The Magicians: A Journey for Purpose

Lev Grossman’s contemporary novel, The Magicians, explores the mysterious world of magic in a much deeper, darker, and real manner than Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, and other fantasy novels of modern times. Grossman unearths the reality that life as a magician is not all that different from life as an average college student. Having all of the power in the world still cannot produce happiness; neither can the enchanted worlds in one’s dreams, or getting everything one has ever wished. Happiness occurs in the moment and is achieved through friends and relationships, not by measuring one’s life against expectations.

Quentin, a graduating high school senior, is given an unexpected opportunity to attend Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy, an actual magical university. Though magic is all Quentin has ever dreamed of since reading the Fillory novels as a child, Brakebills and life thereafter could never have been expected. As life continuously fails to amount to all that he has dreamed, Quentin slowly and painfully realizes that having everything he wants cannot satiate his craving for a purpose in life. Throughout his time at Brakebills, post-graduation, and adventures in Fillory, Quentin searches for meaning and purpose. All too late, he realizes purpose is created in oneself, not by conquering magic, saving a lost world, or following one’s every whim.



Life and Love and Why- Switchfoot

Life and love and why
Child, adult, then die
All of your hoping
And all of your searching
For what?
Ask me for what am I living
Or what gives me strength
That I'm willing to die for
Could it be this
Could this be bliss
Could it be all that
I ever had missed
Could it be true
Can life be new
And can I be used
Can I be used

Without reprieve, Quentin contemplates the meaning of life and the reason for his unhappiness, paralleling the lyrics to Switchfoot’s Life and Love and Why. Quentin says to himself, “I should be happy...I’m young and alive and healthy... I have good friends...My GPA is a number higher than most people even realize it is possible for a GPA to be” (Grossman). Despite all of this, “Quentin knew he wasn’t happy. Why not? He had painstakingly assembled all the ingredients of happiness...But happiness, like a disobedient spirit, refused to come. He couldn’t think of what else to do” (Grossman 5). When Quentin is accepted to Brakebills, he assumes that all of this will change. Being a magician is all he has ever dreamed. When he realizes how much work it requires to become a practiced magician, he begins to search for happiness again. The pattern of hope, content, and despair continues as Quentin advances in magic and eventually ventures to Fillory. At each step, Quentin thinks, this is it, now he will be happy; however, his search for meaning is unrelenting. Each time he is let down he goes deeper into the dark world of magic on a quest for his purpose in life. The lyrics, “All of your hoping/And all of your searching/
For what?” seem to be in conversation with Quentin. Later in the novel, Quentin realizes that he has been on this search and has repeatedly failed and he begins to realize that maybe this is it, all life will ever be is what it is now. This realization is forgotten when Fillory is discovered and Quentin believes the Brakebills team has been chosen to save Fillory. As his dreams continue to be derailed, the question of “for what” resonates in his mind.

Believe It Or Not Joey Scarbury

Look at what's happened to me,
I can't believe it myself.
Suddenly I'm up on top of the world;
It should've been somebody else.

Believe it or not,
I'm walking on air.
I never thought I could feel so free-.
Flying away on a wing and a prayer.
Who could it be?
Believe it or not it's just me.

It's like a light of a new day-,
It came from out of the blue.
Breaking me out of the spell I was in,
Making all of my wishes come true

After Quentin is accepted to Brakebills, he believes all of his wishes in life have come true. He has been lifted from the misery of his old life in Brooklyn and the spell of unhappiness that he was under. Imagine Quentin singing “Believe It Or Not” as he is exploring Brakebills and realizing that he is actually going to become a magician. He feels on top of the world, but he quickly turns into his old self again. Though it is the best thing that has ever happened to him, as time goes on, he still does not believe it can be true. Quentin says repeatedly that he is just waiting to wake up from this dream or waiting to go home and not be able to enter the invisible barrier to Brakebills again. At one point, Quentin says it should have been somebody else; it should have been Julia who received acceptance, not him. Even in the midst of such a blessing, Quentin is doubtful and discontented.

Somewhere I Belong- Linkin Park

(When this began)
I had nothing to say
And I get lost in the nothingness inside of me
(I was confused)
And I let it all out to find
That I’m not the only person with these things in mind
I wanna heal, I wanna feel
What I thought was never real
I wanna let go of the pain
I’ve felt so long

I wanna heal, I wanna feel
Like I’m close to something real
I wanna find something I’ve wanted all along
Somewhere I belong

Life at Breakbills with the Physical kids provides Quentin the sense of belonging that he never felt in Brooklyn. He thinks that this is it, now he has a place and a purpose in life. Finally Quentin can “let go of the pain [he’s] felt for so long” and “feel like [he’s] close to something real.” A short time after becoming a Physical, Quentin realizes that he is not the only one that has been striving to feel something all of their life. The end of stanza one parallels this feeling. The students at Brakebills are all alike in that they came to Brakebills because they were searching for something that they never found in the real world. If their lives in the real world had been satisfying, they never would have taken the envelope or followed the note to a different world. In this way, the students at Brakebills are much like regular college students. Students go off to college alone and leave friends and families behind because they are searching for something more in life. Even if they do not know what it is that they want to be or do, they venture to college regardless in hopes that their purpose will be revealed. Though Quentin is devastatingly unhappy throughout most of the novel, his distress is relatable to an abundance of students across the world.

