The Sword and Laser discussion

Another thread brought up The Catcher in the Rye, another book with a disaffected cynical antihero. We had to read it in high school, and I remember little of the plot, but mostly how much I disliked Holden Caulfield. And I'm one of those who disliked Quentin through The Magicians.

How about you all? Did you feel the same like/dislike between the two books? Or do you see the two characters as completely dissimilar (aside from the magic part)?

But Holden Caulfield's dilemma is that he is an idealist who sees the institutions of school and the adults around him as shallow and morally empty. His biggest epithet for them is '"phony." The title, recall, stems from his desire to be like a misheard song lyric 'catching' little kids before they run off metaphorical cliffs to their doom. He wants his life to mean something, to serve an ideal of goodness, and is frustrated by a system which doesn't live up to his internal morality.

Quentin is just about 180° in the opposite direction. He's essentially selfish, egotistic to the point of solipsism, bent on using institutions like school and money to serve his personal pleasure, self-pitying throughout...he cares for no-one. He is an amoral sociopath. He gets a fellow student killed with a magical prank and tells nobody. After graduating, after Fillory, he has no ambitions to help anyone. He just mopes and drinks.

Alex wrote: "They did feel similar, but I liked Quentin and didn't like Holden, probably because one could do magic and one couldn't."
I agree with that. I enjoyed Catcher in the Rye with how Holden was throughout the novel, I was able to look past it. Though I am more tolerant of Quentin (atleast so far, I'm on chapter 4) because of the magic.

But what does Quentin actually do with that magic? Have fox sex? Drink? Perform a practical joke which gets some other student, one who actually tries to fight evil, killed?

Magic is wasted on Quentin, and the novel seems to strongly suggest magic itself is a waste, for anyone.

No. I suspect it some form of literary punishment.

I liked Catcher in the Rye.
But I did read it when I was 16, in Morocco with my parents, having a truly epic sustained sulk about more or less everything, so perhaps I was just in the right frame of mind for it. I've always meant to go back to it, Salinger's Franny and Zooey is one of my favourite books.

I got spoiled on Catcher too. I read it twice in High School and the second time was with a genius of an English Teacher who walked us through the book, moment by moment, scene by scene and lead some hyper-intense class discussions on what we were reading.

I also had the fun during a game of Vampire to refer to a character having a Holden Caulfield Moment when he's first presented with a willing bite victim. Some what unnervingly, my RP partner had no idea, in character or out what I was talking about.....

I liked Catcher but I liked it more after having read it if you know what I mean. It was one of those books that was a bit of a slog to get through but afterward I thought about a lot.

The Magicians I liked and was surprised that people didn't like Quentin. I was sort of neutral about him I suppose.

I'm one of those people who read The Catcher in the Rye when they were in their teens and so I'm not sure if the comparison is fair. I loved Catcher, still do, although when I read it these days I admit that I cringe at a couple of scenes. It is more like a book that I read at a very definitive age and so it made a very big impression on me.

I do think that although there are obvious similarities I like Holden a lot better than Quentin. Basically Holden is desperate because he cares too much and he is overwhelmed by the world. He still tries to deal with it and is generally nice to other people while doing so. Quentin seems to care mostly for himself and acts like a jerk at least one time too many in my book to make him actually likable. I can relate and I don't hate him, but I'd take Holden over Quentin in a second.

Basically Holden would take me to a restaurant and Quentin would let me pay the bill. Or something like that.

Holden is modern - concerned with ideas, ideals and ideologies
Question is post-modern - concerned with the self

I despised Catcher, yet really enjoyed The Magicians. It's possible that I just "didn't get" Catcher at the time, but mainly I just totally hated Holden's character.

I've been trying to figure out why I hated Holden so much, yet don't mind Quentin, though arguably Quentin is even more of a douche. I think it's because I can relate to Quentin on at least one level: he's a fantasy/sci-fi geek like me.

So, Quentin is one of "my people" which makes me more tolerant of his issues.

BTW, I'm betting that Lev Grossman meant to have us to see some Holden Caulfield in Quentin. Their names actually sound similar to me.

I liked Catcher in the Rye and I think I would have like The Magicians if I was a disaffected teenager that liked magic, but I am a middle aged male that doesn't believe in magic at all. Hated this book.

I'm intrigued by the reviews in this thread and elsewhere that Quentin is concerned with himself only and doesn't care about others. In fact I think he cares too much about others. He cares very much about what jane thinks. He wants to impress new people at Brakebills. He's very much caring what Alice thinks.

However he's frightened that they will *all* find him wanting and judge him so he builds up a protective measure of cynicism. he thinks magic will save him from himself and it doesn't. he thinks debauchery will save him from himself and it doesn't. He thinks Fillory will save him from himself and doesn't.

Quentin is a sad character and I quite understand the people saying they don't want to listen to him whine anymore, but he is not evil. He's not even selfish compared to Jane and friends. What he is in my mind, is very typical. He doesn't have advantages, he doesn't have a happy home life, he doesn't have anything to hold on to and say he believes in, which is what many people feel.

You don't have to like someone to understand them and you don't have to like Quentin to see he's trying to find some true meaning and happiness in his life.

Caring about what people think of you is not the same as caring about the people themselves. Quentin's treatment of Alice is the most pertinent example of that distinction in the text.

