The Magician's Land is a book about books. It's about the magic of reading -- literal magic, in Lev Grossman's world -- and the power of words, both wThe Magician's Land is a book about books. It's about the magic of reading -- literal magic, in Lev Grossman's world -- and the power of words, both what you say and what you don't say. As one of his characters says, once you read a book, you can't unread it.
It was, for me, a great read, which I guess is a way of saying it's a great novel. But I don't mean great in the sense that it'll win awards or end up on being used in high school or college curricula. To a reader, a great novel is the one you don't want to end. And when it does end, you don't want to go on to the next novel on your bedside table or Kindle. You want to sit on this one for a while, partly because you're still thinking about the story and the characters, but mostly because you know the next one you read won't be nearly as good.
So I thought about why it's so much more satisfying than other novels I've read in the past year or two. Part of it, I think, is what you find when you look at the pub dates: The Magicians, the first book in the trilogy, came out 5 years ago, in 2009. The Magician King (which, like most middle novels, wasn't especially satisfying) came out 2 years later. Then it was another 3 years before we got this one.
I bring this up because all the advice I see for self-published novelists is to write fast. A novel a month, in some cases. One author recently wrote that he averages 1,000 words an hour. I haven't read any of his work, but when I've tried to read the work of other indie stars, I come away with a couple of negative impressions. Either it feels like I'm reading the outline for what could be a good story -- a polished outline, to be sure, but nothing I'd describe as a fully realized novel -- or it feels, for lack of a better word, amateurish.
A couple weeks ago I downloaded and started to read a first novel by a new writer who's getting some attention. Right away I noticed something strange: double spaces after periods. "Don't double-space after a period" may be the first thing I was taught in my first editing class in journalism school. The second thing I noticed is less specific, but more harsh. To my eyes, it reads like that first novel you show to a few people or workshop in a writing program. Maybe it gets you an agent, who sees your promise as a storyteller. But you're still 2 or 3 novels away. And once you do the hard work it takes to find yourself as a writer, you don't want to show that first novel to anyone.
People are buying and reading the novel -- it has well over 100 reviews on Amazon, averaging 4 1/2 stars -- which shows that the author doesn't need my approval, or that of people who might think like me, to make it in an extremely competitive business. There's clearly an audience that wants what he does, and what the others are doing. They fill a need that's always been there, and is typically ignored by the publishing industry.
But as a reader, I hate work that looks like it was written in a hurry by someone who's committed to volume over quality.
If there's a downside to writing at Grossman's pace, it only applies to a reader like me, who bought each book the week it came out. It took me a while to remember who the characters are, and why they find themselves in their current circumstances. As a reader, it's a lot easier to pick up a series late in the cycle so you can read each one while its predecessor is still fresh. That's how I read Lord of the Rings, His Dark Materials, and the first four Song of Ice and Fire books.
The upside, though, is that you get books that feel like they're fully realized. And that's the best description of The Magician's Land. Grossman makes his characters grow up. His hero, Quentin Coldwater, has to let go of who he used to be so he can become the person he needs to be. That means accepting the consequences of his youthful mistakes and, quite literally, stepping into unknown territory as a wiser, humbler man.
Of course he's still a magician with awesome powers -- it is a fantasy -- but he now understands his limitations along with his strengths.
The highest compliment I can give an author is that I wish I could read it again for the first time. But, like the man said, once you've read a book, you can't unread it. Now I begin the search for the next novel that gives me that sensation.
I started The Accident with a basic question: How could anyone be audacious enough to set a thriller in the world of publishing? What could be less thI started The Accident with a basic question: How could anyone be audacious enough to set a thriller in the world of publishing? What could be less thrilling than a business filled by people like me, who sit on our asses all day writing and editing?
I almost stopped reading just a few chapters in. Just about every point-of-view character, upon introduction, promptly looks at him- or herself in a mirror so the reader knows exactly what he or she looks like. Wouldn't someone who works in publishing, as Chris Pavone has for decades, understand what a cliche this is, and try to avoid it? Especially in a book about publishing?
