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Accidental Magic
'A terrific debut. Sparkling, very (very) funny, and deeply moving' ARAVIND ADIGA 'Truly something different, and exhilarating' GARY SHTEYNGART Set in Boston and Bangalore, Accidental Magic is the story of four very different people whose lives are brought together by Harry Potter. For Kannan, Curtis, Rebecca and Malathi, social outsiders and people adrift, the intense and diverse world of Harry Potter fandom offers community, even a sense of meaning. An extraordinary novel about how flawed relationships can be; how we battle loneliness, live on hope and search for that perfect connection-often settling for imperfection-it is also about the tension between duty and the individual pursuit of happiness. Accidental Magic is a work of great imagination and marks the arrival of an exciting and powerful new voice.
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March 9, 2020
Indian emigrant Kannan has read no other book except his course books—until he chances upon the Harry Potter (HP) series. In the US, the mediocre student’s life becomes entangled with Grimmet, an elderly chat show host with a special love for HP and England. Back in Madras, India, young Malathi scours the city for the latest HP book before organising a quiz for children based on the series. Meanwhile, in Boston, a heartbroken Harvard graduate, Rebecca, turns to HP for solace. At an event, she hears 13-year-old Ezra Miller claiming the HP series is “the most important books of our time.” From just reading the books as a distraction, she eventually seeks permission to enter the HP4BK website—Harry Potter for Big Kids—thus stepping squarely into fandom.
Keshava Guha’s debut novel, Accidental Magic, attempts to delve into the murky ground between the virtual and the real, literary and literal, the mind in solitude and its transformation within a clique. For a work of art that circumnutates the fantasy world created by the seven-part HP series (of which only four are published at the time the book is set), the novel (and/or its characters) displays practical and quite routine objectives: (a) To establish HP as the great literature of our time; (b) To debate the pros and cons of fan fiction; (c) To dissect friendships and relationships built around HP; (d) To take forward the Harry/Hermione (H/H) ship; (e) To explore ways to sneakily integrate HP in every life around the earth; (f) To examine and analyse Anglophilia, particularly in the context of the Indian who was previously oppressed by the British, but in an example of Stockholm syndrome, seems obsessed with the race, their productions, and the country; and (g) To demonstrate a love-hate relationship with Harvard and all that the Ivy League stands for.
An interesting start for a thesis or HP 101, certainly, but a novel? The story runs away with itself. It’s quite bizarre and wild and inexplicable—to be lauded for its fresh approach, but eventually a botched experiment. Accidental Magic defies description, which could be an absolute brownie point for a novel, but here it works in the opposite way. The writer commands his words to his will, the novel itself is perceptive and overflowing with knowledge of the human mind in the .com era, yet it does not all come together as a seamless whole.
To base an entire novel on minute details and spin-offs of HP, a kind of breathless and adolescent exaltation that can be dense and incomprehensible to non-HP readers, is a risk. While the author has mentioned time and again that reading (or not reading) HP has nothing to do with the novel, it does have everything to do with the novel. You cannot choose a setting for your work of literature, and then deny its overbearing strands hanging from every corner. For ardent HP-lovers, especially, the work is a puzzle, wrapped up so deeply and completely in its clubs and bonding that a reader may scarcely peep in. Just like Rebecca doesn’t quite ‘get’ Kannan, it is quite a task to ‘get’ this book.
It is easy to love the novel when it starts out. Nostalgia hits you hard, even if you weren’t a 70s kid growing up in India. “Back in Bangalore, in the last year at engineering college, it had been Kannan’s habit of bunking Friday class with his friends Vinay and Ashok in favour of a morning show at the cinema, Tamil or Hindi if they had to , but ideally Hollywood, and to lunch at the Tao Fu Bar and Restaurant, consisting of Chicken Manchurian and rum or whisky with Pepsi, at retail price.” Kannan is a knock-off version of his brother Santhanam (now Santa C. Nam), the imitation “as pitiful as a low-budget Tamil remake of a Hollywood action film.” Endearing as this is, it is quite a challenge for a novel on a migrating Indian to be different—loss, attachment, unbelonging, forgetting, embracing—so much has already been discussed these last many decades.
