All of that Magic

This is far, far too overdue. I need to be better with this…

If I had not been given the preface that Grossman wrote The Magicians as a reflective commentary on Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter, I would have pulled my eyes out in frustration at explicit fan-fiction. In fact, even with the explanation, I felt that I was reading a grown man’s attempts to live in both of these fictional worlds. Let me give you a brief summery of the story before critiquing the means. Warning: there may be some spoilers.

Our stereo-typically-not-stereo-typical hero–an awkward, tall, lanky, raven haired high schooler by the name of  Quentin Coldwater–is fed up with his boring, regular life as a child genius. He retreats from his mundane life into his favorite childhood book series entitled Fillory and Further, which describes the adventures of the Chatwin brothers and sisters in the magical land of Fillory. (Here is our connection with Narnia.) Quentin longs for adventures like these, and wishes that magic were real.

Through a series of odd circumstances, Quentin gets his wish for adventure and magic, and finds himself at Brakebills, a school for wizards (our connection with Harry Potter). Here he makes new friends, forgets about his awful parents, and learns the art of magic.

After his five years (which somehow manage to only be a little less than half the book) at Brakebills, Quentin graduates and moves to New York with his buddies. An old acquaintance from Brakebills shows up with the means to travel between worlds, and the group decides to use it to go to Fillory. Fillory happens to be in a state of decay and chaos, and the group uses their magic to do the best they can to save it, but it comes at a high cost.

Our heroes return to the ‘real world,’ and Quentin does his best to forget about magic and sets out to live the rest of his at a desk job. Of course, that would be a silly thing to do for a man without a real world education and whose only skills lie in turning himself into wild animals and manipulating time/space/nature. His friends return to whisk him back to Fillory, and Book One ends.

Despite my thickly sarcastic tone, there are some valuable things in this novel. Grossman has an ability to descriptively captivate his audience. While I usually have at least one (depending on the writer, two or three) stretch of why-the-heck-do-I-need-to-read-this-part-my-eyes-are-drifting-off-the-page in every book I read, I actually didn’t have any issues with The Magicians.

Grossman also has some brilliant, original ideas despite his purposeful links to Harry Potter and Chronicles of Narnia. I particularly enjoyed the steampunk, Neo-Victorian atmosphere of Brakebills, and I would have loved to see that developed. Grossman develops a surprisingly unique approach to organized magic. His beautifully haunting version of ‘The World Between Worlds’ (the name of it escapes me) could be the start-point of something great. But he is so driven by his agenda that he throws too many ideas together, rushing Brakebills and awkwardly sticking Fillory in the end with one or two crooked nails.

This being said, his agenda wasn’t one to overlook; he wanted people to reflect on the nature of idealistic fantasy and how, even if it were real, it would be polluted with sin (‘sin’ probably wouldn’t be his choice of word, but it works). Grossman wants his readers to accept that even if good triumphs over evil, it’s often a fluke. There is no great destiny, and if it seems that you are meant to do something, it’s because someone human has set you up for it. In his opinion, though children’s books like Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter are great works of literature, they ultimately set children up for disappointment. I can’t say I agree completely with his outlook, but it is one worth reflecting on.

In summery: far too many incohesive ideas for one book; decently written; read like a fan fiction; showed a lot of creative promise that was ultimately undeveloped; offered quite a bit of character development that either wasn’t properly smoothed or was discarded; more explicit content than was needed. I give The Magicians a 3 out of 5.

Silent Conversation: A Play on Words

I had quite a few different things I wanted to do for ‘Something Borrowed,” but I settled on this…because it’s just awesome.

For those of you who know me, I studied English in college. I have a soft spot for words. Audible texture. A well written sentence should feel like a fine truffle in one’s mouth; a crunch, crumbling bite, filled with something smooth to roll over and under the tongue in contemplation of its flavor, feeling, and depth. Words are a banquet for the oral. I could honestly write a whole post on just this idea.

But what if you could play with your food? Silent Conversation by Gregory Weir allows you to do just that. But Katelyn, you say, word games are old news!

