'All of it just confirmed his belief that his real life, the life he should be living, had been mislaid through some clerical error by the cosmic bureaucracy. If ennui were to be a superpower, Quentin Coldwater would have been Superman, propelled into space by the power of his constant negativity. Disillusionment and dissatisfaction are how he operates. Hand him his deepest dream on a silver platter - and five minutes later he will be whining in a decidedly disillusioned fashion about how it fails to make him happy. Not only will he always think of a cup as being half-empty, but he will drive himself crazy wondering who the hell drank half of it to make it so. Or at least the available evidence pointed overwhelmingly to that conclusion.'

Eeyore the Donkey is brimming with life force compared to our perpetually unhappy hero. He makes Charlie Brown resemble an embodiment of optimism and positivity. He makes Holden Caulfield look like a bundle of sunshine. Is that what you want?'The answer to this, as far as Quentin Coldwater is concerned, is a resounding 'YES!' At any stage of his life. But you can sure as hell decide to be miserable. Lev Grossman creates an utterly original world in which good and evil aren’t black and white, love and sex aren’t simple or innocent, and power comes at a terrible price. His childhood dream becomes a nightmare with a shocking truth at its heart.Īt once psychologically piercing and magnificently absorbing, The Magicians boldly moves into uncharted literary territory, imagining magic as practiced by real people, with their capricious desires and volatile emotions. But the land of Quentin’s fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he could have imagined. After graduation he and his friends make a stunning discovery: Fillory is real. Magic doesn’t bring Quentin the happiness and adventure he dreamed it would. He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: friendship, love, sex, booze, and boredom. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the craft of modern sorcery. A senior in high school, he’s still secretly preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory.

Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable.

A thrilling and original coming-of-age novel for adults about a young man practicing magic in the real world.

The magicians grossman novel