The novel veers off the emotional path by introducing something quite new—a friendship that starts with a mutual love for Harry Potter, such a telling story of our time. A young adult tumbling precariously into manhood and an eccentric radio presenter old enough to be his father bond over a HP purchase, creating a background for what could be an exciting examination of literary relationships. Alas, it never arrives, instead ending with characters vying to lay themselves at the feet of Kannan. Kannan, whose growth arc does not deserve any of this, who has to be one of the most irritation-inducing and ungrateful characters to exist, who displays no agency except penning a few lines over a relationship in HP. In fact, none of the characters draw you to them except for Malathi, a warm and sensible presence who suffers from the hands of the thoughtless (troubled, some might see him as) Kannan.
There are issues embedded deep into the novel that are certainly on the minds of many, many people: how lonely we are in the midst of a burgeoning crowd, how our virtual friendships rarely translate into fulfilling relationships, how the real and the virtual are so mixed up in our minds we lose context. But there is little coherence or clarity in dealing with any of these. The novel ends up being too preppy, too niche, overflowing with literary references and inside ‘philosophies.’ Rebecca’s father, a professor, treats her thus: “When, as a freshman, she had threatened to concentrate in social anthropology, he sent her a paper by Martha Nusbaum denouncing cultural relativism. The news that she was dating a final-club jock was met with a selection from Heloise’s letters to Abelard, and her decision to join IvyEdge by Marx’s Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 and On the Jewish Question.” The same father also treats us to a sudden and irrelevant sermon on menstrual syncing. We get it, it’s a satire on the extremely pedantic, but it is still quite unnecessary to the plot.
There is also a constant need to validate Harry Potter and ‘protect’ its reads – comparing it to Shakespeare’s work and justifying its ‘mystery’ when Harold Bloom disses it for not being ‘a literary genius in the classical sense.’ This novel, it must be repeated, is not a thesis on the virtues of the HP series, nor need a novel, at regular intervals, harp on the wonderful world created by the HP’s fan fiction.
This is a novel that happens completely in the author’s mind (like all works of fiction), perhaps gives the author a great deal of pleasure for being able to get the HP theme off his chest, but is unable to translate the idea into the actual pages (unlike the lively, enchanting and refreshing fiction it could be).
Keshava Guha’s debut novel, Accidental Magic, attempts to delve into the murky ground between the virtual and the real, literary and literal, the mind in solitude and its transformation within a clique. For a work of art that circumnutates the fantasy world created by the seven-part HP series (of which only four are published at the time the book is set), the novel (and/or its characters) displays practical and quite routine objectives: (a) To establish HP as the great literature of our time; (b) To debate the pros and cons of fan fiction; (c) To dissect friendships and relationships built around HP; (d) To take forward the Harry/Hermione (H/H) ship; (e) To explore ways to sneakily integrate HP in every life around the earth; (f) To examine and analyse Anglophilia, particularly in the context of the Indian who was previously oppressed by the British, but in an example of Stockholm syndrome, seems obsessed with the race, their productions, and the country; and (g) To demonstrate a love-hate relationship with Harvard and all that the Ivy League stands for.
An interesting start for a thesis or HP 101, certainly, but a novel? The story runs away with itself. It’s quite bizarre and wild and inexplicable—to be lauded for its fresh approach, but eventually a botched experiment. Accidental Magic defies description, which could be an absolute brownie point for a novel, but here it works in the opposite way. The writer commands his words to his will, the novel itself is perceptive and overflowing with knowledge of the human mind in the .com era, yet it does not all come together as a seamless whole.
