Magical Places and Imagined Spaces (Book Post and Cancer Post)

This summer has been deeply satisfying in a number of ways, not the least of which is that several of my favorite series published their concluding tales. Below are two of my very favorites: The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness and The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman.

 

Deborah Harkness made that two year wait worthwhile with her masterful ending to the All Souls trilogy. Diana and Matthew have returned from their trip through time and the problems surrounding them are more pressing than ever. Oh, and Diana is pregnant with twins of course, as all readers of the trilogy already knew! As they race to uncover the secrets held by the Book of Life, Diana, Matthew and their growing list of friends and family find themselves forced to confront the darkest secrets of Matthew's past. 

This book is suspenseful and beautifully crafted. If you were expecting Harkness to end her tale by allowing gory violence and death to take center stage, prepare to be disappointed. What readers enjoy instead is a heady brew of suspense, power, humor, quick thinking, and lots of love. There's plenty to celebrate amid the terrors of this final installment, and even a happy ending of sorts. You do have to make your peace with the fact that there are some jagged edges (or, rather, gaping logical holes) between what readers learned in Book Two and what they are expected to believe by the end of Book Three, but I'll take those bits with pleasure, because the larger story fits together beautifully.

It's not often that the final book in a trilogy delivers at least as much emotional and intellectual pleasure as the first in the series, but Harkness manages it. The book and the series are highly recommended to those who enjoy fabulist works, historical fiction, love stories, and suspense.

Lev Grossman's third and final installation in the Magicians trilogy really delivered more than I thought would be possible. As you'll remember, at the end of the second book, Quentin has lost Julia to the Far Side of the World and been cast out of Fillory. Bereft, broke, and somewhat disoriented, he returns to Brakebills and is able to join the teaching staff there. But that doesn't last long...Before you know it, Q sets off to earn money so that he can somehow get the materials and learn the magic to find and return his beloved Alice to life. What follows is, not surprisingly, a big, sometimes scary-ass adventure that will take Q and his friends to Antarctica and other earthly points on the globe, a newly invented land, and, finally, back to the heart of Fillory itself.

Along the way, we are reacquainted with the themes, events, and - above all - the spectacular writing style that dominated the first two books. Grossman tackles convoluted and difficult topics: identity and what it means to find one's self, the meaning of magic, the horrors of unintended consequences, loss and love and resolve and decay. We see old worlds die and new ones born, both literally and figuratively. Quentin's personal journey also finally comes to a satisfying - but hardly trite or expected - conclusion. 

And that's what makes Grossman such a pleasure to read. Here's this guy who is writing about imaginary worlds and Deep Magic and fantastical beasts and all the rest, but he's goes about in the most down to earth kind of way. Despite all the fantasy, the characters emerge as people you might meet or see or be yourself: they swear and make mistakes and get all shitty with their friends for stupid reasons. They're full of very human feelings (well, except for maybe Janet, but even she comes along, in the end) and reactions and you don't like all of them. He nails the dynamics of a close group of friends that has grown up together without turning it into some kind of melodramatic coming of age treatise. In short, I simply loved this book and the author; I can't wait to see what he does next. Highly recommended for grown-ups who were (and are) Harry Potter fans, anyone who likes to use their imagination, people with a penchant for coming of age novels, and anyone who's ever felt like a freak. Bravo to Lex Grossman and his beautiful finale.

What is it about realistic fantasy that makes it so beguiling? I guess it's because it makes me feel as though if only I turned  the corner at exactly the right moment, or picked up the perfect novel from the depths of the library, that I, too, could become a part of something incredible and somewhat terrifying that I don't fully understand. 

And that brings us, strangely but surely enough, to my latest cancer news: I met with the radiology surgeon the other day and she agreed to move forward with the SBRT to remove my lung lesions.  Before that happens, though, I need to do some pulmonary tests tomorrow, and a mapping session this week. During and after the mapping session, they really do work magic: they take various scans of my insides and then build a three-dimensional model of my lungs.  Mathematicians do their otherworldly stuff and figure out how to direct the beam only at my lesions, even though I'll be breathing all the while. Isn't that amazing? Add in the fact that these little spots are each less than 1/2 a centimeter in size and that really does make this whole option pretty damn amazing. Plus, they cover me with laser beams when I'm on the table, like this:

selfie from my last SBRT sessions, when they fixed up my liver

The sessions themselves are completely non-invasive - last time, I even wore my street clothes - and each one takes about 30 minutes.  Because it looks like there are two nodules in my left lung and one in my upper right lung, I'll probably wind up having 6 sessions altogether, and then: presto! those crummy cancerous bastards magically will melt away.  The only real drawbacks to this approach are that we won't know for certain whether these were indeed cancerous (no biopsy), and it takes several months for the dust to clear in order to see whether the therapy sessions were right on target.  Patience isn't my strong suit, but I'm learning. Oh boy, am I learning.

Anyway. It might not be the magic that I'd always dreamed of as a kid, but today's options in the world of oncology are nothing short of miraculous.  I'm full of amazed gratitude for all that my medical team has been able to offer me over the last 16 months - and I'm sure I'll continue to be astonished by what comes next, should I need additional treatment. 

Magic. It's at the heart of life, of science, of faith...just about everything, in fact. Do you believe in magic?