Smile Like You Mean It- The Killers

Looking back at sunsets on the Eastside
We lost track of the time
Dreams aren’t what they used to be
Some things slide by so carelessly

Smile like you mean it
Smile like you mean it

Nearing the end of his time at Brakebills, Quentin looks back and thinks of how his experiences haven’t lived up to his expectations. He acts like he is happy because he knows all of his wishes have come true, but in reality he is not happy at all. The song “Smile Like You Mean It” resonates a sense of discontent and regret from the artist. One can imagine Quentin reminiscing about his days in Brooklyn with Julia and James and now saying, “Dreams aren’t what they used to be/Some things slide by so carelessly,” referring to his schooling at Brakebills and the altered condition of his dream to be a magician. With the incidence of the Beast and the death of Amanda Orloff behind him, Quentin now realizes that magic is not the blissful, invincible tool he once thought it to be. His days at Brakebills and his childhood dreams of magic have slowly passed and left Quentin a melancholic, hopeless magician.

Semi-Charmed Life- Third Eye Blind

I want something else, to get me through this,
Semi-charmed kind of life,
I want something else,
I'm not listening when you say, Good-bye.

The sky it was gold, it was rose,
I was taking sips of it through my nose,
And I wish I could get back there,
Some place back there,
Smiling in the pictures you would take,

Doing crystal myth,
Will lift you up until you break,
It won't stop,
I won't come down, I keep stock,
With a tick tock rhythm and a bump for the drop,
And then I bumped up. I took the hit I was given,
Then I bumped again,
And then I bumped again.
How do I get back there to,
The place where I fell asleep inside you?
How do I get myself back to,
The place where you said,

I want something else to get me through this,
semi-charmed kind of life,

In the city we tripped,
On the urge to feel alive,
But now I'm struggling to survive,
Now you hold me,
And we're broken.
Still it's all that I want to do.
Feel myself with a head made of the ground,
I'm scared but I'm not coming down.
And I won't run for my life,
She's got her jaws just locked now in smile
but nothing is all right,

All right, I want something else,
To get me through this,
Semi-charmed kind of life,

Upon graduation from Brakebills, Quentin, Alice, and the other Physical kids move to Manhattan and live together. Because they have an abundance of wealth and nothing to do with themselves, Quentin and Elliot take to drinking and partying more than ever before. Everyone is unhappy with themselves because of the void they feel, especially Quentin and Alice, whose relationship has plummeted since returning to the real world. The line “Now I wish I could get back there” refers to Quentin and Alice longing for the days back at Brakebills when their relationship was bliss, but “Now you hold me/And we’re broken” refers to their current state. Alice continues to love Quentin, though they fight constantly and barely speak anymore. Just as in the song, Quentin uses drugs and alcohol to fill the emptiness he feels and the need for “something else.” The title “Semi-charmed life” fits perfectly because the Physical kids are charmed, or magical, yet they still suffer all of the disappointments and hard times that normal adults do, hence “semi-charmed.”

The World Spins Madly On- The Weepies

Woke up and wished that I was dead
With an aching in my head
I lay motionless in bed
I thought of you and where you'd gone
And let the world spin madly on

This song also applies to life in Manhattan after graduation. In one scene from the novel, Quentin wakes up during the late afternoon after a night of partying and Alice is leaving for the day. Noting their lack of communication, Quentin realizes their relationship is slipping away, yet he refuses to take action to fix his predicament. Every night after going out, Quentin recognizes how worthless his life has become without structure and meaning. Throughout Quentin’s life, he constantly feels like the world is going on around him and he is not partaking, which parallels the line “and let the world spin madly on.” The mood of the song is overwhelmingly dreary and the artist seems hollow, which is much like Quentin in this stage of his life.

The Great Disappointment- AFI

While I waited, I was wasted away

Hope was wasting away.
Faith was wasting away.
I was wasting away.

I never, never wanted this.
I always wanted to believe.
Never never wanted this.
How could I have become?
Never Never wanted this.
From the start I'd been deceived.
Never never wanted this.
How could I have become?