To base an entire novel on minute details and spin-offs of HP, a kind of breathless and adolescent exaltation that can be dense and incomprehensible to non-HP readers, is a risk. While the author has mentioned time and again that reading (or not reading) HP has nothing to do with the novel, it does have everything to do with the novel. You cannot choose a setting for your work of literature, and then deny its overbearing strands hanging from every corner. For ardent HP-lovers, especially, the work is a puzzle, wrapped up so deeply and completely in its clubs and bonding that a reader may scarcely peep in. Just like Rebecca doesn’t quite ‘get’ Kannan, it is quite a task to ‘get’ this book.
It is easy to love the novel when it starts out. Nostalgia hits you hard, even if you weren’t a 70s kid growing up in India. “Back in Bangalore, in the last year at engineering college, it had been Kannan’s habit of bunking Friday class with his friends Vinay and Ashok in favour of a morning show at the cinema, Tamil or Hindi if they had to , but ideally Hollywood, and to lunch at the Tao Fu Bar and Restaurant, consisting of Chicken Manchurian and rum or whisky with Pepsi, at retail price.” Kannan is a knock-off version of his brother Santhanam (now Santa C. Nam), the imitation “as pitiful as a low-budget Tamil remake of a Hollywood action film.” Endearing as this is, it is quite a challenge for a novel on a migrating Indian to be different—loss, attachment, unbelonging, forgetting, embracing—so much has already been discussed these last many decades.
The novel veers off the emotional path by introducing something quite new—a friendship that starts with a mutual love for Harry Potter, such a telling story of our time. A young adult tumbling precariously into manhood and an eccentric radio presenter old enough to be his father bond over a HP purchase, creating a background for what could be an exciting examination of literary relationships. Alas, it never arrives, instead ending with characters vying to lay themselves at the feet of Kannan. Kannan, whose growth arc does not deserve any of this, who has to be one of the most irritation-inducing and ungrateful characters to exist, who displays no agency except penning a few lines over a relationship in HP. In fact, none of the characters draw you to them except for Malathi, a warm and sensible presence who suffers from the hands of the thoughtless (troubled, some might see him as) Kannan.
There are issues embedded deep into the novel that are certainly on the minds of many, many people: how lonely we are in the midst of a burgeoning crowd, how our virtual friendships rarely translate into fulfilling relationships, how the real and the virtual are so mixed up in our minds we lose context. But there is little coherence or clarity in dealing with any of these. The novel ends up being too preppy, too niche, overflowing with literary references and inside ‘philosophies.’ Rebecca’s father, a professor, treats her thus: “When, as a freshman, she had threatened to concentrate in social anthropology, he sent her a paper by Martha Nusbaum denouncing cultural relativism. The news that she was dating a final-club jock was met with a selection from Heloise’s letters to Abelard, and her decision to join IvyEdge by Marx’s Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 and On the Jewish Question.” The same father also treats us to a sudden and irrelevant sermon on menstrual syncing. We get it, it’s a satire on the extremely pedantic, but it is still quite unnecessary to the plot.
There is also a constant need to validate Harry Potter and ‘protect’ its reads – comparing it to Shakespeare’s work and justifying its ‘mystery’ when Harold Bloom disses it for not being ‘a literary genius in the classical sense.’ This novel, it must be repeated, is not a thesis on the virtues of the HP series, nor need a novel, at regular intervals, harp on the wonderful world created by the HP’s fan fiction.
This is a novel that happens completely in the author’s mind (like all works of fiction), perhaps gives the author a great deal of pleasure for being able to get the HP theme off his chest, but is unable to translate the idea into the actual pages (unlike the lively, enchanting and refreshing fiction it could be).
December 14, 2019
I was wondering why a book that has Harry Potter references in it, not being picked up by more number of people? Well statistics aside, here's a book I will most definitely NOT recommend you.
.
A book that could have only come to existence 'Accidentally', 'Accidental Magic' hasn't done a single thing right. The thoughts are imposing, the writing is boring and the plot is one big mess. I would have survived this if the Harry Potter angle was done well, but if you think you can shame and criticize characters from this popular series and gain brownie points, then your market survey skills are rusty.
