| Title | : | The Magician's Assistant |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 357 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1997 |
| Awards | : | Orange Prize Fiction Shortlist (1998) |
Sabine-- twenty years a magician's assistant to her handsome, charming husband-- is suddenly a widow. In the wake of his death, she finds he has left a final trick; a false identity and a family allegedly lost in a tragic accident but now revealed as very much alive and well. Named as heirs in his will, they enter Sabine's life and set her on an adventure of unraveling his secrets, from sunny Los Angeles to the windswept plains of Nebraska, that will work its own sort of magic on her.
The Magician's Assistant Reviews
-
This book surprised me. Throughout the whole thing, I was never exactly sure how much I was enjoying it, and yet I couldn't wait to pick the book back up and continue reading. By time the book was done, I wanted to read more, and wanted the story to continue.
The story itself is strange, very strange, but it draws you in immediately. It's the story of a woman named Sabine who is coming to terms with exploring the hidden past of her husband, a famous gay magician after his death. You wonder how this story is going to work, which is the beauty of how well it draws you in. It's a beautiful example of story-telling, and the writing is flowing and enticing.
A few problems: A lack of chapters. I know this is a clear choice of style, but I found it really hard to be able to start the book up again after putting it down for the night, so the book that was meant to flow so perfectly ended up being a bit choppy because there was never a good place to stop and think. Also the ending was very... abrupt, and unsatisfying.
Definitely enjoyed the book, and it convinced me to try another book of hers. -
Is this really Ann Patchett? While the story was mildly intriguing, I couldn't really like the main character. Sabine seemed too satisfied with living a half-life (in love with a gay man, an assistant instead of a magician, a maker of architectural models rather than an architect, etc.). The literary symbolism also seemed clumsy and obvious (last name Fetters, for example). Finally, and most annoying to me as I live here, the ridiculous caricature of Midwesterners made me want to scream. COME ON - the landscape is not all flat, the kitchens aren't decorated with roosters, and husbands are not wifebeaters or mild nerds. I flipped to the back cover to read the author bio. The first sentence: Ann Patchett lives in Los Angeles...no kidding!
Yawn. -
I admit to having an Ann Patchett fixation recently….(since listening to this years recent treasure “These Precious Days”……(I’m crazy over it!!!!)
I was pleasantly surprised with this novel (after seeing low reviews)..
I’m in ‘awe’ at the cleverness-revealing numerous complex serious themes….Themes and tales that would be complex today in 2021…..but even more so in 1997…..(when the book was first published)
At first the plot seems very straightforward: a handsome charming magician/husband has recently died -
- the wife/assistant is grieving -
she loved him deeply - romantically - desiring more than she bargained for.
The further we read, it becomes clear the plot is much more tangled and thorny…than meets the eye.
Sabine married Parsifal knowing he was gay……knowing he had a lover, named Phan. It was inspiring how these three characters had love and respect for one another.
Parsifal only married Sabine, twenty years after his lover died so that she would be financially taken care of — after ‘he’ died.
Sabine learns of her husband’s ‘humongous’ lies….after his death…..
affecting a lot of other people.
Like pulling a rabbit out of a hat — literally and figuratively —unexpected surprises continue unfolding — and unfolding — and unfolding….to the very end….
EVERY MAIN and SUPPORTING characters were dealing with substantial messy obstacles-suffering quietly with their secrets, uncertainty, and grief…..
The ‘details’ (every aspect) of the characters are multifaceted…..
The deceased magician- Parsifal was ‘not-the-only’ magician….
Slowly,……Sabine reveals a few tricks of her own….
I found this story achingly sad about the circumstances itself …..but was also inspired by the ways things unfolded with those twists and surprises.
I adored getting to know the main and supporting characters: Dot, Kitty, and Bertie, (the Fetter’s family who lived in Alliance, Nebraska),….
and was inspired by the transformation of Sabine - (discovering her own voice, her own identity, and that the ingredient of love really is magical).
It felt like a ‘ duo’ ending to me—
part of ending leaves us with certainty….in regards to new relationships taking hold….
but for Sabine …back home in Los Angeles …..we know she will be starting a new life ….yet we are not clear how she will maneuver her desires. ….leaving open ended interpretation.
As always — Ann Patchett knows how to spin a story … Her prose is lush, controlled, and evocative…..and in “The Magician’s Assistant”, she’s our master illusionist. I soooo love this woman- this author!!!
Last…
I’m reminded just how much life is a combination of enchanting magic and illusionary magic….
and that enchantment itself has the ability to change our mental or emotional state.
Full 5 stars from me ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ -
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Quietly meditative yet incredibly evocative. I find it difficult to pick favorites when it comes to Patchett's work but The Magician's Assistant has my heart.
