Grossman engages the reader’s material reality with his multiple layers of fantasy more effectively than the single-layer fantasy novels of Rowling, Lewis, or Tolkien before him. The meta-fantasy theme had me believing once again that the universes of famous fantasy novels could actually be possible. However, Grossman overall is successful in providing a contemporary alternative to the fantasy paradigm.
The Magician’s Land is the weakest of the series Grossman is mostly concerned with checking off any loose ends that the previous two books had left dangling. In doing this, Grossman solidifies the connection every fan of fantasy has ever hoped for, between this world and the world of wonder, magic, and possibility. Upon returning back to Earth, Quentin and Alice cast the land-making spell, creating a bridge between the fourth floor of a Manhattan home to the magical land of Fillory. Thus, love and creation become the meaningful existence that Quentin had sought since the beginning of the first novel when he first found out he was a magician.Įventually, Quentin is able to bring back Alice and save Fillory one last time from an apocalyptic ending. Along his quest to bring Alice back, Quentin recovers a spell - stolen from Fillory by one of the Chatwin siblings - that would allow the caster to create a land. Grossman is not subtle with his efforts to show how Quentin has matured into a more emotionally well-rounded and magically powerful character.
In The Magician’s Land, Quentin has finally realized what his true calling is: to bring his first love, Alice, back into the world of living. The final book of the trilogy, The Magician’s Land, was released in August of this year. Unless magic, sorcery, wizardry, or any of the like exists somewhere in this world - and I can’t say I don’t believe it possible - art is the closest approximation humans in this world have to something that closes the distance between reality and experience. The most similar thing that we muggles have in this reality is art. Magicians can actually look at reality and change it. Magic for Quentin and the other characters is a way of dissolving the distance between mind and reality. The characters search desperately for a calling in various worlds and struggle to feel connected to any of the worlds they adventure in. Using the common fantasy trope of the quest, Grossman has Coldwater wondering what his quest will be and if it will ever find him.
At the same time, the characters are asking existential questions about the nature of creation and how to find meaning in the empty reality of the world. Grossman’s characters journey to Fillory, which enthralls them the way I was enthralled with Hogwarts. As it turns out, the Fillory series is based in truth: Fillory is real, and the Chatwins ruled over it for some time. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia) is about a group of English orphans, the Chatwins, who stumble upon a portal to a magical land, Fillory, in their aunt’s home during World War I. The fictitious Fillory series (which seems to be loosely based on C.S. Each of the three novels is focused on Quentin Coldwater, a huge fan of a child’s fantasy series about a distant and magical land called Fillory.