2015 Book Review #1: The Magician's Assistant

[jethrien]

Title: The Magician's Assistant
Author: Ann Patchett
Genre: Literary fiction
Thingummies: 4

Synopsis: As the assistant to and wife of gay magician Parsifal, Sabine thought she knew all of his secrets. But after his death, she discovers that his tragically dead family is very much alive.

Thoughts: I love Patchett's writing in general (although my fingers tend to want to type her name as "Pratchett"). She has a way of creating incredibly human, fallible characters who are nonetheless sympathetic and compelling.

Sabine is strangely passive in her own life--having fallen in love with a man she can't really have, she has spent her life assisting instead of living herself. Her slow realization that she is capable of magic on her own is completely predictable and yet gently surprising.

There's a certain magical realism in her dreams that worked for me up until the very end, when it intruded into reality in a way I found jarring. And Patchett's later books are capable of portraying villainy in an more interesting way--two abusive husbands appear very black and white here. But overall, the effect is immersive and charming.

Comments

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

It -is- a very black and white book, but I loved it a lot. Patchett is very good at making you care about characters. There's another book I read recently, Jonathan Carroll's In the Teeth of Angels that treats with a lot of the same themes, but in a much less gentle way, and at some point I might do a side-by-side reread. I feel like Assistant manages to tie up more of the loose ends and is thus more satisfying.

In the meantime, my best friend read Patchett's Bel Canto and completely adored it, and I've read it also and like it a great deal, though I don't like the epilogue. Have you read it?

My favorite book about magic and magicians is probably Carter Beats the Devil, which is ever so faintly based on true facts in much the same way that the author's other book Sunnyside is based on Charlie Chaplin's life. The author is Glen David Gold, who has only, as far as I can tell, written two novels.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

I had the same issue with Bel Canto. I loved it basically right up to the end, where it felt like she tried to tie off some loose ends that didn't need tying.