Published in 1997 Ann Patchett’s third novel, The Magician's Assistant is her most underrated work to date. Like with any other novel that I hold dear to my heart, I find it difficult to articulate my feelings towards The Magician's Assistant, but I will nonetheless try to (please bear with). Luminous, subtle, and enchanting, The Magician's Assistant is all of these and so much more. It is a work of rare beauty, one that showcases Patchett’s gracefully restrained prose. The Magician's Assistant is characterized by a dreamlike atmosphere that lends Sabine’s experiences an ethereal quality. That one of the story’s main motifs is magic, undeniably contributes to its underlying fairytale-esque mood. Sabine’s journey of self-discovery, however reluctantly embarked upon, and the story’s preoccupation with life and death carry soft echoes of ancient myths and folktales. Yet, as with most of her work, much of the ‘action’ in The Magician's Assistant remains grounded in the mundane: from the characters’ conversations and exchanges, which often occur in the kitchen, after dinner, or driving someplace else, to their ordinary routines and experiences. Far from boring, these glimpses into the characters’ everyday lives feel precious. These ordinary backdrops feel intimate, as we are able to see the characters’ at their truest. In these spaces and conversations, we see their vulnerabilities, desires and anxieties.
As State of Wonder, The Magician's Assistant begins with the death of a loved one. Parsifal, a magician of irresistible charm and beauty, dies, leaving his closest friend and assistant, Sabine, bereft. Sabine was Parsifal’s assistant for more than twenty years, and the two had recently married so she could inherit. Although Sabine was in love with Parsifal, she was content with being his friend and being part of his and Phan’s, his beloved partner, lives. After their deaths Sabine sleepwalks through her life, losing herself in memories of their days together and roaming their gorgeous house in LA, a place that no longer feels as if brimming with endless possibilities. When Sabine learns that Parsifal’s family, who he’d claimed to have died in his youth, are not only alive but on their way to meet her, Sabine is jolted out of her grief-stricken daze. How could the person she loved the most in the world, and who was closest to her, have lied to her for so long? Did they cut him off because he was gay? Did they abuse him? What led him to leave his small town in Nebraska to reinvent himself in LA as the magician Parsifal?
While Sabine is uneasy about meeting Parsfial’s mother and younger sister, wondering what they did to make Parsifal want to bury them in his past, she yearns to learn the truth, hoping that hearing about Parsifal’s youth, what was he like as a child and a boy, will prevent his presence and memory from fading. The surreal experience of meeting his family and the unremitting shock brought by his absence, eventually lead Sabine to acquiesce to their ‘demands’, that is to visit them in Alliance, Nebraska. Although Sabine seeks to find the truth behind Parsifal’s ‘renunciation’ of his family, she finds herself forging a deep bond with them: from his lively and hard-working mother, Dot, who for years has carried the guilt of his departure, to his sisters, Kitty, whose resemblance to him makes Sabine feel all sorts of ways, and Bertie, and even his sweet yet bickering nephews, Kitty’s sons.
Recurring magic tricks, family traditions, and dreams accompany Sabine’s throughout the narrative. The vastly different settings of LA and Alliance, as well as Sabine and the Fetters’ different realities, contribute to the novel’s subtle sense of surreality. Sabine’s dreams, in particular, blur the line between life and death, but it is ultimately up to each reader to view these as a manifestation of her psyche or as her being reunited with her loved ones. In this dreamspace, Sabine meets Phan, and their moments of shared understanding as well as their mutual love for Parsifal and their lives before were as heartrending as they were bittersweet.
I love that Patchett is able to imbue everything with a sense of longing. An example: "The closets were empty except for some summer dresses pushed down hard to the far end of the bar; a few pairs of sandals, stacked one on top of another, sat beneath them as if they knew to stay close to the dresses they belonged with." What could have been a boring line describing objects becomes a moment of melancholy. I also love Patchett’s refusal to write about people who are either good or bad, as she always emphasizes those shades of gray, those that make us complex and often idiosyncratic. I love that Patchett is able to capture family dynamics and people’s essences in a way that is at once subtle yet evocative. I love her story’s strong sense of place, to the extent that LA and Alliance are characters in their own rights. I love that she is able to write of regret, love, and grief with such insight and empathy.
In short: I love this novel.
The Magician's Assistant is a dazzling work brimming with beauty and sorrow that I cannot recommend enough (especially to existing patchett fans). I doubt I will ever tire of re-reading this novel, it is a salve to my soul. -
I enjoyed reading the book, but after reading it I couldn't say that I loved it (hence, three stars).
Sabine, the main character, spends time with her dead husband's family, none of whom she knew existed. The reader is supposed to come along on the journey with her to discover the missing parts of her longtime friend/spouse, but I didn't gain any new insights to him from her visit back to his roots. The West Coast magician reinvented himself too well to have any connection to the Midwestern teenager (by the way, the Midwest is NOT as bleak and backward as portrayed in the book--the stereotypes were obnoxious). After a traumatic childhood, he left town and ended up with love and friendship and happiness. Ta-da. But, the novel is called The Magician's Assistant, and really is about Sabine's search for...something (I'm from the Midwest and not "with it" enough to figure out what). I just hope she found it because I never quite understood her living a half-life and found her contentment in always serving as the second banana tiresome.