Maybe it's a cliche because readers want it. It's always seemed weird to me. When I'm trying to get into a new story, the last thing I want is extensive details on each character's appearance and fashion choices. Just tell me a couple things and let me fill in the rest with my imagination.
I'm glad I kept reading. The first thrill for me, as a reader, came 30% of the way in, when Pavone pays off an important clue he plants right at the beginning. (It involves a pronoun, a plot twist only an editor would dream up.) After that, the story rocketed along. Even when I could see the author's manipulations -- at least half of the twists and revelations in the final act seemed to come from backstory details that the characters knew along -- I didn't mind, because it worked.
Now I guess I have to check out his previous novel, The Expats. This time I'll know not to despair if the characters all look in mirrors to describe themselves. It's still a cliche, but it's one Pavone gets away with.
I stopped reading hardcore crime novels a while back because they all started to feel the same to me. Create a hero, give him or her a code of honor aI stopped reading hardcore crime novels a while back because they all started to feel the same to me. Create a hero, give him or her a code of honor and a few colorful or perhaps debilitating quirks, have bad things happen, come up with a way for the hero to prevail.
An author can do that well or do it poorly, but after a while it always seemed like I paid more attention to the gears than to the machine. Oh, there's the quirky and/or psychopathic friend. Here comes the scene where we're endeared to the hero because he or she loves dogs, or children, or beer.
I only found Where the Sun Don't Shine because Mike's a friend and colleague. I think all writers can relate to the trepidation I felt when I started reading. My biggest fear was that I just wouldn't like it -- that I'd focus more on the turning gears than the characters or story. I'm happy to say that fear was forgotten within the first few pages.
The story takes off and never lets you relax. The plot twists catch you off guard, and the humor consistently arises from character and situation. The setting is novel -- a left-for-dead coal-mining town in Pennsylvania -- and the characters feel unique. Their dialogue is funny, and relentlessly R-rated. There are better and worse ways to do that, since nobody can actually go through life talking that way. It makes sense within the context of this story and these people, in that desolate setting. (I should note here that it's based on the real PA town of Centralia, although I'm 99% sure the events are entirely the author's invention.)
This is a classic example of a really good book that slipped through the cracks of mainstream publishing.
When I was writing Saints Alive, I assigned myself the duty of making up a new theology, one based on the idea that saints actually intercede in the dWhen I was writing Saints Alive, I assigned myself the duty of making up a new theology, one based on the idea that saints actually intercede in the daily lives of people. That's what I was taught as a young Catholic. But the way they intercede was entirely my own invention, as was the process by which they become saints in the first place.
But a question nagged at me as I progressed from draft to draft: How far could I go without totally alienating readers who were perfectly okay with the existing theology? Giving offense certainly has its place in the arts, but the older I get, the less upside I see in it for me. My goal is to entertain, not alienate.
Chris Moore provided a nice model for what I wanted to pull off. I can't remember when I read Lamb (my paperback edition came out in 2002, so it was probably around then), but I know his handling of New Testament events made an impression on me. I saw it as a way to walk a very narrow comic path without losing his nerve or getting sidetracked into darker, potentially offensive territory.
The book itself? I thought it was engrossing and entertaining -- exactly what he must've intended. I don't have specific memories of the reading experience. I probably didn't find it as funny as The Stupidest Angel, but I remember liking it more than Practical Demonkeeping, Moore's first novel.
But mainly I admire it for the difficult trick he pulled off, and all the pitfalls he avoided....more
I first heard about this book while voting for a friend's book in the recent 欧宝娱乐 contest. Because I bought the Kindle edition, I had no idea howI first heard about this book while voting for a friend's book in the recent 欧宝娱乐 contest. Because I bought the Kindle edition, I had no idea how long it was until I was deep into the story. Then I had to keep reading because -- and this seems incredibly rare in a book with supernatural elements -- I genuinely cared about the characters and couldn't figure out where the author was going with the story.
TWG2RM could be alternately titled "Pride and Prejudice and Magicians," and maybe if I'd read Jane Austen the story would've been more predictable, or I would've seen some of the mechanics behind the characterizations. As it was, I was reminded of Lev Grossman's two Magicians novels, in a good way. It's fun to see characters pulled from our world and thrown headlong into another, one where the hero is the only person who doesn't understand the rules.
