By Lev Grossman

Yesterday I was in a small town in rural Pennsylvania. We stopped into a small bookstore and while perusing, found a small book I had heard about, but never ran down – Warp by Lev Grossman. It was his debut novel…and some ideas and character archetypes would be used in The Magicians.

The book centers around Hollis Kessler and friends… recent college graduates in Boston from a prestigious university. Hollis is drifting – unmotivated to find a job, cut off from his parents money (by his own actions), broken up with the love of his life, and avoiding his landlord. His life is full of pop culture and a rich internal life. This leads to questions about his reliability as a narrator (what is real and what is Memorex). Most of the novel is about his drifting, his relationships, and his not having relationships. And like a lot of media from the mid 90s a lot of pop culture references – quotes, discussions, and imagination based around it.

So, Hollis is what I imagined Quintin Coldwater would have been without magic. There are other characters that are proto other characters. Interesting if you liked the books or TV series. As for Hollis – I understand the post graduation feeling of “what am I doing with my life.” And it captures the spirit of the era well. But Hollis is an entitled young man, running around with a group of equally entitled young people. The kind I would have avoided in real life. I like Grossman’s writing style

183 Pages

3/5