My best description of the novel, after reading it, was that I felt like I was eavesdropping on someone else's conversation: I wasn't in earshot for the beginning and didn't get to hear the end, but it helped pass the time while I was sitting there.
-
I have really become an admirer of Patchett’s writing, and this book was a close second to Bel Canto, which I adored. The Magician’s Assistant is Sabine, and she is mourning the sudden loss of her husband, Parsifal. But the story goes deeper than that. Parsifal is gay, and shortly after the death of his lover, Phan, he marries Sabine to ensure her security in the event of his death. Sabine had been Parsifal’s long-time assistant in his magic act, but more importantly, they shared a bond of friendship that was unbreakable. When Parsifal’s lawyer notifies Sabine that he had a family (who he claimed were dead) and that his name is really Guy Fetters, Sabine’s world gets turned on its head. Suddenly, the man she though she knew most in the world is a stranger to her, and she wants to learn everything about his past that he has kept from her. So the Fetter family enters Sabine’s life, and the book follows the development of these new relationships seamlessly.
There is a hint of magic in Patchett’s writing, and not just the tricks and illusions she recalls in The Magician’s Assistant. She writes relationships and dialogue in a manner that seems effortless. Her characters are entirely human – flawed and lovable. This was a great read and a touch of magic amongst the ordinary. -
I picked this book up a few times and lost interest before finishing the first page. But when I finally got past the first three or four pages, I was really hooked. This characters are just so, so compelling. They're actually so compelling that when I was partway through the book I almost lit a candle at church for two of the characters in it, temporarily confusing them with real people. Which I _think_ is more a testament to how well-written and absorbing the book is than to how socially maladjusted I am.
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This book was fantastic and I am thrilled that I chose it as my first Patchett novel. There is so much tenderness in this beautiful story; each character (even the dastardly “villain”) is developed and handled with such care; I didn’t want the story to end because of the people involved. There is sadness here, and secrets and complicated family dynamics and love...and love...and MAGIC. Oh, and of course there’s a rabbit too. Time spent with this book was simply delightful.
-
The Magician’s Assistant *** ½ Ann Patchett
I found the trio of Sabine, Parsifal and Phan all too good, too unflawed, too beautiful, and Sabine's adoration of Parsifal for 22 years was a little hard to fathom. There was apparently no heartache, no discord. In addition, Sabine had been so in love with the glamorous, gay Parsifal that she had failed to realize that she was really gay herself, and thus her attraction to Kitty at the end. That was a bit of a stretch--this beautiful, personable, intelligent, talented woman did not have a clue about her own sexual orientation. She was not living “apart” from the gay world after all. Other aspects that were too idealized: Sabine’s relationship with her parents and what it’s like living in L.A.
The ending was odd. There was obvious foreshadowing, which went on for too long. Kitty and her boys need to move to L.A. and move in with Sabine. The reader figures out this is where things are heading. Sabine finally realizes she should ask them to move to L.A. That’s fine, but the novel then ends abruptly. It’s not that the reader needed to know exactly whether they would move to L.A. It’s that the ending has to be satisfying.
I did like reading about a magician's life, having known little about this before, and I did like the way Patchett used dreams in this novel to advance the story or add information that would have been hard to introduce otherwise. They weren't your usual dreams, but more like dialogues with the dead--well, mainly Sabine and Phan, leading up to Parsifal's appearance at the end. The dreams put the reader in touch with Sabine’s grief and how the grief changes slowly over time. I enjoyed the way Parsifal’s mysterious past was gradually revealed.
The writing is superb. One pitch-perfect sentence after another kept me hooked. I’m remembering the decriptions about magic tricks, and the times Sabine did some tricks for her “new family”. I felt like I was there. I could see the family watching the same Johnny Carson segment every night. That was also a good device for advancing the story and showing the way grief slowly changed.
The narration for the recorded book was excellent. Dot, the mother/grandmother, was fabulous. Her character came alive. Descriptions of the cold and snow in Nebraska were unforgettable. The portrayal of small town life was realistic. -
It is rare to find a literary page-turner, but Ann Patchett never fails to give us exactly that. Her writing is elegant, sophisticated and quiet; it never gets in the way of the story. The closer I got to the end of this book, the more obsessed I became with it, wanting to make sure that everyone was going to be okay, at least in some sense of the word.
The Magician's Assistant follows the same pattern of Patchett's other novels: An unsuspecting character is thrust into a world full of people he/she never even dreamed of, replete with drama and emotion and confusion—as well as hope and love. Her stories can be one-sided, but she creates sympathetic characters who come to life for me in ways that few authors can manage. I always find myself wanting to hug the protagonist like my sister or brother. In this book, Sabine could have been my best friend—the one who has suffered so much sadness. Certain passages of this novel actually made me cry; that is how well Patchett creates authentic characters with real emotions. And whether her stories take us to Nebraska or the South American Amazon (State of Wonder), Patchett paints a picture of the environment so clearly that I almost needed a sweater to read the part of this book that takes place in the brutal cold of a Midwestern winter.
