What we were - Quentin Coldwater and I

Maybe I should start with the easy things first.

The other night I finished The Magician’s Land, Lev Grossman’s concluding volume to his Magicians Trilogy. Before that, I blasted through The Magician King, reading even during a challenging fieldtrip and an emotional, impromptu visit home. I’d been very vocal about how I felt about the first book, The Magicians, and its lead protagonist Quentin Coldwater. By all accounts, I was perfectly fine abandoning the series. Then L and I came across it on a list of the best fantasy novels of all time. It wasn't so much that it was mentioned or even that it was quite near the top, but the reviewer said that people who gave up after the first book were missing out. Had I been wrong? Intrigued, I went about quietly acquiring the sequels.

I was impressed with the writing in The Magician King. I remembered vaguely the same about The Magicians, but the feeling had been eclipsed by how much I loathed Quentin. While reading The Magician King, I began to worry that maybe I hated Quentin because I identified with him.

This is where it gets sticky.

I won’t get into what Grossman was trying to do with fantasy tropes, his attempt to write "Harry Potter for adults." Many have written about it at length and more eloquently than I could ever do. Instead, I want to talk about how Grossman's development of Quentin and friends made me reflect on my own growth.

So, what to make of Quentin? In The Magicians, he comes off as an entitled, whiny douche who only ever thinks about himself. He has the gift of magic but cannot appreciate it, even having room to brood. Young Quentin wants to be a hero because that’s how it is in the stories but he is not noble or brave, makes stupid choices, and hurts the people he loves. However, by the end of this first book, Quentin has lost much and learned difficult truths. In The Magician King, Quentin is finally a king of the magical land of Fillory and the bastard is bored. He is living the life but cannot shake the feeling that there should be something more. He, along with Julia, goes on a quest and we catch a glimpse of the man he could be. He still doubts himself, but has grown a pair. In The Magician’s Land, Quentin has finally come into his own. He is far from perfect but he knows himself and finds purpose.

I had always known I wanted to Make a Difference. I and many of my generation were led to believe that we are unique, talented individuals capable of such. At school, my peers and I were herded into groups distinguished for academic excellence, leadership or whatever above-average competence. So it was, believing in my own power (sometimes known as "feeling infinite"), that I stepped out, eyes bright, heart aflame, into the real world. But very much like Quentin and his friends, I quickly found out that reality did not often conform to our fantasies. I wanted to change the world but Life was not sticking to the plan. It had the audacity to be unfair. I’d overthink myself into inaction or wallow needlessly about what I thought, at the time, were grave issues. I traveled but almost always missed the point. I would not stay very long in jobs – a year at most – because I would get an itch that would eventually grow into a rash of dissatisfaction. I couldn’t be happy wherever I lived: my hometown Baguio was claustrophobic while Metro Manila was inhospitable. My mind would yearn for greater heights, but I would feel empty when I got there. I could not be satisfied. I would not be still. Quentin was a mirror and I wanted to punch him, defensive mode on.

In The Magician’s Land, Quentin and his student Plum have a conversation about why we have magic:

“What do you think magic is for? [...] I used to think about this a lot,” Quentin said. “I mean, it’s not obvious like it is in books. It’s trickier. In books there’s always somebody standing by ready to say hey, the world’s in danger, evil’s on the rise, but if you’re really quick and take this ring and put it in that volcano over there everything will be fine

“But in real life that guy never turns up. He’s never there. He’s busy handing out advice in the next universe over. In our world no one ever knows what to do, and everyone’s just as clueless and full of crap as everyone else, and you have to figure it all out by yourself. And even after you’ve figured it out and done it, you’ll never know whether you were right or wrong. You’ll never know if you put the ring in the right volcano, or if things might have gone better if you hadn’t. There’s no answers in the back of the book.”

“I still have no idea what magic is for. Maybe you just have to decide for yourself. But you definitely have to decide. It’s not for sitting on my ass, which I know because I’ve tried that. Am I making any sense?”

Lev Grossman’s books are about bright people who don’t have a Voldemort to fight: “It’s a struggle to figure out what magic is for, when it’s not obvious.” I remember walking home from a party once, semi-drunk, talking with a friend about how our generation doesn't have a Big Bad the way our parents’ had martial law. Ours is a faceless, nameless enemy - a slow, chronic affliction rather than an acute attack. Where do we land our punches? To whom do we direct our barbs?

We are always privy to Quentin's self-doubt in the first two books, but this is not the case in the third. Here, Quentin just does things sans the paralyzing internal monologue. The transformation occurs gradually over a 10-year timeline of hits and, sometimes very tragic, misses. Quentin stops being that douche teenager and becomes someone we genuinely like. We are rewarded for sticking it out with him when Grossman shows us how the others actually see him. Here is High King Eliot wishing he could confide in his best friend Quentin. There is the student Plum wanting to do magic like her experienced, able teacher Quentin.

