After the first five minutes of magical wonderment passed it began to be socially awkward, blatantly following the tree-spirit-thing like this, but it didn't seem to want to acknowledge them, and they weren't about to let it go.
The Magicians isn't generally as blatant as that about its juxtaposition/melding of the contemporary-NYC-coming-of-age and fantasy lit genres, but it's a nice example to hint at what Grossman's about with this very appealing novel. The characters are believable, and so are the magic and the school at which Quentin and the others he meets there - as to those others, it's the usual miscellany but that doesn't make them any the less appealing, Alice and Eliot especially...the pitch could maybe be Harry Potter meets The Secret History (not that I've read the HP books) - which I guess would be enough to sell oh maybe 90% of my friends on it! There is a sense of wonder and, in moments, lightness to the book - but also a nicely, mutedly melancholy and downbeat air to it that works a treat.
The Magicians isn't generally as blatant as that about its juxtaposition/melding of the contemporary-NYC-coming-of-age and fantasy lit genres, but it's a nice example to hint at what Grossman's about with this very appealing novel. The characters are believable, and so are the magic and the school at which Quentin and the others he meets there - as to those others, it's the usual miscellany but that doesn't make them any the less appealing, Alice and Eliot especially...the pitch could maybe be Harry Potter meets The Secret History (not that I've read the HP books) - which I guess would be enough to sell oh maybe 90% of my friends on it! There is a sense of wonder and, in moments, lightness to the book - but also a nicely, mutedly melancholy and downbeat air to it that works a treat.