That said, the slow pace was sometimes frustrating. Nora, the hero, spends a lot of time doing mundane things in a world without automation. It wasn't until I got to the book's final chapters that I understood why Emily Barker couldn't race through the dull bits. In her alternate world, magic only works to the extent that it can manipulate natural forces -- water, fire, the clay used to make simple dishes and bowls. The methodical process of learning how to do it wouldn't make as much sense if we didn't see Nora's methodical process of learning everything. She even has to learn how to read in a new language.
Class is also important in the magical world (a theme I probably would've caught on to faster if I'd read P&P), particularly because no one is sure which class Nora belongs to. Is she a commoner? Nobility? A nobleman's mistress? She instinctively judges people by their abilities, and expects the same in return, but meritocracy is a foreign concept in this world. I'm pretty sure there's only one character who's managed to ascend from the peasantry to a high position, and IIRC he's described but never actually introduced.
In my own world, I place TWG2RM below The Magicians as a reading experience but above Deborah Harkness's Discovery of Witches, which I found too tedious to finish. Every time the story looked like it might start moving, the author stopped to describe what everyone in the scene was wearing. I'll give Barker a lot of credit for letting me imagine her world in my own way.
But mostly I give her credit for keeping me engaged enough to keep reading a very long book that offers no promise of a happy ending, and every possibility of the opposite. ...more
I was 7 years old when my hometown Cardinals beat the Yankees in 7 games in the 1964 World Series. I have just the vaguest memories of the series itseI was 7 years old when my hometown Cardinals beat the Yankees in 7 games in the 1964 World Series. I have just the vaguest memories of the series itself, like the fact they played the games during the day, and the nuns at my school would wheel a tiny black-and-white TV into our classroom so we could watch.
As I got older I came to think of the players in that series as baseball demigods. The Yankees had Mantle, Maris, and Ford, along with all-stars like Elston Howard, Tom Tresh, and Tony Kubek. Their best pitcher in the series was Jim Bouton, who later became famous for writing Ball Four.
And the Cardinals! They had Hall of Famers Lou Brock and Bob Gibson, borderline Hall of Famer Ken Boyer (whose brother Clete played for the Yankees), and so many guys who later made their mark on baseball off the field.
Curt Flood, the brilliant center fielder, became famous for challenging baseball's reserve clause. Bob Uecker, a backup catcher, became a brilliant comedian and broadcaster.
It seems like every key player in that series stayed in the game as a broadcaster, coach, or executive. On TV and radio you had (and in some cases still have) Tim McCarver, Mike Shannon, Bill White, Dick Groat, Kubek. Roger Craig and Mel Stottlemyre were influential pitching coaches. Dal Maxvill, the Cards' shortstop, was later the team's GM. Bill White became president of the American League.
Stottlemyre's son was later a pitcher for the Cards. The Cards had a young utility player named Ed Spiezio, whose son Scott, a utility infielder, was a key player on two world championship teams -- the Angels in 2002 and the Cardinals in 2006.
I knew all that before I picked up October 1964. And I still learned a lot from the book, particularly the racist abuse the Cardinals' African American players, including Gibson and Flood, had to endure. But the qualities they brought to the game, the athleticism and toughness, changed it forever. The 1964 World Series also marked a shift from decades of Yankees dominance to the post-dynasty era, with one team after another rising up for a short time, and then quickly dropping back to the pack.
I recommend this book to anyone who's a baseball fan and a history buff. ...more
When I saw the movie version of The Shining, probably right when it came out in 1980, I remember having two reactions:
1. I thought it was a great moviWhen I saw the movie version of The Shining, probably right when it came out in 1980, I remember having two reactions:
1. I thought it was a great movie.
2. I didn't get why people who read the book had such a negative response. Didn't they recognize great art when they saw it?
At some point I tried to read The Shining, just to see what I was missing. All I remember from the opening chapters was the line "officious little prick." It stuck with me, but for the wrong reasons. At the time it drove me away from the page.