The Magicians Trilogy is filled with many wonders, both pleasurable and demented. Many of the moments of real joy have to do with the magic and spells (Quentin and Plum travel to Antarctica) but some of them are actually when the characters are putting in honest labor to achieve something (Julia studying in Murs, Quentin and his research). And the language is stellar. In The Magician King, Quentin’s chapters seem tame and structured in contrast to Julia’s unruly and defiant ones. The disparity is intentional - we are thrust from Quentin's ordered life into Julia's experiences where she has to claw her way, ghetto style, through a rough magical education.

I didn't quite struggle so much as flounder around in my 20s. I understood that I needed to do something, but it wasn't always clear to me what that was. Not knowing made me thrash around in my head, indulging my demons.

In a year, I will be Quentin's age in The Magician's Land. But unlike the mature, tempered magician, I don’t think I’ve quite arrived. I like to think I've become better at just being, that I've shed some of that compulsive dissatisfaction. But I still suffer bouts of crippling insecurity – a hazard of working in the academe? I still do things because it’s what's expected of me, though I've been trying to be better at being honest with other people and myself.

Some have called the Magicians Trilogy derivative, pilfering elements of this and that beloved fantasy classic under the guise of deconstruction. Whether these literary calisthenics have succeeded or not is beside the point. Grossman has written a riveting study about personal growth, about being a hero in an age where we don't really know what that means anymore. Even now, his books are still burning a hole in my head. I think about who Quentin discovered himself to be in the end and wonder when I too will finally come into my best self.

My 2013 in reading

I spent a lot of 2013 working and trying to get my thesis off the ground. There were months when things got so tight, it was a wonder I got any reading done at all. I would read a chapter or two before falling asleep or immediately upon waking up; I would read on jeeps, in airplanes, or in line to pay the bills; basically during any stolen quiet moment. I turned in some serious reading while waiting at the airport. On a field trip to Bantayan Island in Cebu, I took a chunk off the tome that is The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. Now, I associate travel to the island with certain chapters of that book.

This year, I stopped worrying about the number of books I could finish. I took on books that challenged me (in terms of both scope and scale) and was rewarded for it.

Read the rest of my year-end review on The Exchange, which has been resurrected over at Wordpress. 

Neil Gaiman makes us remember

The Internet hype machine almost ruined this for me. Like the rest of Neil Gaiman's legion of adoring fans, I waited for the release of The Ocean at the End of the Lane. I tracked its progress, but tried my best to avoid reviews. Which was a stretch because, being a highly anticipated novel by a widely loved author, it was simply everywhere. When I finally got my copy, I began reading somewhat rebelliously, refusing to be taken in. The book itself is a slight thing, a three-hour engagement at most. But like that duck pond in the story, it is an ocean. I didn't know what was happening until I looked up and realized I was already waist-deep. The story found me, like seawater finding cracks in a stone wall, and it has been weathering my heart since.

Here is my copy, which I acquired from good, old Fully Booked.

In grade school, some of my friends and I would have lunch in a small wooded area behind the main building. We'd fill the air with our voices and the sounds of our play. When the afternoon bell called us back to our learning, a heavy silence would fall over the woods. There were times I'd find myself there alone, having ran back for some forgotten item or taken a shortcut to the Industrial Arts classroom. The sun would be high in the sky, the bright light casting flickering shadows of leaves on the red-brown soil. The woods felt alive but dormant, as if disturbing the quiet might stir something into waking. I would be a little scared, but curious and defiant, staring at strange, moving shadows longer than I should. The feeling of that place was real and dream-like, an overlap of worlds. And so it was that I read the The Ocean at the End of the Lane under a heady haze of remembrance.

At its core,The Ocean at the End of the Lane is an excellent horror story. The fear, cultivated and absolute, crept into everything. I was so terrified, I couldn't sleep without my back tight against the wall. The last book to affect me this way was Coraline.

The Evil Thing is cunning and amoral, latching on to people's basic tendencies for wickedness. I felt fiercely protective of the narrator as a boy although I should have had more faith in his resilience (I am generally blinded by the charms of little boys, an effect of watching my baby brother grow up). Mr. Gaiman has great respect for children: he is matter-of-fact about the existence of magic, but doesn't spare them the nightmare. He knows they can handle it better than the grown-ups.

This post took so long because, even if I badly wanted to talk about this book and how it made me feel, I didn't know how. I am was a mess of thoughts and feelings, many of them unidentifiable and some too familiar to face directly. I began to think about long-ago and far-away with a sweet ache that, when fully embraced, could swallow me whole. Sometimes I feel old, which, at 27, is ridiculous. The Hempstock women are ancient, but never tired.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane makes me want to write, and write in the best way possible. It "was written for readers," but it is also for writers. Mr. Gaiman's prose is pointed and descriptive, not a single word without function. It is a crystal, boiled down from a balanced solution of talent, skills sharpened over years of practice, and instinct. He sets the example for the Good Art he encourages us to make. In doing so, he has also shared with us something very personal. So here I am, stumbling over my words, trying to say thank you.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

Some time ago, Alain de Botton tweeted (yes, you may find him on Twitter @alaindebotton) “Most of what makes a book ‘good’ is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.” Such is the case now at the beginning of a new year and I am adrift (as I often am).