.
The blurb talks about themes like loneliness and disjointed relationships but that angle didn't work either and the writing is to blame. The author force-feeds opinions throughout the book, be it on any topic he is talking about.
.
Just going to leave it at that because this book exhausted me beyond possibilities (I am sure that's a thing, because I feel it).
.
A book that could have only come to existence 'Accidentally', 'Accidental Magic' hasn't done a single thing right. The thoughts are imposing, the writing is boring and the plot is one big mess. I would have survived this if the Harry Potter angle was done well, but if you think you can shame and criticize characters from this popular series and gain brownie points, then your market survey skills are rusty.
.
The blurb talks about themes like loneliness and disjointed relationships but that angle didn't work either and the writing is to blame. The author force-feeds opinions throughout the book, be it on any topic he is talking about.
.
Just going to leave it at that because this book exhausted me beyond possibilities (I am sure that's a thing, because I feel it).
January 18, 2020
Accidental Magic is the story of four people who have come together by Harry Potter Fandom and the book also has some info about how fandom works. It actually sounded so interesting when I read the blurb about Harry Potter, I was so excited to read it. But when I actually read the book I didn't like it.
The plot was so confusing and boring also the pace of the story is very slow.. I almost DNF'ed the book but then later I picked it up again and completed reading it. The starting of the story was quite nice but then after few chapters It just became too boring.
I don't recommend this book.
The plot was so confusing and boring also the pace of the story is very slow.. I almost DNF'ed the book but then later I picked it up again and completed reading it. The starting of the story was quite nice but then after few chapters It just became too boring.
I don't recommend this book.
July 20, 2020
This book was frustratingly pointless.... Except for the cover art there is absolutely nothing that excited me.... I am a Potterhead and I had really high hopes from this book as he claimed that this book is a must read for Potterheads.. Well no The Harry Potter world is not just about harry/hermione or hermione /ron ship.... There is soo much more.
The character development was weak and the book as I said is a disappointment
The character development was weak and the book as I said is a disappointment
December 9, 2019
After a month of struggling I finally completed this one🙃
This is a story of 4 different individuals that came together because of Harry Potter. The description talked about being a part of the fandom and it had me at that point. From the sound of it I thought this one's going to be light breezy read, unfortunately it wasn't (for me atleast) The pace was too slow and the narration was all over the place. I loved the character of Malathi, she radiated warmth, other than that, I could hardly connect with the others. There was this political side to HP introduced, regarding the British and Indian sentiments towards the books which was something new for me. This book was supposed to be "very very funny" according to the description but I didn't find it funny in any way, except if you consider racist remarks as funny🙃 The handling of racism was another big issue in the book. There were so many paragraphs that didn't work for me, not on a personal level but simply as something you put up in the society for everyone to read, I don't think rating women, calling someone unattractive because they are Asian or questioning someone's beauty because sHe hAs a sLigHTlY crOoKeD nOse is fun to read in any way.
This is a story of 4 different individuals that came together because of Harry Potter. The description talked about being a part of the fandom and it had me at that point. From the sound of it I thought this one's going to be light breezy read, unfortunately it wasn't (for me atleast) The pace was too slow and the narration was all over the place. I loved the character of Malathi, she radiated warmth, other than that, I could hardly connect with the others. There was this political side to HP introduced, regarding the British and Indian sentiments towards the books which was something new for me. This book was supposed to be "very very funny" according to the description but I didn't find it funny in any way, except if you consider racist remarks as funny🙃 The handling of racism was another big issue in the book. There were so many paragraphs that didn't work for me, not on a personal level but simply as something you put up in the society for everyone to read, I don't think rating women, calling someone unattractive because they are Asian or questioning someone's beauty because sHe hAs a sLigHTlY crOoKeD nOse is fun to read in any way.
