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dsrtao_Why Me?_, _Good Behavior_, _Drowned Hopes_, by Donald Westlake
_The Magicians_, by Lev Grossman
Three more Dortmunder crime farces, which brings me up to 7 or so. If you like this sort of thing, you will like these. Less amusing than Maijstral the Allowed Burglar, at least as amusing as the Saint on a good day.
Grossman's new novel is a sort of logical retort to Harry Potter: if, he is saying, if there really were schools for magic, then they wouldn't be much like Hogwarts at all. Apparently they would be more like New England prep schools. Also, if Narnia were a real alternate universe, it might not be quite so much fun to play in. Full of ideas which seem to have been generated in a fury of negative reactions, which is not all that bad an operating method. Has the J.D. Salinger problem: in the end, privileged whining emo twits are still previous three adjectives. Magic seems to be immensely powerful at combatting magic, not so good at solving real problems. This book is likely to be loved by some and hated by others. I'm torn.
_The Magicians_, by Lev Grossman
Three more Dortmunder crime farces, which brings me up to 7 or so. If you like this sort of thing, you will like these. Less amusing than Maijstral the Allowed Burglar, at least as amusing as the Saint on a good day.
Grossman's new novel is a sort of logical retort to Harry Potter: if, he is saying, if there really were schools for magic, then they wouldn't be much like Hogwarts at all. Apparently they would be more like New England prep schools. Also, if Narnia were a real alternate universe, it might not be quite so much fun to play in. Full of ideas which seem to have been generated in a fury of negative reactions, which is not all that bad an operating method. Has the J.D. Salinger problem: in the end, privileged whining emo twits are still previous three adjectives. Magic seems to be immensely powerful at combatting magic, not so good at solving real problems. This book is likely to be loved by some and hated by others. I'm torn.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-29 01:29 am (UTC)Coincidentally a coworker pointed to Hogwarts is a terrible school today, which is a fun take on this same problem.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-29 01:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-29 10:51 am (UTC)Much as I dislike the Harry Potter empire, I have to note that Hogwarts is very much based on your traditional British public school. "Public" having pretty much the opposite meaning it has in the US educational system -- in the UK, it means nose-bleedingly expensive private school running on the Arnold system, developed to shape the character of the administrators of a world-spanning empire. Boarding in dormitories, cold showers, lots of exercise, divided into houses (for competitive purposes), and so on.
I went to a second-tier member of the breed (minus the boarding bit -- basically a grammar school with aspirations) and hated it: that's probably part of why I dislike the Harry Potter thing.
"New England prep schools" are precisely as fantastic to me as Hogwarts obviously is to Grossman.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-29 01:35 pm (UTC)As near as I can tell (never having been to either but having read the literature of both), NE prep schools are based on English public schools.