Ann Patchett is such a wonderful storyteller that I finish each of her books totally spellbound.
5 Stars. -
When I was about two thirds of the way through The Magician’s Apprentice, I seriously doubted that I was going to finish it. The story seemed to be bogging down in an uncomfortable snowbound Nebraska household, domestic violence was in the atmosphere and I didn't want to spend time in that space. So I did what I often do now, I read the last 15 pages or so to see how it ends, and whether it would be worth persisting.
Well, the ending was such a surprise there was no way I could work out what had happened in the household relationships to get there. So back I went to where I’d left off and finished it.
I enjoyed it, but I was left wondering what drew Patchett to write this story, why she had structured it the way she did in two completely different sections, one set in Los Angeles and the other in small town Nebraska.
So then I listened to three long interviews Ann Patchett has recorded over the last decade or so, in which she talks about her approach to writing. None of them was specifically about this book, but I learned a great deal listening to her, and think I can apply some of what she said to this book.
In the first podcast I listened to, she was interviewed by Alan Alda. The interview focus was on empathy
https://www.aldacommunicationtraining.... Patchett says she has empathy for almost all her characters, not necessarily sympathy but empathy, so that she understands why they do the things they do. This, she says, makes her bad at writing villains, because she understands how they came to be the way they are. This may be so, but I felt that she went some way to having villains in the violent coercive domestic abusive men whose actions precipitate dramatic leaps in the story.
In another interview, she talks about her pattern of not describing in detail things that happened in the past. The reader needs to be able to fill in some things themselves. The past event may be the worst thing that happened in the lives of one or more characters but it’s in the past now, and everybody has managed to survive it, to move past it, although the long ripples from that event affected everyone profoundly. You don't need to know the details of something that happened to know what its effects were.
Here, she writes a story of effects, with past events progressively revealed in quick flashes of conversation that always surprise and are sometimes shocking.
The story in the book begins with Parsifal’s death and we move with his assistant and wife Sabine into her life after his death and, as in a good magic show, we deal with revelation after revelation.
A review in New York Times outlines the story and notes many of the things I noted myself as I read it. Here’s a nice quote from that review, which picks up on the empathy that Patchett shows for her characters: ‘The kindliness of ''The Magician's Assistant'' is beguiling, and Patchett is an adroit, graceful writer who knows enough tricks to keep her story entertaining’. One obvious line is that Patchett keeps pulling rabbits out of the hat as the plot moves along.
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytim...
A couple of other interesting things that Patchett says about her own writing practice:
She thinks about the story of a book a lot before she starts to write, playing through many different scenarios in her mind so that she knows how the structure and flow will work out. She has a plan, she knows the order in which things are going to take place. Once she has written the story, she will do what research she needs to avoid making errors, and she any then too will she enter details like the colour of a dress. I wonder how she chose the tricks she Parsifal and Sabine performed. Did she know before she started what they would be? When did she learn the explanations of the levitation trick and card tricks?
Patchett likes to play with the idea of ‘what if?’ What's the worst thing that could happen to this person? What will happen afterwards?
There is no magic in writing or in magic, she says – there’s a lot of hard work in creating illusion. It’s about performance, dominance, being able to convince people to believe you. -
she loved Parsifal, he was a good friend to her, and married her to save her from having to pay a large inheritance tax. And, well, from some problems that might arise.
His lawyer will inform her about the problems two weeks after her husband's death. It turns out he has a family. No, not in the sense of "wife and children", not at all. The family that each of us had in childhood. Mom. And sisters. In twenty-two years of dating, he never mentioned them, except for the one time when he said that they died in an accident and it hurts him to remember it. And now they are alive, some sums have been left to them by will, and the worst of all is that they are coming here. Sabina thinks so, imagining the need to communicate for some time with strangers, strangers and strangers. So alien that Parsifal never once spoke to her about them.
And you, the reader, are already tuning in to the squabble over the inheritance and all the possible nastiness perpetuated in folklore by the sayings "mother-in-law - all in the blood", "sister-in-law - snake's head". But the woman who comes, seems to be delighted with her daughter-in-law. With her is a slightly stiff young woman - the younger sister, whom Guy (that was his husband's name before he became a magician) saw only once, when she was two years old, before finally leaving her parents' home in Nebraska.
True трюк
Не каждый готов утруждать себя ради каких-то людей из прошлого.
