What makes this even more aggravating is that when Grossman focuses his energy and exceptional talent on original material, rather than a pastiche of White or Rowling, he creates truly spectacular set-pieces. The chapter where a Brakebills class is disrupted by the inadvertent summoning of a seemingly benign, even banal entity, is one of the most frightening and unexpected scenes I've read in years. The long sequence that begins as an homage to the avian shapeshifting in The Sword in the Stone develops into a glorious, strange, and powerfully moving paean to enchantment that is all Grossman's own. Ditto the exquisite, fractal transitional world that he summons late in the novel, when Quentin and his friends finally journey to Fillory.
A deeper problem, I think, is that in many ways The Magicians aspires to be both a critique of the fantasy genre, as well as a full-blooded fantasy novel. Grossman wants to have his potion and drink it too. Other writers have grappled with this, notably M. John Harrison in his Viriconium sequence and later short stories, and especially in his 1992 novel The Course of the Heart, a book that The Magicians sometimes resembles.
Harrison's solution is to deny his readers the solace of seeing what's on the other side of the enchanted wardrobe. He brilliantly constructs fantasy narratives, utilizing all the tricks at his disposal: he's like a master stage magician enticing his audience through the traditional steps in a magic show: the Pledge, or build-up; the Turn, where the trick is actually played; and finally the Prestige, where the disappeared object returns, the woman sawed in half bounds to her feet again, and so on. In fantasy terms, the Prestige is roughly analogous to Tolkien's eucatastrophe, but Harrison is having none of it. In an interview in Parietal Games: Critical Writings by and on M. John Harrison, he says
...the whole point ... is to bring the reader to the point where normally they would go through the portal, they would be allowed to go through the portal, encouraged to go through the portal.... Most of my short stories are kind of portal fantasies but you are not allowed through into the imaginary country, you're not allowed to believe in the fantasy. You're not allowed through, or it's undermined, or it's shown to be just as ordinary as what you left—which is actually the one I favor—mainly because what I'm trying to get the reader to do in that kind of story is this: if you run the reader as quickly as possible through the narrative with plenty of narrative push-through, plenty of speed, you get a crash at the end, you get a real sense of “Whoo! Why aren't I allowed through?” or “I walked through the door and there was no room on the other side” or “I just fell” or “the door was slammed in my face.” That is a violent collision.... What happens to the reader in that instant? What happens to the particular fantasy in that instant of coming off the rails?.... To actually see what makes fantasy work, especially how it transfers from our heads to a made narrative. Or at least to make the reader question both the nature of fantasy and the nature of reality.
I quote this lengthy observation because, for much of his wildly ambitious novel, it seems to be exactly what Grossman is about, too. But I think he loses it when the action shifts to Fillory, where, despite his best efforts, The Magicians relies on those three clichés against which Le Guin inveighed. The characters are white (though maybe I missed something; they all seemed like pretty bland white young urbanites to me); in Fillory, it's sort of the middle ages; and there's a battle between good and evil. And while Grossman gives lip service to the notion that Quentin and his friends aren't quite sure whose side they're on in the final showdown, it was pretty clear to me where the lines were drawn.
Finally, I didn't buy the ending, which seemed more a sop to readers’ expectations (and the possibility of a sequel) than anything else. Still, my caveats all stem from the fact that this is one of the best fantasies I've read in ages, and I wanted it to be, you know, perfect. I wanted more.
Turkish Delight, anyone?
* * * *
*Although I counted six titles: not sure if this is an intended part of some mystery I have not solved or a printer's error in my Advanced Reader's Copy.
Short Story: YOU ARE SUCH A ONE by By Nancy Springer
Nancy Springer reports that her fiftieth published book, The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline: An Enola Holmes Mystery, should be on the shelves by the time this issue hits the stands. Her latest story concerns a woman who does not, under most circumstances, like to make a fuss.
You could not be a more middle-aged middle-class middle-American menopausal woman. You know this because you are driving alone and dutifully to the funeral of a family member whom you never met, and you are counting your hot flashes to pass the time. (Twelve so far.) You know how middle-everything you are because you had trouble getting time off, and you have worked at the same bank for twenty-three years, and you are still a teller while a guy who trained along with you is now the vice-president, yet you process millions of dollars with your tastefully manicured hands and never sneak one for yourself. You have been married even longer, and you have never cheated at that job either, and know you never will, just as you know that when you sleep tonight you will dream—and even your dream is predictable. Nearly every night for years and years you have dreamed the exact same vivid dream, a night sweat of the mind, a hallucinatory hot flash to be disregarded like your other symptoms; nobody wants to hear about it.
The cell phone on the passenger seat next to you remains silent as you drive. During personal heat wave du jour number thirteen, a broiler, torrid enough to make you yearn to shred your navy blue suit, you see your exit and get off the interstate. You have planned ahead, made yourself a motel reservation, but several miles later you start to worry; was that perhaps the wrong exit? You are driving down the middle of a rudimentary road, a country lane in Nebraska, where you have never in your life been before.
