silence and isolation. There, Quentin and Alice begin a relationship. During a summer vacation in Massachusetts, Quentin is confronted by Julia about the school. The memory erasure did not work correctly and she has become deranged and obsessed with learning magic. Quentin tells her the school's location, hoping she will have her memory properly erased.
Upon graduation, Quentin and the other Physical Kids spend their days and nights in hedonistic pursuits. While still looking for a purpose, his erstwhile classmate Penny arrives with news about travel between worlds: Fillory is real.
The group finds magical wonders in Fillory and meet The Beast, who is revealed to be Martin Chatwin, the lost eldest child from the "Fillory and Further" books, who has sacrificed his humanity in order to stay in the magical world forever. After a brutal fight, Alice sacrifices herself to kill Martin, Penny loses both of his hands and chooses to remain in the Neitherlands, a realm between the worlds, and a gravely injured Quentin is left in the care of a group of centaurs while the others fear that he will never awaken from his coma.
Upon awakening many months later, Quentin becomes depressed and disillusioned, especially when Jane, the youngest Chatwin, reveals herself to have been pulling the strings throughout her siblings' and Quentin's stories. By using a magical time-traveling device, she finally succeeded in killing Martin by leading Quentin and his friends to the confrontation.
Back on Earth, Quentin takes a high-paying non-magical job where he spends his time playing video games. One day, Eliot and Janet show up with Julia, who has learned magic, to return as Kings and Queens to Fillory.

Major characters

Grossman has publicly discussed his literary influences and has referred to T.H. White as his "literary mentor", particularly to the influence that The Once and Future King has had on his work. The novel and its sequels are also greatly indebted to C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia. Other literary influences include Harry Potter, A Wizard of Earthsea, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Watchmen, Larry Niven's Warlock stories, and Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories, while the film Highlander helped influence the feel of the novel's world. He had originally wanted to provide a direct connection to Lewis' novels and include The Wood between the Worlds, however his publishing house's lawyers objected. He consequently replaced its appearance with the similarly themed Neitherlands instead. Grossman has stated that the plot itself began as a dream about a beast invading a magical classroom.

Reception

The review by The A.V. Club gave the novel an "A", calling it "the best urban fantasy in years, a sad dream of what it means to want something badly and never fully reach it." The New York Times review said the book "could crudely be labeled a Harry Potter for adults", injecting "mature themes" into fantasy literature.
The Magicians won the 2010 Alex Award, given to ten adult books that are appealing to young adults, and its author won the 2011 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

Adaptations

Television

In 2011, Fox optioned but eventually declined to order a television adaptation of The Magicians. In July 2014, Syfy greenlit the production of a pilot episode, and ordered a 12-episode first season which aired in January 2016. The series was renewed for a second season consisting of 13 episodes, which aired in 2017.
The Syfy series is written by John McNamara and Sera Gamble, and produced by Michael London and Janice Williams. The pilot episode was directed by Mike Cahill, and the cast includes Jason Ralph as Quentin, Olivia Taylor Dudley as Alice, Hale Appleman as Eliot, Summer Bishil as Margo Hanson, Arjun Gupta as Penny, Stella Maeve as Julia, and Rick Worthy as Henry Fogg.
The series ages the characters up to graduate school students and compresses the Brakebills degree to three years. Most of the events detailed in the novel, the Antarctic trip for instance, appear to happen in Quentin's first year at Brakebills with years in the novel being roughly condensed into semesters in the TV show. Jane Chatwin is involved earlier and more heavily, and Quentin is more formally diagnosed with depression.

Comic books

Grossman contributed to two comic book adaptations of his novel in 2019, published by Boom! Studios: The Magicians: Alice's Story and The Magicians.