Она сорокалетняя вдова. Хорошо обеспеченная унаследованными от мужа и друга мужа деньгами. Это не считая большого дома в Лос-Анджелесе и успешного магазина ковров. Она хороша собой, на самом деле - сказочно хороша. У нее любя��ие родители, которые живут совсем близко, и она тоже любит их. Милосердная мгновенная смерть мужа от аневризмы избавила их обоих от его долгого мучительного умирания больного СПИДом, каким за полгода до того умер его партнер.
Иллюзионист Парсифаль, чьей бессменной ассистенткой она была двадцать лет, прежде, чем стать женой, ушел, не утратив достоинства и красоты Ее жизнь словно бы тоже закончилась. То есть как? Ясно ведь, что при таком раскладе это был фиктивный брак. Ну и что? Любила она его по-настоящему, а их тройственный союз с Фаном был довольно у��тойчивой пирамидой: она дружила с Фаном, он был ей добрым другом, она любила Парсифаля, он был ей добрым другом, и женился на ней, чтобы избавить от необходимости платить большой налог на наследство. И, ну еще от некоторых проблем, которые могли бы возникнуть.
О проблемах ей сообщит его адвокат, спустя две недели после смерти мужа. У него, оказывается, есть семья. Нет, не в смысле "жена и дети", вовсе нет. Та семья, которая была в детстве у каждого из нас. Мама. И сестры. За двадцать два года знакомства он ни разу не упомянул о них, кроме того единственного случая, когда сказал, что они погибли в аварии и ему больно об этом вспоминать. И вот, теперь они живы, им оставлены по завещанию некоторые суммы, а хуже всего, что едут сюда. Так думает Сабина, представляя необходимость общаться некоторое время с незнакомыми чужими и чуждыми людьми. Настолько чуждыми, что Парсифаль ни разу не заговорил с ней о них.
И ты, читатель, уже настраиваешься на грызню за наследство и все возможные гадости, увековеченные в фольклоре поговорками "свекровь - всех в кровь", "золовка - змеиная головка". А приезжает простецкая тетка, которая, похоже, в восторге от невестки. С ней чуть скованная молодая женщина - младшая сестра, которую Гай (так звали мужа до того, как сделался фокусником) видел всего раз, двухлетней, прежде чем окончательно уйти из родительского дома в Небраске.
Стоп, а где провел два предшествовавших тому, года? Обо этом и о многих других вещах будет в книге. И еще о неожиданном прекрасном обретении на том пути, где думаешь, найти одни потери. И о том, как дружеское участие помогает справляться с горем. И о том, как неосознанно жестоки бываем мы к тем, кто нас любит, кого мы любим. И о том, что есть вещи, совершенные в отношении тебя, которые прощаешь и забываешь, но быть с теми, кто это сделал, уже никогда не сможешь. Ну, если у тебя будет выбор, а о том, чтобы был, ты позаботишься.
Это Энн Пэтчетт, близкая одновременно к уютно-примирительной позиции Энн Тайлер и Фэнни Флэгг, но стальные коготки социальной прозы под мягкой кошачьей лапой семейного романа Элизабет Страут ей не чужды. "Прощальный фокус" отличное чтение на пару осенних вечеров. -
I already knew Ann Patchett has a certain unique magic to build these deep and interesting character-driven stories, but I also knew that she's a shapeshifter who can move through all kinds of settings and people. There are a lot of books about romantic or familial love, but this book is about a rather unique little corner of love that is not quite right, redirected love, the kind that isn't perfect but that takes what it can. What a lovely and heartfelt book.
Sabine is newly a widow at the beginning of the book, but not in the way anyone would think. She was married for just a year or so to Parsifal, the man she has loved her whole adult life. He was the magician, she was the assistant, and even though she knew he was gay and would never love her the way she'd hoped, she devoted her life to him anyway. Sabine is used to the disappointments that come with this kind of love, but his death leaves her unmoored. Her disorientation only increases when she finds that he has kept from her for decades the truth of where he came from.
As Sabine meets the people who knew Parsifal as a child, she has to face questions about why he wasn't honest with her and the limits of their relationship. She also finds herself feeling a new sort of affection for them, even if it is only because of their attachment to her late husband.
The characters in this book are treated so tenderly. I was a little nervous at first when we meet these new characters that they would be presented negatively but there is so much empathy for everyone here, as we learn about the life Parsifal had as a child and the ways in which it impacted these other characters. So much about grief and the ability to change. -
Digital audio book performed by Karen Ziemba
3.5***
From the book jacket: Sabine – twenty years a magician’s assistant to her handsome, charming husband – is suddenly a widow. In the wake of his death, she finds he has left a final trick: a false identity and a family allegedly lost in a tragic accident but now revealed as very much alive and well. Named as heirs in his will, they enter Sabine’s life and set her on an adventure of unraveling his secrets, from sunny Los Angeles to the windswept plains of Nebraska, that will work its own sort of magic on her.
My reactions:
The first book by Patchett that I read was Bel Canto, and I was struck with how masterfully she portrayed those characters. Once again, I marvel at Patchett’s skill in drawing fully realized characters. Even the deceased – Parsifal, Phan, Albert – are alive in the way they are remembered by Sabine, by Dot, or by Kitty.