December 17, 2019
'Accidental Magic' is enjoyable on many counts. I particularly liked the way the author naturalized the presence of the internet and the emotions that surround it. Even in this late year, 2019, nearly two decades into the twenty-first century, it's rare to come across a text that grapples with how the technology has transformed our lives, and woven our emotions in-between its bits and speeds.
Then there is the fanfic itself. The community of Harry Potter obsessives described in the book appear like the most committed of Grateful Dead fans--such is the strength of their devotion. Indeed, Curtis Grimmett--were he not such a faithful anglophile--might well have been a Deadhead had he lived on the west coast rather than the east.
But this novel is about so much more than fandom. It is also about our relationship to the wider universe of English literature. Key, in this regard, is the heated disagreement between Rebecca and her father over what is worth reading. What constitutes respectable literature in the eyes of an upper-middle class Anglophone family that considers itself among the first citizens of English literature? Is it JM Coetzee or JK Rowling? Why can't it be both, the author here seems to be suggesting?
And why might a community of fanfic obsessives be brought together in a way that even husbands and wives cannot? What is it about the strength of the former's devotion that can sometimes--oftentimes--be found wanting among the latter?
Then there is the fanfic itself. The community of Harry Potter obsessives described in the book appear like the most committed of Grateful Dead fans--such is the strength of their devotion. Indeed, Curtis Grimmett--were he not such a faithful anglophile--might well have been a Deadhead had he lived on the west coast rather than the east.
But this novel is about so much more than fandom. It is also about our relationship to the wider universe of English literature. Key, in this regard, is the heated disagreement between Rebecca and her father over what is worth reading. What constitutes respectable literature in the eyes of an upper-middle class Anglophone family that considers itself among the first citizens of English literature? Is it JM Coetzee or JK Rowling? Why can't it be both, the author here seems to be suggesting?
And why might a community of fanfic obsessives be brought together in a way that even husbands and wives cannot? What is it about the strength of the former's devotion that can sometimes--oftentimes--be found wanting among the latter?
December 23, 2019
I enjoyed this book thoroughly. It reminded my of Bolano in parts, the way it never questions the importance of the act of reading...especially when young. It reminds us that reading can become a shared tissue of interest and emotional commitment between people of differing backgrounds. In this sense it is a reminder that reading is not only a solitary act but a communion, not only with the author, as is commonly known, but between fellow readers. I thought the characters were ingenious; perhaps not always likeable, but always real. In Kannan we have a moving portrait of a character's slow realisation of his own human agency, and the terrible cost that sometimes entails. I loved Malathi, and the halo of warmth that surrounded her, and would love to learn more of her, and hear more of her voice - hopefully she will wander into a sequel or another work by Guha. While Rebecca's character seemed a little...elusive...for me I loved Grimmet - a kind of Falstaff with a fake wand - agonisingly self-conscious but with a lovely, but believably flawed, streak of human generosity.
The book's exploration of fanfic and its jargon is a courageous portrayal of something few writers have attempted to engage with; the strange, nerdy and obsessive world of genre fandom: And in this sense the book is a manifesto for the power of non-literary fiction, and a reminder that the boundary between literary and non-literary fiction is arbitrary and confining. Harry Potter meant so much to so many people, and that itself is worthy of being the subject of a novel. Harry Potter's global reach is of course a reminder, in this world of fractured identities, that we share a great much across the world, (something that Kannan draws on while lonely in America), and when we find something that brings us together across boundaries, then that is, indeed, a precious drop of accidental magic.
The book's exploration of fanfic and its jargon is a courageous portrayal of something few writers have attempted to engage with; the strange, nerdy and obsessive world of genre fandom: And in this sense the book is a manifesto for the power of non-literary fiction, and a reminder that the boundary between literary and non-literary fiction is arbitrary and confining. Harry Potter meant so much to so many people, and that itself is worthy of being the subject of a novel. Harry Potter's global reach is of course a reminder, in this world of fractured identities, that we share a great much across the world, (something that Kannan draws on while lonely in America), and when we find something that brings us together across boundaries, then that is, indeed, a precious drop of accidental magic.
