Aug 10 2011
The Magician King by Lev Grossman
In my review of The Magicians I offered this opinion as to what its author was up to:
What Lev Grossman attempts to do in The Magicians is both bring this shared love of childhood fantasy adventures into a more adult-like world but also ask the question: “What if something like Narnia really existed?” These two concepts make up the bulk of the book but they do not always work together.
The just released sequel, The Magician King, picks up where this left off and ads the question: “What if you found the fantasy land of your dreams but eventually got bored and restless? “What if it wasn’t enough?”
Quentin and his friends are now the kings and queens of Fillory, but the days and nights of royal luxury are starting to pall. After a morning hunt takes a sinister turn, Quentin and his old friend Julia charter a magical sailing ship and set out on an errand to the wild outer reaches of their kingdom. Their pleasure cruise becomes an adventure when the two are unceremoniously dumped back into the last place Quentin ever wants to see: his parent’s house in Chesterton, Massachusetts. And only the black, twisted magic that Julia learned on the streets can save them.
Magician King is still a dark, adult modern version of the young adult or childhood fantasy adventure and it still contemplates the question what if magic, and the fantasy land of your childhood, was real. But then it takes this background and foundation and forces the characters to wrestle with the complexity and difficulty of adulthood that remain even if magic exists. What does it mean to be a hero? What does it mean to be willing to really give of yourself to something or someone larger than your own selfish interests. Does the happy ending still result?
Along the way Grossman also explores what the architecture or building blocks of magic might look like and how human interaction with that – past, present and future – might work or not work.
More after the jump …
Queen of Kings