The story unfolds in bits and pieces, much as it would in real life. You don’t tell everything at once to someone you’ve just met, and likewise Sabine keeps some things to herself in describing her years with Parsifal to his mother, and Dot keeps key bits of information from Sabine in relating Parsifal/Guy’s childhood. In this way, the reader feels the same hesitancy as these characters. And yet, their ultimate decisions seem correct and reasonable, even when relayed as abrupt and hasty.
I also really liked how the environment affects their actions. Sabine is a different person in sunny Los Angeles than she is in snowy Nebraska.
Karen Ziemba does a fine job performing the audio book. She has good pacing and a facility for voices that made it clear who each character was. -
1/2/14: Rereading an old favorite is interesting. I still love this book, still love the glittering magic of LA and the gritty, land-bound Nebraska setting. What surprised me was how my perception changed. I loved this book at 19, then at 22, then at 24. Everyone felt so much older then; reading it now, I'm older than the youngest main character in the story, Bertie, and what hit hardest was how this was a story of grown ups not knowing what the hell they're doing and making poor decisions.
But then there are the good decisions, too. And I still remain curious about Sabine. This is never her story, so it's interesting she's the narrator. Part of me thinks that's why I like it so much. Every time I read it, I hope to know more about her.
It's not her story though. It never is, and it probably never will be. And yet...that's okay. She gets to tell the story anyway. -
(3.5) The first third of the novel takes place in Los Angeles, where Sabine lived with her husband Parsifal, the magician she assisted for 20 years, but the rest is set in winter-encased Nebraska. The contrast between the locations forms a perfect framework for a story of illusions versus reality.
The long section set in Nebraska went in directions I wasn’t expecting. It’s mostly based around late-night kitchen table and bedroom conversations; it’s a wonder it doesn’t become tedious. Patchett keeps the tension high as revelations emerge about what went on in this family. There are two moments when threat looks poised to spill into outright violence, in an echo of previous domestic violence.
For a long time I didn’t know what to make of the novel. It’s odd that all the consequential events happened before the first page and that we never truly meet Parsifal. Yet I loved the way that Sabine’s dreams and flashbacks widen the frame. Magic initially appears to be an arbitrary career choice, but gradually becomes a powerful metaphor of deception and control. Parsifal’s family are obsessed with a Johnny Carson performance he and Sabine once gave: they watch the video recording nightly, longing for the magic to be real. Maybe it is in the end?
Originally published on my blog,
Bookish Beck. -
(review originally posted at
http://nomadreader.blogspot.com)
The basics: At the beginning of the novel, Parcifal, the magician of the novel's title, dies suddenly. Sabine, the assistant of the title, is left to grieve.
My thoughts: After having loved State of Wonder, Bel Canto, and Run, I was convinced Ann Patchett was one of my literary soul sisters who could do no wrong. Sadly, I didn't connect with The Magician's Assistant at all, and I struggled to even finish the novel. My problems with this novel really begin with Sabine. While I'm normally an empathetic reader, I found myself instead wanting to shake Sabine. She fell in love with Parcifal years ago and worked as his assistant for more than twenty years. Parcifal, however, is gay, and he was in love with Phan, who died of AIDS. Parcifal was also sick with AIDS, and he and Sabine were preparing for his death, but something else killed him. As Sabine is dealing with her grief, I failed to understand her weakness. Her behavior seemed to be that of a teenager or woman in her early twenties. Patchett kept reminding me Sabine was in her forties, and I couldn't help but feel sad for her: she married a man who only loved her as a friend and has nothing else after his death but his money and the money of Phan.
As pitiful as Sabine was, I still kept hoping to connect with this novel. When Sabine learns Parcifal's mother is in fact alive and well in Nebraska, she welcomes her and Parcifal's sister when they visit Los Angeles. I hoped the preposterousness of this situation would carry humor and grace, but instead, it just seemed sad and somewhat far-fetched all around. Despite these long-held secrets about Parcifal (his family still knows him as Guy), something always felt off about the people; they never felt real either. There were a few digs at Midwestern life I didn't buy either, but I could have overlooked some of the caricature if I felt the emotional depth I have in Patchett's other works.
Favorite passage: "Most people can't be magicians for the same reason they can't be criminals. They have guilty souls. Deception doesn't come naturally. They want to be caught."
The verdict: Despite my love of Patchett's writing, I never connected with Sabine in this story, and I never felt truly engaged with the narrative. While her writing excelled, plot and character development were lacking, and overall, this novel left me cold.
Rating: 3 out of 5 -
Five stars with reluctance since I couldn't describe what the attraction this book had for me. Whether it was the grass is greener concept or we're all the same, or the draw of magic. The sad life of Sabine moved to a new chapter although she will likely continue to live propelled with other people's direction.