I don't remember giving another thought to the work of Stephen King until he published Misery in 1987. I heard from writer friends that it was the King novel for people who don't like King novels. So I gave it a shot, and came away impressed, embarrassed, and perplexed. I thought it was an absolutely brilliant suspense novel. It made me feel silly for avoiding his work, especially for thinking it was somehow beneath my standards. If his other novels were even close to Misery, I was cheating myself by not reading them.
So when he came out with The Dark Half in 1989 -- like Misery, a novel about a writer tortured by his own success in a genre he despises -- I dove right in. My first impression was that the writing and characterizations were several notches below Misery. But the story moved along, and was interesting enough to keep me going ... for a while. I quit reading about two-thirds of the way through. It felt like I was reading his first draft, a decent idea that needed some more development. I didn't know how the story turned out until I saw the movie version a few years later.
I didn't pick up another King book until I read On Writing a couple of years ago. Yet again I wondered what I was missing by not reading more of his fiction, and what that said about me both as a writer and a reader. So when my wife's book club chose The Stand, I decided it was time to start catching up. I got through a few hundred pages, which was maybe the first 40% of the book. I hated several of the characters, and didn't really care if any of them survived the plague that wiped out most of humanity. And that's supposed to be his masterpiece?
Which brings me back to The Shining, at long last. Laura Miller, whose opinions I hold in high regard, wrote a favorable review of Doctor Sleep, the sequel to The Shining. But as good as it is, she wrote, it can't match the book it's based on. So I downloaded The Shining to my Kindle (I think it was $4), and told myself I'm not giving up this time.
Of course I realized what a great story it is, and of course I realized why fans of the book wouldn't care for the movie version. As King himself said at the time, Jack Nicholson tips off his craziness too early. We don't see how hard he's working to be a good husband and father, or how hard the hotel has to work to get control of him. Like the old golf joke, the hotel didn't need to *drive* him crazy in the movie. It was really more of a chip shot.
The characters of Wendy Torrance (played as a ninny by Shelly Duvall) and Dick Hallorann (played with charismatic energy by Scatman Crothers) were similarly stripped of the qualities that made them interesting.
But I also struggled in places. Like The Dark Half and The Stand, I thought The Shining could've used a more assertive editor. The "captain obvious" chapter titles annoyed me a little. For example, the chapter in which the hotel explodes is titled "The Explosion." And the characters' asides to themselves -- set off in parenthesis, often in the middle of what was already an internal monologue -- annoyed me a lot. Then there was the shifting point of view. Sometimes the narration is detached, showing us the characters in ways they couldn't possibly see themselves, but then it'll abruptly shift to put us right inside their deepest, darkest thoughts. It felt like a cheat to not pick one or the other.
I know how absurd it is for a hack like me to critique a master like Stephen King. But at least I now have a better sense of what makes him a master. He knows how to tell a story. He knows how to keep us turning the pages. And as frustrating as his writing can be, he'll write lines like this one: "[T]o children adult motives and actions must seem as bulking and ominous as dangerous animals seen in the shadows of a dark forest. They were jerked about like puppets, having only the vaguest notions why."
That's from Wendy Torrance, who doesn't yet understand just how much her clairvoyant son sees. But she understands how little he knows. And she's exactly right: One continual element of suspense is the way Danny sees past and future events but, as a 5-year-old, can neither put them into context, nor explain them to his parents.
It's just one of more than a dozen examples I could've chosen to show King's mastery of his characters and themes. We see how deeply his characters empathize with each other, and we also get some nice foreshadowing of the terror they'll soon endure, in part because of that empathy.
I get that now. But there's still no way in hell I'm going back to finish The Stand....more
This was recommended by a friend of mine, an archaeologist. It came out of our mutual dislike of the notion, promoted by some advocates of the paleo dThis was recommended by a friend of mine, an archaeologist. It came out of our mutual dislike of the notion, promoted by some advocates of the paleo diet, that humans of the late stone age were perfectly adapted to their environment, and thus stopped evolving. By that logic, agriculture (and everything that followed) was a huge mistake.
Except, as it turns out, agriculture was a force for rapid and continued evolution. Lactose tolerance was a huge advantage to the first people who developed it. Same with the adaptations that allowed humans to thrive on grains as a staple of the diet.