After the death of Alice and the uncertainty regarding Penny’s injury, Quentin is overwhelmed by guilt. Believing that it is his fault because he selfishly pushed everyone to go to Fillory in search of meaning for his own life, Quentin sees the dark person he has become. All of his hoping for purpose in life led him to the dark depths of magic and disaster. Late in the novel, Emily Greenstreet tells Quentin, “You can’t blame yourself, truly you can’t. You need to see that all this evil, all this sadness, it all comes from magic. It’s where all your trouble began. Nobody can be touched by that much power without being corrupted” (Grossman 398). The lyrics, “From the start I’d been deceived/Never never wanted this/How could I have become,” describe perfectly the students’ emotions toward magic and the enormous misfortunes it caused. Magic could be “The Great Disappointment” of their lives.

All Along- Remedy Drive

It’s not everything it seems - the world and its dreams
Slipping like water through my hands tonight
All the things I thought would fill me up inside
Left me empty here - and now I know why

Quentin realizes that Brakebills and Fillory are not at all what he had expected. All of his childhood dreams turned out to be very dark places filled with the same death, war, and deceit as the real world. He thought that by going to Fillory, he would finally be happy and have a purpose in life, but upon entering Fillory, he realizes that it is not the same magical land described in the childhood novels. Line one, “It’s not everything it seems-the world and its dreams,” describes Quentin’s awareness that Brakebills and Fillory do not meet the expectations set by his childhood dreams. All of the aspirations he had are “slipping like water through [his] hands.” Lines three and four nail Quentin’s recognition that magic cannot provide meaning for his life. He is left empty, once more, because things did not turn out the way he anticipated. These lines do not provide closure to the emptiness the artist feels, just as Grossman does not provide fulfillment in Quentin’s life to close the novel.

Closing of The Magicians

Last night I finallyyy finished The Magicians. Though the story was interesting to some degree and the novel was very easy to read, I cannot help feeling like nothing actually ever happened. The physical kids went to Fillory and had one thrilling terrifying fight with some crazy creatures, but that was it... then we didn't see any of the characters again and Quentin did nothing in Fillory but hang out and recover. Then he found a magical pony (I think) and wished himself home. He ended up in an easy high paying job that he neither cared about nor disliked. Just like the rest of the book, Quentin was indifferent. Even in the end when his friends came back and asked him to come to Fillory with them and be a king, he decided to go because he was indifferent, so why not?

Overall, the whole novel was rather depressing and unfulfilling. I thought it was all about a quest and eventually Quentin would come to realize what he's been searching for all of his life. Instead, he became less emotional than ever and never ended up finding what it is that could make him happy. I can't seem to find the meaning of this novel or the purpose for all of the allusions to other magical works. Maybe this will all be explained in class today.... Hopefully!

Utterly Depressing...

My general liking of Lev Grossman's The Magicians has turned into a neutral, take-it-or-leave-it kind of attitude. The overall depression of the characters coaxes me into a sad, dramatic mood every time I pick up the book. Just by listening to all of Quentin's unhappiness and complaints I start to wonder if I'm happy myself, or if I'm still looking for something else. I'm a little past page 300 out of about 400 pages total and I can't wait to get to the end so I can finally see if there's some purpose to this book. To me, it seems like nothing has happened the entire book. Quentin mopes around in the beginning, he gets into Brakebills and he's still not happy, he goes home and he's not happy, he gets in with the Physical kids and starts sleeping with Alice and he's happy for a short while, but then he graduates and is miserable again, now he's in Fillory (as far as we know) and he's still unhappy. Quentin has gotten everything he's ever wanted. All of his dreams have come true and he's still moping around looking for something more in his life. If this isn't settled by the end of the novel, I'm going to be very confused about the purpose of this book. I'm hoping that some sort of journey or war will come about in Fillory so that Quentin and all of his magician friends will feel purposeful and stop hating each other and complaining all the time.

As for the allusions to Harry Potter and the Chronicles of Narnia, I'm not sure what that's all about. There have been a ton of allusions and outright mentionings of other literature dealing with magic, but I never got into Harry Potter and I read Chronicles of Narnia in elementary school so I don't remember it that well. Nevertheless, hopefully all of these things will come to light once the kids find their purpose and the novel ends. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

The Magicians

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about Lev Grossman's The Magicians yet. It's fairly interesting and not a hard read, but it isn't particularly compelling nor does the magical school seem all that "magical." So far, Quentin has wandered away from home and into a magical college, taken a long weird exam, and wandered around aimlessly ever since. Since I'm only on page 47, I should probably give it some more time before I judge so harshly, but it just seems like there is so much more that Grossman could have done to pull in the reader and really engross them in this magical world. Maybe I'm expecting too much Harry Potter and that's not what Grossman was going for. Either way, I'm enjoying the novel just fine, I just expected something more unexpected and fanatical. The most magical thing that's happened is a deck of cards falling into the shape of a house... or that it is summer at the magical school and it's November in Brooklyn...