I absolutely loved the character of the rabbit who seemed a cross between a cat and dog. -
I found this to be a quick, somewhat compelling read, but it really fell flat for me when there was no good resolution. I expected the ending to be much more significant/meaningful/profound than it was - instead, it felt really empty. I also predicted it about 1/3 of the way through the book, and it played out in a really hollow way, I thought. Probably not worth reading if you haven't already, though it's quick so you could always try it w/out wasting much time.
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I love free little libraries, which is where I picked up this Ann Patchett novel, which somehow I managed to miss. It's so good. It brought me so much pleasure to read. I was swept up in this story where Sabine meets the family she had been told was dead after her husband Parsifal dies. And while learning about Parsifal's childhood, she falls for them and they for her and somehow ends up in Nebraska. Patchett is so good.
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This was the 5th Ann Patchett novel I've read, but the 2nd of those chronologically. It was...interesting.
Within the first 50 pages or so, you know quite a few things about Sabine: that's not really a spoiler.
So, boom. Where does Ms. Patchett go from there? There are still several secrets to be revealed, lots of family drama, and...there's Nebraska. And this is not Rainbow Rowell's quirky, but kind of hip, Nebraska. This is small town, white bread, 1990s Nebraska, as seen from the point of view of an author and a main character who have spent their lives in LA. I'm not saying there's not some truth in the portrayal, but it sometimes feels condescending.
Even without the "dreams" in which a ghost speaks to Sabine (sometimes foreshadowing things she doesn't even know yet), this book is odd. It kept me guessing, and the characters were intriguing, but the ending was too open for my taste. -
With The Magicians Assistant, Ann Patchett has performed the proverbial "Hat Trick" with a tale that is filled with beautiful writing but contains nothing new in the way of plot.
By diverting our attention with conversations with the dead, flashbacks, dreams and vicarious travel being experienced by Sabine, the title character of this piece and widow of Parsifal the Magician, she manages to make us think we are experiencing a tale of substance when, in fact, it is really all just smoke and mirrors. This story of a woman in love with a man who is in love with a man, as well as the "tragic" childhood experiences and hidden family with a trunkful of secrets are classic Hollywood fodder and not worthy of the woman who gave us Bel Canto and Patron Saint of Liars.
Okay, I get the premise. Everyone is searching for love and acceptance and at sometime in our lives we all have to deal with death, or loss, or grief ..... or a combination of all of the above. This search, however, was boring and it's final outcome less than satisfying and definitely without true resolution. Ms. Patchett was probably going for an abstract look at one woman's spiritual journey. All I can say is you had better pack a large lunch to take along on this trip, because that is the only thing that will sustain you, since there is little in this story to feed your grey matter. -
We meet Sabine as she mourns the death of her husband, Parsifal. The two had partnered on stage in a magic act. But this was not a typical marriage. Although the two loved each other dearly, they did not marry until about a year prior, after a decades long friendship. Parsifal was gay, and was dying of AIDS, the disease that had taken his lover, Phan. When a lawyer comes to Sabine with details of the will, she learns that everything Parsifal had told her about his upbringing was a lie. His mother and sister come to Los Angeles, meet with Sabine and mourn together. The story is about Sabine looking into Parsifal’s past as a way of getting closer to him, as his mother seeks out Sabine as her way of re-engaging with her lost son. What did Parsifal have to hide? As each secret is revealed, we wonder what will be revealed next. Is Sabine the only Magician’s Assistant here? Parsifal’s sister turns out to have been the original model for that role. What other parallelisms will Pratchett reveal?
Although the tale of a secret past revealed is interesting, the action is very deliberate, and I found that I was eager for her to pick up the pace. I cannot say that I seriously considered not finishing the book, but the thought did cross my mind. -
Went down like pablum. Bland, but healthy, just like a Hallmark movie. Everyone is good and wonderful and life affirming except for a couple of domestic abuser men.
Sabine’s magician husband, Parsifal, has just died at the beginning of this story. It soon becomes clear that she has loved him for the 20 years that she has served as his assistant on stage, despite knowing he was gay. She lived with Parsifal and his lover for a long time in LA and only married him recently as his prolonged illness became worse.
This story I would have liked to learn a lot more about. By what miracle could such a relationship work? Instead, the story focuses on her grief. After Parsifal’s death she learns he has a family in Nebraska she never knew about. She spends most of the book coming to terms with a dark secret from Parsifal’s youth and sharing her love and grief over losing him with the family he tried to forget.
The story is touching, and the characters are well drawn. But I didn’t laugh and I didn’t cry. I didn’t gain detectable wisdom about being human. And I wasn’t struck enough by the prose to consider writing some passages down. -
I truly love Ann Patchett's writing. Her characters are deep and raw and flawed and so human. They are so well presented and developed so that by the end I have a clear vision of who they are...even if they don't know have such a clear view of themselves.
I love love loved the characters and they made this book so good.
