Why was this Priestley's favourite?
My book group read The Magicians because Priestley was a local
boy, and we had heard that this novel was his personal favorite.
We wondered why. I don?t know how much autobiography
lurks in these pages; the protagonist?s Warwick country house seems
to be modeled on Priestley?s Kissing Tree House, but more important
in whether the book has a life of its own.
It is an enjoyably fast read. It is not politically correct, and the views
it depicts won?t appeal to readers of the Guardian, but so what.
It?s reasonably adventurous and decent in its treatment of characters
Priestley?s narrator patronises, considering that it was written in the 1950?s.
The attitudes assigned to the protagonist may help explain why the
book hasn?t enjoyed a revival since its first publication. But I found his being
forced to face up to his callous past conduct endearing. He has been a bit of a cad.
Nevertheless, he's allowed to redeem himself by joining a battle for the
souls of men, in which he helps the magicians fight a cynical, probably diabolical, business venture to develop a drug that resembles soma from Brave New World.
I wondered while reading, whether CS Lewis was an influence
and whether this novel in turn has influenced any of Lessing?s
fiction in the Canopus in Argos series. The novice
stumbling along after the cognoscenti is a theme she explores,
but Priestley?s hero enlivens it with uncertainty about just how
much stock to put in the three wise men. Finishing the book
left me no wiser on these influence questions.
Some of my friends found the story thin and undeveloped.
Exposition of Time Alive, the three magicians? stock-in-trade,
is fuzzy. Perhaps Priestley liked to keep this a cross between
joyful mystery and séance, leaving wormholes and tessera to later writers.
Time Alive is not just a skateboard to time travel but a means of self-
examination.
Unfortunately, giving his hero a family as fortuitously as the winning card at bingo
doesn?t win with me. It doesn't really help that this resolution is presented
as a gift from the grateful mages. There?s simply no time at the end for us to feel
that his new-found children are any more vivid to him than the protégés he left at the office.