One thing I did find rather interesting was the way in which Quentin said he read the Fillory books and never really escaped them, now he's suck in a normal world always wanting something more. I feel like this is a very interesting and believable predicament. Several times after I've read a particularly engaging book I find myself lost in the world and the characters of the book for several hours or days afterward. Sometimes it seems like it would be more fulfilling to find this other world where all of these incredible things are happening rather than continue in our day to day monotonous lives. I think it will be very interesting to see if Brakebills lives up to Quentin's fantasies created by the Fillory books.

More Than Just a Game

The Hunger Games may be my favorite novel we have read this year. Suzanne Collins creates several characters that really rally the support of the reader during the graphic, gladiator-style fight to the death. The Hunger Games frequently reminded me of George Orwell's 1984 in the sense that the characters are always being watched by some higher power and their actions are altered by their need to please the government or whoever else is watching. The characters are controlled by the government like stringed puppets. The Hunger Games is simply a way for the government to remind all of the citizens of Panem that they are not in control of their own lives, they owe everything to the Capitol, a futurist sort of place where all of the higher powered citizens live in comfort and wealth.

One problem I had with this novel was the love affair between Katniss and Peeta. The whole opening of the novel got my emotions invested in Gale and Katniss's relationship, then Collins forces this over-the-top love story between two kids who are supposed to be killing each other. It was one thing when Katniss was hesitant to end her friendship with Peeta because she knew she couldn't kill him if she liked him, but it was too much, for me at least, when they were cuddling in a cave kissing while the others were hunting them down to kill them. I liked that the two teamed up once the rule change was made, especially because Peeta would have died otherwise, but I think it was ridiculous to have them so "in love" and to have the gifts received based on how many times they kissed or acted a certain way toward each other. In my opinion, Collins placed too much emphasis on the love affair between the two when the focus was expected to be on a gruesome man-hunt.

Despite the love affair between Peeta and Katniss, I really enjoyed the novel and the strong characters Collins created. The writing style makes the novel seem as if it were written for younger ages, but it is a great read regardless.

The City and The City

“It was, not surprisingly that day perhaps, hard to observe borders, to see and unsee only what I should, on my way home. I was hemmed in by people not in my city, walking slowly through areas crowded but not crowded in Beszel. I focused on the stones really around me--cathedrals, bars, the brick flourishes of what had been a school--that I had grown up with. I ignored the rest or tried.”

The picture interprets the quote by showing the people walking by who are uninvolved with the game going on around them. The people in bandannas are ignoring those walking by and vice versa. The girls walking toward each other step out of the way of one another without acknowledging the other. The people walking by are reacting to the others, but they are not interacting or even seeming to notice them. The two groups focus on their surroundings without noticing each other, just as those in the novel do.

Predictable

Upon finishing House Rules, I can't say much more than "predictable." I think I knew exactly what happened to Jess around page 200...yet the story continued on for over 500 pages. Theo basically told us exactly what happened when he said Jess got out of the shower and he had time to run away before she ever caught up. Then, in the court room it was explained that Jess's injury could come from a hard fall or a very powerful punch to the face... considering she was getting out of the shower in a hurry, which makes more sense?

Predictability aside, I enjoyed the story and its characters. I don't think each of the characters had a "distinguished voice," but they did have different thoughts and personalities that were easy to relate with. Actually, if each chapter wasn't headed by a different name and written in a different font, I'm not sure that I would have known they were being told by different characters. I think Picoult attempted to make Jacob's voice display his Asperger's, and at some points it may have, but overall I didn't see much different in his language than anyone else's.

After researching others' opinions on the accuracy of Asperger's in House Rules, I have determined that Jacob possess quirks that those with Asperger's have; however, normal people do not have ALL of the symptoms like Jacob does. Picoult took her research and applied every single observation she found to her character, without realizing that normal aspies only possess a few quirks each, and they definitely don't have them all to the extreme that Jacob does. One reviewer who has Asperger's herself commented that Picoult gives Jacob the problems of a child with Asperger's, but an 18 year old with Asperger's would in fact be quite different than a child. She notes that many people grow out of the tantrums and meltdowns after childhood, whereas Jacob is 18 and has a meltdown nearly every day. On the other hand, I praise Picoult for doing so much research on real aspies, even if it did cause her to overload her fictional character.

Overall, I would recommend House Rules for a casual read because it is interesting; however, if you are looking for a real mystery, this is not your book.