For prosperity: The Magicians (again)
Nov. 12th, 2009 06:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wishfulclickingObviously Grossman hit a renewing wind towards the second half of the book. More quotes:
Forgive me if I lecture you, but it's the last chance I'm going to get.
---
"Sometimes I wonder if man was really meant to discover magic," Fogg said expansively. "It doesn't really make sense. It's a little too perfect, don't you think? If there's a single lesson that lkife teaches us, it's that wishing doesn't make it so. Words and thoughts don't change anything. Language and reality are kept strictly apart---reality is touch, unyielding stuff, and it doesn't care what you think or feel or say about it. Or it shouldn't. You deal with it, and you get on with your life...
"But somewhere in the heat of magic that boundary between word and thing ruptures. it cracks, and the one flows back into the other, and the two melt together and fuse. Language gets tangled up with the world it describes."
...
"Tell me this: Can a man who can cast a spell ever really grow up?"
...
"I think you're magicians because you're unhappy. A magician is strong because he feels pain...You have learned to break the world that has tried to break you."
'I got my heart's desire, he thought, and there my troubles began.'
Right now I'm more than half way done and I'm a little nervous because I've heard that the plot seems to run too long. This book isn't that exciting, but I am enjoying the take on magic so far and I'm interested to see if any fic for it comes out of Yuletide.
Forgive me if I lecture you, but it's the last chance I'm going to get.
---
"Sometimes I wonder if man was really meant to discover magic," Fogg said expansively. "It doesn't really make sense. It's a little too perfect, don't you think? If there's a single lesson that lkife teaches us, it's that wishing doesn't make it so. Words and thoughts don't change anything. Language and reality are kept strictly apart---reality is touch, unyielding stuff, and it doesn't care what you think or feel or say about it. Or it shouldn't. You deal with it, and you get on with your life...
"But somewhere in the heat of magic that boundary between word and thing ruptures. it cracks, and the one flows back into the other, and the two melt together and fuse. Language gets tangled up with the world it describes."
...
"Tell me this: Can a man who can cast a spell ever really grow up?"
...
"I think you're magicians because you're unhappy. A magician is strong because he feels pain...You have learned to break the world that has tried to break you."
'I got my heart's desire, he thought, and there my troubles began.'
Right now I'm more than half way done and I'm a little nervous because I've heard that the plot seems to run too long. This book isn't that exciting, but I am enjoying the take on magic so far and I'm interested to see if any fic for it comes out of Yuletide.