December 18, 2019
I don't think I've ever quite read anything like this - I enjoyed it from the start, so it wasn't all that surprising that I read it cover to cover in a day. As someone looked forward to reading Harry Potter fan fiction when I returned home from school everyday, the novel's characters and themes struck a chord with me. The book also takes us back to the era of the internet that birthed fan fiction and that fostered a specific kind of kinship and community that has very much vanished now in the social media age. It's also very, very funny.
January 18, 2020
Accidental Magic is unlike any book I’ve ever read - in a good way. Keshava Guha skilfully weaves together different worlds and a set of fantastic characters within them. I found the writing to be precise and stimulating. I welcomed the pace fluctuating from fast to more reflective. The complexity of the characters means that feelings towards them warm and cool throughout the book, which is much more interesting than just being “relatable”. The author opened my eyes to a community that I had not been acutely aware of - how many more of these invisible communities exist? Globalisation enables some movement, opportunities and cultural exchange, but Keshava Guha wisely navigates the associated challenges, stereotypes and realities. So much is captured in just one book! I would strongly recommend Accidental Magic, and you really don’t have to be a Harry Potter fan to enjoy it.
January 12, 2020
A wonderful and moving literary debut by Keshava Guha. The book has been described as a novel about Harry Potter fandom - in fact, like all quality novels, this is really a book about people. There is a wonderful humanity to the book as Guha probes his characters with admirable depth and interest. Even those with no or little interest in Harry Potter (and I fall into this camp) will find so much to enjoy here. This is a rich inventive novel and I can’t wait to read more from this author.
December 16, 2019
I came across Accidental Magic in a newspaper and was immediately captivated by the theme - India, aspirational middle class, Masters, USA, friendship, romance, and Harry Potter.
Accidental Magic starts promisingly - two starkly different brothers born in a Tam Brahm family taking the tried and tested route of greatness by going to the US for their masters. It then moves onto the world of Harry Potter fandom and to anyone who likes Harry Potter, this will bring back some fond memories. Other central characters are then introduced with HP as the common theme. From this point, the story is about what role each of the 4 central characters played in each other's lives.
While it starts out as a coming of age story of a group of youngsters who enjoy Harry Potter, Accidental Magic changed paths too quickly for my liking. The author had a very interesting plot setting to deliver a page-turner but he went for a philosophical discourse on people's actions and motivations. Keshava Guha clearly has both the insight and vocabulary to describe the human psyche effectively but it just wasn't what I was looking for.
I think sophisticated readers or students of literature or philosophy will find Accidental Magic more engaging and entertaining than I did. I'll take solace from the book itself, where one of the central characters realizes that it is okay to like and enjoy a children's book more than some of the woke literature of the era.
Accidental Magic starts promisingly - two starkly different brothers born in a Tam Brahm family taking the tried and tested route of greatness by going to the US for their masters. It then moves onto the world of Harry Potter fandom and to anyone who likes Harry Potter, this will bring back some fond memories. Other central characters are then introduced with HP as the common theme. From this point, the story is about what role each of the 4 central characters played in each other's lives.
While it starts out as a coming of age story of a group of youngsters who enjoy Harry Potter, Accidental Magic changed paths too quickly for my liking. The author had a very interesting plot setting to deliver a page-turner but he went for a philosophical discourse on people's actions and motivations. Keshava Guha clearly has both the insight and vocabulary to describe the human psyche effectively but it just wasn't what I was looking for.
I think sophisticated readers or students of literature or philosophy will find Accidental Magic more engaging and entertaining than I did. I'll take solace from the book itself, where one of the central characters realizes that it is okay to like and enjoy a children's book more than some of the woke literature of the era.