And although the authors don't say it -- and probably weren't even thinking it at the time they wrote it -- the book ends with what may turn out to be an instructive look at how our current society is evolving.
The final chapter is called "Medieval Evolution: How the Ashkenazi Jews Got their Smarts." This particular group, who originally settled in what are now Germany and Poland, are known for high intelligence (with an average IQ 12-15% above the norm) and for devastating genetic disorders. My guess is that they're also an example of assortative mating: the most intelligent people of a group marry each other and have even more intelligent kids, who go on to marry the children of other intelligent parents.
Now we're seeing something similar, with dual-career couples of highly educated professionals living around and associating almost exclusively with similarly accomplished couples. This is happening at a time when the economic system has shifted toward increasing rewards for cognitive skill.
But with this push toward the outer edges of human potential comes an otherwise inexplicable rise in autistic-spectrum disorders. It may turn out that there's no link between the two and I'm completely off base. But it would seem to follow the same pattern described by the authors.
I read this book right before reading The Sports Gene, by David Epstein, which follows the same threads to help explain why extraordinary athletes seem to cluster in certain populations. The two books together give us a fascinating -- if still speculative -- look at the speed of human evolution in the right circumstances....more
It's hard to think of any book I've read recently -- fiction or nonfiction, adult or YA -- that starts off quite like this one. The front story is comIt's hard to think of any book I've read recently -- fiction or nonfiction, adult or YA -- that starts off quite like this one. The front story is compelling enough, but I couldn't wait to learn the backstory of how an alien invasion had pushed humans to the bring of extinction.
I don't think there's an author alive who can tell a story with his foot on the accelerator for 480 pages. No sane writer would even try. The bigger problem -- and this probably applies to 100% of unpublished novelists like me -- is taking the foot off and then leaving it off too long.
Not Rick Yancey's problem. Even the deliberately slow parts of his narrative aren't really slow. There's always mortal risk. The narrative shifts among multiple characters, and for most of the book we know just enough to be scared for the genuinely likable and vulnerable narrators.
By the end, I got the impression that Yancey was trapped by his own turbocharged narrative. I'm not giving anything away to say that the final act is pretty much all explosions and increasingly implausible acts of perfect timed daring.
Of course the whole thing's implausible; it's sci-fi, after all. But up to the third act, the characters, more often than not, make plausible decisions based on what they know at the time. Then that internal consistency goes away so a whole bunch of shit can blow up and all the characters you're invested in can survive for the sequel.
I understand it's not Game of Thrones. Few authors have the will or the skill to kill off beloved characters without losing their readers. But a lot of authors -- even in the YA/new adult gold rush -- have made tougher choices than Yancey makes, to better effect....more
This is my first exposure to Andersen Prunty, and I'm still not sure what to think of it. I think it was a story of an abused kid who takes a run throThis is my first exposure to Andersen Prunty, and I'm still not sure what to think of it. I think it was a story of an abused kid who takes a run through purgatory, seemingly on his way to hell (horns and all), and instead reaches heaven -- to his surprise as well as ours.
But I don't know if that's what the author actually had in mind. And I can't decide if that's brilliant ambiguity, or just weird.
The only recent book I can compare it to is Going Bovine, by Libba Bray. It's the YA story of a teenage nobody who isn't abused but is very much adrift in a middle-class world that he doesn't fit into. He gets mad cow disease and falls into a coma. The book's fantastical story takes place in his imagination as he lies dying in a hospital. We get hints that this is going on throughout the story, but since he's only vaguely aware that he's in a coma, it's not entirely clear until the end that his imaginary hero's journey is the only one he'll ever have.
Prunty isn't as explicit. His hero, Wallace Black, seems to slip from a nightmarish real life into pure nightmares without realizing that's what happened. But we never really know until a single sentence at the very end of the book, and even the narrator doesn't seem convinced of the information once he delivers it. It's up to the reader to go through the book's events and decide which way the author meant to go.
It's a dark, often funny book no matter how you look at it. But how you remember it depends, I would think, on what you believe the author had in mind. ...more
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