I took out Haruki Murakami’s memoir What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, which I’ve had on my shelf for ages, because I’d been unable to concentrate and was looking for something easy to read. I thought, given my recent enthusiasm with the subject, I’d be able to stay focused. I struggled with the first couple of pages, a problem I’d had with the book before, but got to this:

“I’m the kind of person who likes to be by himself. To put a finer point on it: I’m the type of person who doesn’t find it painful to be alone. I find spending an hour or two every day running alone, not speaking to anyone, as well as four or five hours alone at my desk, to be neither difficult nor boring. I’ve had this tendency ever since I was young, when, given a choice, I much preferred reading books on my own or concentrating on listening to music over being with someone else. I could always think of things to do by myself.”

My little brother and I were born thirteen years apart, so for the greater part of my childhood, I was an only child. I found books, made up songs and hung out with imaginary friends, basically spending a lot of time inside my head. When Lem and I were still just friends, we had a label for when I would vanish off the grid for days, not speaking to him: “cave mode.” That doesn’t happen so much now we’re together, but he can tell when I want to be alone. Now, as a novice at running (less than a novice, really), I’ve found that what I enjoy most about it is the solitude.

A very brief history: In a yester-post, I recounted how I had been preparing myself to run again, the main objective being to lose weight. I sort of hinted at my progress in my first TILT entry where I mentioned loving my running shoes. I’ve been engaged in my casual program for about three months now.

Murakami writes “running suits [him].” I like to think it suits me too. I know myself as an inward person, and running allows me to indulge this. He writes that “[he] runs to acquire a void.” I repeatedly have to tell myself to stop thinking. Running lets me think about everything and nothing at once.

Murakami writes “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” As a beginner, I spend a lot of time in pain. My legs, I imagine, are still getting used to all the physical labor. At any time during my runs, my calves, thighs, feet or entire legs act out. They scream bloody murder. There are many occasions where, as Troy on Community puts it, my “whole brain is crying.”

(Photo source)

Murakami writes “Patience is a must in this process, but I guarantee the results will come.” Three months ago, doing some research, I’d come across a blog on the benefits of running. The writer said that people who take up running start preferring healthy sources of fuel over the usual heavy fare. The diet eventually falls into place without too much bloodshed. Six months ago, you’d have found me topping off a bag of pork rinds by myself, but now, I find it easier to stay away from junk food.

Murakami’s reflections in the book come nearly 25 years after he first started running. The man has run at least one marathon a year since. But for me, in this fledgling stage, nursing a small ember that could go out any minute, I can’t even conceive successfully running a 5K. When he writes that he probably knows pain better than anyone else, I believe him. What I feel on my runs is child’s play. Running is ingrained in his life, whereas I'm still discovering what it means. It is a great divide, to be sure, but I feel like his words belong to me.

I’ve only known Murakami through his strange/ beautiful novels, but it is with this book that I feel closest to him as a writer. His thoughts on writing novels being a physical act (“…a writer puts on an outfit called narrative and thinks with his entire being; and for the novelist that process requires putting into play all your physical reserve, often to the point of overexertion”) remind me of long days finishing papers for graduate school and offer a glimpse of the months I will be drafting my thesis. When I read about his epiphany to become a novelist professionally, I became mindful of the decisions I must eventually make about my own pursuits.

For a while, I didn’t mind what had been happening to my body because I thought I was paying more attention to keeping my mind in shape. I realize now how that thinking has to change. Murakami also wonders “…a person’s mind is controlled by his body, right? Or is it the opposite – the way your mind works influences the structure of the body? Or do the body and mind closely influence each other and act on each other?” At this point, I’m inclined to agree with the third. I think even the Mentat have something to say about that somewhere.

Last year, I struggled with a hostile attitude and a lot of negativity. I’m beginning to think it had something to do with how badly I’d been treating my body. Again, Murakami gives me the right words: “…an unhealthy soul requires a healthy body.” My soul is inescapably unhealthy, but I’m hoping taking better care of myself will balance out that darkness.

Murakami writes of "runner's blues": "At the same time that I'd lost something, something new had also taken root deep within me as a runner. And most likely this process of one thing exiting while another comes in had produced this unfamiliar runner's blues." Even now, I'm still in limbo and suspect that will be the case for the next couple of months. But I'm not worried anymore. This drifty-ness is a necessary pain, like muscles being conditioned for new heights of exertion. Things don't look too bad from where I'm standing. The right book can help you see that.