This book was such a beautiful and emotion description of deep grief from different point of views. The inside of Sabine's mind was an interesting place to be and I enjoyed learning about Percifal from her memories combined with his family's.
I will admit there wasn't much of a "point" to this story. It's more of just a portrait of grief and "real" people's lives and thoughts. I am starting to ramble, but it's hard to really review this book as I thought it was unique, but also in Ann Patchett's lovely style. -
Whew. I've been muddling through 2 and 3 star books for a while; it was quite a relief to find this beautiful specimen. I have State of Wonder on my to read list and was browsing stacks in the library by author and figured I'd pick up something else by Patchett to see what I thought. And I loved it.
This book was very compelling, beautifully written, amazingly perceptive, funny, and wise. The characters were complex, the plot unfolded well, and I really only have one very small criticism.
I thought the two boys (How and Guy) were not consistently portrayed. They are supposed to be in 9th and 11th grades (making them roughly 14 and 16) and yet, most of the time they were described (at least emotionally and mentally) as about 9 and 11 (I mean really, they can't just go home after school and be alone, they still need their grandma to babysit them???); then, at the very end when Kitty and Sabine are looking through their rooms to pack, Sabine finds a roach on the floor. What? They are smoking pot? When? They are never home alone!
On the other hand, the unraveling of the romance between Kitty and Sabine was great. I had it pegged the morning after Sabine's first meeting with Kitty when she comes out into the living room to discuss things with Dot and she just can't stop thinking about Kitty's beautiful face and how much she resembles Parsifal. After just having watched 12th Night at the local Shakespeare theater, I had sibling switcheroo in my head and maybe guessed this sooner than other readers might. Either way, Patchett unfolds it beautifully and it is completely understandable from a psychological perspective.
I loved the subtle revelation of Howard's relationship with Kitty. At first I was convinced that he was very abusive (Patchett sets the reader up with Kitty's inability to make dinner on Sabine's arrival) and controlling, but as it developed I understood him to be less abusive in the sense that Albert was abusive and more violent natured. I am not saying he's not a prick and certainly in the last scene with the knife the reader is given a glimpse of the harm he might be capable of inflicting, but he is not just an abusive jerk. He is a complex character; he is a bully with no real self esteem and in his own way is upset at the very real possibility that his wife is actually going to leave him this time. He understand the complexities of the relationship between Kitty and Sabine and feels threatened. I was so pleased that this minor character was not just a stereotype place holder, but also has depth and complex angles.
Really, there was hardly anything here that did not please me in some way (almost unheard of if you've read any of my other reviews). I have three worth quotes below:
"Having come to find there was no comfort in getting what she wanted, what she wanted now was something else entirely." Great concise quote on human nature.
"For twenty-two years Sabine had told her stories to one person, so that the action and the telling had become inseparable. What was left was half a life, the one where she lived it but had nothing later to give shape to the experience." As a new widow, Sabine does not know how to live without having Parsifal there to reflect her own experience back to her. Again, concise and beautiful.
"You never told because people wanted so desperately to know. They wanted what you had and therefore what you had was all the power. Who would give that up? What possible benefit could there ever be in telling? A minute of gratitude and then the dull falling away, the boredom that always followed knowledge." Not only true in relation to the revelation of magic tricks, but also the human inability to achieve satisfaction. It goes great as a concept with the first quote above...all that ever happens once you get something (an object, knowledge, or love from the unattainable) is that you find a new thing to want.
This is a beautifully written, compelling and complex work that manages to be witty at the same time. -
I have read other books by Ann and really liked them, she is a great writer and I will continue to read more by her. The main character in this book is a woman who has been in love with a gay man, the magician to her magician's assistant, for over 20 years. The man and his lover have just died of AIDS and she is left behind in the house the three of them had shared. She is a bit of a pathetic creature, I had to really work sometimes to respect her, even though I think she is intelligent and grieving. I found it sad that she wasn't able to own more of her own life, that she lived so vicariously through her "husband" Parsifal (they got married shortly before he died so she could inherit everything) and his lover Phan. The main character in the book was really Parsifal and you just learn everything about him through her, but she really doesn't have a voice of her own - until maybe the very end. I definitely liked this book, but I feel like if she was my friend I would get very annoyed with her as a person.
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This is the first book by Ann Patchett I've ever read. It won't be my last.
For 20 years Sabine has been the assistant to the brilliant magician, Parsifal, with whom she has also been obsessively in love. But Parsifal is gay, and his lover, Phan, is part of this trio of characters. Unsavory as this may sound, it seems to work well for them.
Then Phan dies -- Parsifal, feeling his own death is nearing -- marries Sabine so that she can inherit his and Phan's estates. But, once she's a widow, the grieving Sabine begins to make all sorts of startling discoveries about the magician whom she thought she knew so thoroughly, and about herself as well.
Anything more I tell you will be a spoiler. Suffice to say, this is a well written book and it held my interest to the end.