And treating people badly is not the same as not caring for them. It's wrong. It may be reprehensible. But in fact we more often hurt the ones we care about.

Tom wrote: "And treating people badly is not the same as not caring for them. It's wrong. It may be reprehensible. But in fact we more often hurt the ones we care about."

I was going to say something along these lines.

I've never read The Catcher in the Rye...it's been on my "to read" list for ages. The comparisons with Quentin have me thinking I'll move it up in the queue. Since I have a print copy of it, maybe it'll be my second read when we read Hyperion (I've already read Hyperion and will be listening to the audio version this time around).

I liked Catcher in the Rye, but I think it's a tad overrated. It does speak to that time in which a young person feels disconnected from and rebellious towards society. I think it felt more authentic in Catcher than it does in The Magicians. Quentin was annoying more than anything. His attitude wasn't a statement about society, it was an issue with his own personality and his inability to act towards his own emotional development as a person.

P. Aaron wrote: "Magic is wasted on Quentin, and the novel seems to strongly suggest magic itself is a waste, for anyone."

I agree with the part about magic is wasted on Quentin. Quentin seemed to expect magic to fix his life and make him happy.
I disagree with the part about magic itself being a waste for anyone. I think the statement is more like magic, like the power of youth, it is wasted on the young.

I liked both books, but Holden definitely would have punched Quentin in the eye. Then both would pout at each other while monologuing in their head for hours.

Both suffer from feelings of disassociation; Holden is obsessed with keeping it real, where Quentin would rather fit in. Holden would call Quentin a poser or a hipster, and Quentin would call Holden a grognard or a Luddite.

I kind of agree with Tom, Quentin's character defect isn't really that he's selfish. Quentin's issue is more that he thinks too much and never asks himself how he feels about something. He is a very realistically drawn character.

The Catcher in the Rye is one of my all-time favorite books and one of the only novels I've read more than once. Granted, the first time I read it I was in my early teens, and from what some other posters have said, I think being at an age where you could really connect with Holden on first reading has an influence on how much you like the book. I read it again in my late teens and once more in my early 20s and it still resonated, and I still liked Holden on each reading.

I really could not stand Quentin. I agree with other posters who have said he's like an inverse of Holden- Holden was depressed because he wanted the world to be better than it was (for everyone, not just himself) where Quentin had a pretty damn good life, had his every dream come true and was depressed that he couldn't find a way to be happy about it. For most of Catcher I wanted to give Holden a hug. For most of The Magicians I wanted to punch Quentin in the face a la Penny.

I think Quentin was extraordinarily selfish throughout the book. He thought of everything in terms of how it would affect him - not Alice or his friends or the magical community/humanity as a whole. I get that realistically, most teenagers are fairly self-centered, but Quentin's character pushed it so far as to be unlikable, for me at least.

That said, I thought it was an interesting story and since the narrative voice switches off in The Magician King, I plan to read the sequel at some point. I will keep my fingers crossed that Quentin evolves a bit in the next one. Veronica mentioned on the show that she wanted to read the book from Alice's perspective and I totally agree. I think I would have enjoyed the book a lot more if she was the narrator.

I read Catcher in the Rye in tenth grade, was an outsider thrice over, and still was left cold by it, and couldn't help thinking that Holden was the phony. On the other hand, I'm now 45 and an atheist (hence don't believe in magic, that directed at Alfredo, because I liked this book a lot), and found Quentin real, if a little deal-with-it. Not sure I would have dealt at that age, but one can hope. In terms of Quentin's actions, I did have problems with his cheating and the mega-mope after leaving Fillory. But to describe him as too self-centered to like, I can't go there. He was pathetic more than anything. He was so uncomfortable with who he was that even when he got what he thought he was missing, he continued to be unhappy. Because that wasn't the problem. I mean, seriously, if you are thinking this school, this career path, this pair of shoes, this whatever will make you whole as a person, you're screwed. The fact that he's looking for Brakebills, then magic, then Fillory to fix his problem, THAT is his problem. Quentin, to his detriment, got his thoughts narrated. But I'd bet most people of an age with him would be near, if not as, if not more, self-centered. Possibly those of us older and wiser, too. But unfortunately we are not gifted with narrative voice for everyone we interact with. I suspect that if we were we would find that many and more came down on the selfish end of the spectrum than not. Sadly. And to our detriment.

The thing about Catcher in the Rye is that Holden is taken as the archetypal teenager, but the book makes very clear that he is also a kid grieving the suicide of his older brother and very much grieving. I found Quentin to be realistic and amusing, but it was sad that he had grown so little at the end of the book.

Gregory wrote: "On the other hand, I'm now 45 and an atheist (hence don't believe in magic, that directed at Alfredo, because I liked this book a lot)"

It's Ok that you like the book and I didn't, but does it really follow that atheist don't believe in magic? Atheist don't believe in gods, there could be magic without gods, or not?. On the other hand, if you don't believe in magic, could you believe in (some) gods? I don't believe in neither...

In response to Alfredo:

I suppose I think of my atheism as all-consuming. It leaves no room for supernatural phenomena of any kind. I believe in a rational world defined by well-established science. I love the wonders of the natural world. Layering gods or magic on that dilutes the beauty of the everyday. That said, and maybe because I discovered it at a young age, I still find great enjoyment in fantasy and sci-fi. Hell, it makes up over ninety percent of my day-to-day reading.