Episode 6.1: ‘The Magicians’ by Lev Grossman

We’re back for season six (!) of ‘The Dark Academicals’ and we’ve got a line-up full of spooks and scares for the best reading season of the year.

Our first pick takes us to a New York magic school and an obsession with a childhood fantasy book series in ‘The Magicians’ by Lev Grossman.

Quentin Clearwater is brilliant but miserable. Obsessed with the fantasy novels he read as a child, he finds the real world just doesn't compare.

Then one day it happens: he stumbles unexpectedly into a hidden world and is invited to join a very exclusive college, where he will learn the secrets of magic.

But something is still missing.

And now Quentin will do anything to find what he's always been looking for.

Does this portal fantasy have what it takes to also take the title of dark academia?

In this episode we discuss:

• The lacklustre magic system and world-building

• The numerous influences from ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ and ‘Harry Potter’

• Misogyny, ableism and fatphobia in the novel

You can listen to it here:

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TEXTS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• ‘The Magicians’ by Lev Grossman

• ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ by CS Lewis

• ‘Brideshead Revisited’ by Evelyn Waugh

• ‘Harry Potter’ by JK Rowling

• ‘Alice in Wonderland’ by Lewis Carroll

OTHER MEDIA AND POP CULTURE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Uri Geller bending spoons

• ‘Ode to nerds at New York Comic-Con!’ from tor.com (2013)

• ‘The Magicians’ from scatteredpaper.blogspot.com (2009)

If you fancy taking a chance on ‘The Magicians’, we’d love it if you considered using our bookshop.org link below to purchase your copy of the book which helps us fund ‘The Dark Academicals’ and gives back to independent bookshops at no extra cost to you.

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