You would swear a court deposition to that fact.
Yet, rounding a curve, you flash not hot but sweaty cold, for before you manifests the intimately, impossibly familiar.
The house.
You slam on the brakes.
You stare through your trifocals.
It is the house from the dream.
Your dream. Your repetitive nightly dream. Always the same, always eidetically clear, the dream in which you enter this house.
Not what one would usually consider a dream house. A modest dwelling—yet unmistakable. You recognize it in the holistic, coded-into-your-DNA way you would recognize your mother's face if she were alive, yet you would have just as much difficulty describing it. Except for disjunctive details. The gazebo. The sundial, the birdbath, the celadon-green gazing ball. Circular things. Over the front door, a stained-glass rose window. Somewhere inside, you know, is a spiral staircase. Every night in your dream you walk up the trapezoidal steps, wearing a soft gown that petals you as if you were a lily, barefoot—
A horn toots briefly, politely. Behind you, a local in a pickup is waiting for you to get out of the middle of the road.
You pull over in front of the house to let him pass, and thus decide that you are going to stop for just a few minutes, see whether anyone is home, ask questions. You get out of your car, telling yourself that there must be an explanation, that perhaps your parents brought you here when you were two or three, that you are having a déjà vu experience beyond conscious memory—but what would your parents have been doing here? In this state of Nebraska and confusion?
Although you don't like to call attention to yourself—no, it's more than reticence; admit the truth: you are irrationally afraid—although feeling spooked, you walk toward the house. In the navy blue business suit that absolutely does not petal you like any flower, you stride across the lawn before you lose your nerve. The place is neither landscaped nor unkempt. Bushes, inert and taupe now in winter, stand at random distances from one another, ovoid or globular. Husks of last fall's chrysanthemums flank the front door. You look for a doorbell; there is none. You knock. Solid wood, the door barely acknowledges. You knock again, harder, then hear footsteps within.
The do
or is opened by a rather short, unremarkable man, dark of hair and skin, perhaps Latino. Ordinary—and you cannot admit even to yourself how relieved you are to see just an ordinary man—except that when he sees you, the generous russet and olive tints of his face fade like old shingles to gray.
"Please excuse me for intruding,” you say, concerned by his reaction and trying to put him at ease, for you are the sort of person who is always thinking of others, “but I wonder if you would tell me something about this house. Is it yours?"
The man swallows twice before answering, “No, señora. I am the, how you say, the caretaker."
"Really?” You are surprised, for the residence seems middle-class, like you, not upscale enough for the sort of people who would have servants. “Do the owners live here only in the summer, then?"
"The owners live here not at all."
"What? Why not?"
"Because the gringos, they call it, how you say, haunted. But to my people—"
Involuntarily you echo, “Haunted?"
"Yes, señora."
"But—but what do you mean, haunted?"
"You should know, señora. You are the ghost."
* * * *
Only yesterday you were joking with one of the other tellers about being invisible. Short, graying, and perhaps potty-trained a bit too early, you had stood unnoticed at a lunch counter while half a dozen other people rushed in front of you and were served. This sort of thing has been happening to you for years. Asked why you do not speak up, you say you don't like to make a fuss.
This is true. You are a very civilized person. So why, now, are you barking like a chimpanzee, “What? What did you say?"
Humbly the Latino man attempts to explain. “I have many times myself seen you on the escalera, señora. You are the ghost who—"
Why, now, are you interrupting? Shouting? “I am not a ghost!"
"Pardon, señora—"
"I am not a ghost!” Your fists curl, your head lowers, your chin juts, you step toward him. Yet, because you know your middle name is Meek, you are surprised when he yelps, says something prayerful in Spanish, and retreats, shutting the door. You hear the click as he locks it.
You now learn what it means to be “beside oneself.” Who is this woman pounding on the white door with both fists, shouting “Open up! I am not finished with you! I am not a ghost!” Beside yourself, you discover that you know how to curse. Beside yourself, you learn that shouting feeds upon cursing as you stamp back to your car, yelling, “I am not a ghost! God damn it all to hell! I am not a ghost!” Beside yourself, you spray gravel as you rev out of there.
In a few moments you reduce speed, cease shouting, and begin instead to weep. You now know that you are not, after all, going to your great-uncle whatsisface's funeral, but you have no idea why you are crying.
* * * *
In the nearest town you find a cheap motel where you book a room, paying with cash. You do not bother to cancel your reservation at the other motel and save the money that will otherwise be charged to your credit card. Any such practical considerations seem to have flown out of a circular stained-glass window. Lying atop a linty chenille bedspread, you eye your cell phone, which remains silent. Your husband has not called. You will not call him. Many times he has made it clear that he does not want to hear about your “damn stupid dream.” He will not care whether you are a ghost or not.
You turn the cell phone off and let it drop to the floor.
You now stare at the ceiling. Cheap tiles. Square. No circles anywhere.
Menopausal heat comes and goes. You are a geyser that spouts sweat at irregular intervals; you are no longer keeping track of the eruptions.