Alice in Wonderland

Perhaps. But Silent Conversation is more than a typical word game. You play as “I,” highlighting and hitting all of the words on the page before you. The words that happen to be parts of exquisite works of classic literature. From T.S. Eliot to H.P. Lovecraft, Weir allows the user to ‘play as he reads.’

This is a casual gamer’s game. It gameplay is light (though the reading’s not always!), and overall is not a long game. It’s beautiful in its simplicity of appearance, and the soundtrack is elegant. Take a moment and test it–you won’t be disappointing!

For a little more information, check out one of Weir’s posts here.

Perhaps a cheap cop-out?

To begin, I’m still hoping someone will comment at some point in time. 😉 Believe it or not, I can actually see how many people visit, and this really was started as a way to spur on conversation.

I feel a bit guilty linking another video for Something Borrowed, but I also feel guilty for not updating sooner, and as it is, my mind is tired. I did give you something good and beautiful to mentally munch on–Evergreen credited to director Yoann Lemoine. I stumbled upon this one day while browsing Youtube, and was stunned by the imagery and music. Intrigued by a mind who could create this, I went on a man hunt, and found out that he’s responsible for directing Taylor Swift’s Back to December and Katie Perry’s Teenage Dream. I’ll admit, I hadn’t watched either video, and was not expecting to be as impressed, but I did enjoy the visual suggestions of the songstress in Back to December being slowly invaded by the December her male counterpart kept living in. Moving on…

As I continued my research (I really wanted to know who wrote and performed the music), I came to realize the video had been credited to Lemoine, and yet I couldn’t find substantial evidence to prove he actually directed it. Now, I won’t say he didn’t, but I was unable to find a reference to Evergreen on his site, and all other sites were…non-informative at best, and generally sketch. If you do know who created the video, or who wrote the music, please do let me know. Whether or not Lemoine directed this video, it’s definitely worth watching. I’m sorry I don’t have a higher resolution link to post.

Well Over Time

OK, I should have posted “Something Borrowed” a good bit ago. I’m already falling behind. But I’m going to post something right now, and I’ll post something later to catch up for this week!

I’ve had a number of suggestions for what to put for “Something Borrowed,” but I decided to “borrow” Fablehaven by Brandon Mull for today.

The five-book series follows Kendra and Seth Sorenson as they uncover the secret operation their grandparents are running on their farm known as Fablehaven. As it turns out, Fablehaven isn’t a farm at all, but a sanctuary for mythical beings, housing everything from fairies and trolls to a giant cow and demons. Keeping such a “farm” running is more work than Seth and Kendra could possibly imagine, especially when it must be protected from both the outside world and itself.

For you juvenile fiction junkies like myself, you’ll find Fablehaven a refreshing and original take on the fantastical world. While mythological creatures are generally traditional, their roles, attitudes, and morals add an interesting spin. It seems as of late that there is a return of sorts in juvenile and YA fiction to ‘dark’ or a more malicious Fae, and while Fablehaven does lean in certain areas towards that, Mull does a good job of not dowsing us in a depressing gothic bath. Fairies, satyrs, demons, vampires (or blixes, as they known), and yes, dragons, are all treated with the respect of traditional fairy tails as well given a dose of our modern love for these creatures. (Example: Dragons are aggressive, angry, and likely to eat you, yet they can be reasonable.)

I also personally love the character development in Kendra and Seth, but particularly Seth. We watch them grow, make regular mistakes and decisions, and be forced out of their respective comfort zones while maintaining their characters.

Mull uses his books as an effective medium to teach kids about respect for one’s elders, the difference between courage and recklessness, and the reality of consequences for one’s actions. Occasionally, it can seem a little overdone or preechy, but overall Mull also does a good job of balancing the morals with the story.

While these books are clearly written for children, I think they really follow the C.S. Lewis rule: they are enjoyable for adults, too. I found myself at the library three times in a week just to get my hands on the next book, and was both satisfied and sad when I closed the cover. I get the feeling you will, too.