In your cavernous gut, hunger crawls. But not the sort that food would satisfy. So you just lie where dust mites roam. For a long time. As day turns to dark.
And as you slowly, slowly go to sleep, making the transition so gradually that you become mindful of what you are doing.
Therefore, things are subtly different. This time, even though the dream is, as always, ineffably right—the starry night in which you can see without any other light, your lily-petal gown so soft, flowing to your bare feet that feel no cold, that stand upon the compass-rose tiled floor of the gazebo, where you always begin—even though this is perfection, you feel muted resentment, because you should not be a ghost. Why are you haunting? Yet as if you have no control of your own body—or no, not body, for you are floating, incorporeal, and you sullenly love your freedom from glands and heat and weight—as if you have no control over your being, you glide into the nightly ritual. Issuing forth from the encirclement of the gazebo, you circle the house, caressing the gazing globe the color of a luna moth, the birdbath, the sundial, and—
And it is winter; you are tired of winter; you want wild green grass and the heady fragrance of springtime blossoms. Since you are asleep and this is just a dream, why can't you have them? It's about time you had something you want. You touch a sere, bulbous bush, and it bursts into yellow bloom; forsythia. There. Under your feet, lawn like emerald fire springs up, and puffball mushrooms; you stand at the center of a ring of them fit for pixies to dance in.
The white puffballs are a gift; you would never have thought of them. But a gift from what? Or from whom? Bemused, you continue your rounds, wafting into the house through the rose of stained glass.
Inside, things are not professionally decorated but not a dump either, just tidy and boring except for the circular pedestal table with antique doily, which—as always—attracts you down to ground level, as if it were put there for that reason. This time, however, as you stand admiring the detail of the doily, an area rug springs up beneath your feet, its lilac-and-daffodil yang/yin circle quite at variance with the otherwise staid furnishings.
As is the stairway, its open spiral an unusual feature in a middle-class house like this. Drifting over there, you wonder what's upstairs. Even though you have climbed the spiral in a thousand dreams or more, you do not remember what you find at the top. The difference this time is that you know you are dreaming, so you know that you should know, and your own blankness annoys you. The mystery at the top of the spiral is, after all, the hub of the matter, and why did you not realize this before?
You begin to climb. You could simply waft up there the way you wafted through the rose window, but you enjoy the novelty of ascending the stairway without effort, unlabored by the mass of your own body, as if each bleached wooden riser were a springboard. With one hand clinging to the central pillar you swing, ascending, with your long weightless gown fluttering; you are white ribbon unwinding, unwinding up a maypole to—where? At the top of the stairs, you can see now, is a closed door, quite a curious and fascinating wooden door, painted shrimp pink, its arched top carved with a circular motif. Distracted like a child from play, you hurry the rest of the way. The carving on the door is rather like the doily on the pedestal table, radial symmetry at its most intricate and beautiful, but unreadable.
You try the door. It is locked. Which is not fair, because this is your room, you know with sudden ontological certainty. Don't the idiots realize that's the whole reason you keep coming here, to get into your room? How dare they try to—
Wait a minute. They can't keep you out. There's a carved circle on the door. You can waft right through, the way you flew into the house through the rose window. You're a ghost.
No. No, you're not a ghost. Not.
Suddenly furious, like a cop on TV you kick the door, meaning to break it down. Your bare foot feels no pain from the impact, for there is none. Instead, your impetus carries you halfway through the door. Your foot comes down inside. Your head stops approximately in the middle of the carved circle.
You are looking at your room.
Yes, it is your room.
Square.
Bare.
Windowless.
Colorless.
Unpainted, uncarpeted.
Small.
Low.
Empty.
Driving past the house the next day, you see a forsythia bush in full bloom, although winter reigns all around. You see a patch of emerald-green grass wearing its own white pearl necklace. You see the Latino caretaker standing in the front yard peering at these manifestations. And for the first time since you woke up weeping in the night, you begin to sense that you need not despair.
You begin to feel inklings of possibility.
You feel a heat in you, but it is not just another hot flash; it is white fire kindling at your core, so that the fountain can burst forth.
But this is daytime, and daytime is rife with doubt. Can you—will you truly do it? Any of it? Things you never knew you had within you?
As never before, you long for night, for sleep.
* * * *
A few days later, driving past the house, you see that a cupola has sprouted, as round and sudden as a mushroom, from its roof.
Smiling, you drive in as if you own the place—which in effect you do—and park in front. The caretaker, when he opens the door, bursts into a torrent of distraught Spanish and tries to shut you out, but anticipating this move, you have, in time-honored style, inserted your foot, protectively clad in a hiking boot that goes with your new blue jeans and colorful nylon jacket. Gesturing with palms down, you gaze at the man with the expression of benevolent and competent concern that has served you well from behind the teller's window. You are a nice person. A civilized person. It is a shame for anyone to shout at you. The caretaker's spate falters, and you address him with great sincerity, “I believe we can help each other. Did I understand you to say that your people know all about ghosts?"
FSF, August-September 2009 Page 5