December 7, 2019
2019 #YearInBooks Book 96
Actual Rating: 3.5 Stars
Read my complete review on A Bookworm’s Musing: https://wp.me/p2J8yh-3Pq
When a book blurb says the story is of four very different people brought together by the world of Harry Potter, it makes me notice. That, and the lightning bolt on the cover art. That’s why I picked it up. The book is not a quick read. I thought it might be, but it was slow reading but that might be because though I am a Harry Potter fan, I am not someone into fandom. I think someone who knows that world might like this book more. What I love about the book is the character sketches. They felt real. I don’t know if the novel is a funny read. But it definitely was different. Worth a try, perhaps.
Actual Rating: 3.5 Stars
Read my complete review on A Bookworm’s Musing: https://wp.me/p2J8yh-3Pq
When a book blurb says the story is of four very different people brought together by the world of Harry Potter, it makes me notice. That, and the lightning bolt on the cover art. That’s why I picked it up. The book is not a quick read. I thought it might be, but it was slow reading but that might be because though I am a Harry Potter fan, I am not someone into fandom. I think someone who knows that world might like this book more. What I love about the book is the character sketches. They felt real. I don’t know if the novel is a funny read. But it definitely was different. Worth a try, perhaps.
July 16, 2024
An interesting (and formidably literary) exploration of the power of the Harry Potter (HP) books and the early internet in bringing very different people together who otherwise might not have had anything in common. Four unlikely characters paired in combinations of different ages, background, circumstance, and culture intersect via the world of HP fandom and emerge (somewhat) changed from those interactions.
Guha-the-critic, much like James Wood, is such a strong voice that it is hard not to read him in Guha-the-author. Much of critique of the book is already covered by the author himself via some masterful free-indirect speech through his characters.
[Further, Kannan's sophistication of views (quoting Aristotle's prime mover theory to explain JK Rowling & Harry Potter fandom, knowing about literary 'canon', or Proust's Time Regained, etc.) feel disconsonant, given that he is painted as a stereotypical desi coder who has only ever read 4 books - HP 1-4]
[Although, the last critique cannot be laid on this book, which has many wry asides and absurd moments]
In this first novel, what is missing and is expected of a "literary" author of Guha's talent is some skin-in-the-game or "grappling with the highest stakes", as Grimmett puts it. Looking forward to Guha's next work supposedly set in India/Delhi, where some real stakes might be grappled with (a la Adiga's White Tiger)
Guha-the-critic, much like James Wood, is such a strong voice that it is hard not to read him in Guha-the-author. Much of critique of the book is already covered by the author himself via some masterful free-indirect speech through his characters.
"the different bits of Kannan—his background, his accent, his build, his relationship with Grimmett, his career and his place in fandom — refused to fit together."
[Further, Kannan's sophistication of views (quoting Aristotle's prime mover theory to explain JK Rowling & Harry Potter fandom, knowing about literary 'canon', or Proust's Time Regained, etc.) feel disconsonant, given that he is painted as a stereotypical desi coder who has only ever read 4 books - HP 1-4]
"I soldiered through both these novels, but they just didn’t speak to me. It felt like they were supposed to weighty and profound and provocative. But I thought: I don’t want all this grand self-importance. And then all the politics was accompanied by sudden bursts of melodramatic plot. And just no lightness anywhere. Unremitting seriousness.’"
[Although, the last critique cannot be laid on this book, which has many wry asides and absurd moments]
In this first novel, what is missing and is expected of a "literary" author of Guha's talent is some skin-in-the-game or "grappling with the highest stakes", as Grimmett puts it. Looking forward to Guha's next work supposedly set in India/Delhi, where some real stakes might be grappled with (a la Adiga's White Tiger)
December 10, 2019
I really liked Accidental Magic. In a way, I felt that it was written for people like me... I wasn’t into HP fandom but I did grow up participating in anonymous internet blogs and that thrilling feeling of relating to absolute strangers over shared interests is so well captured in this book. I never met anyone from my anonymous blogging days but this book almost makes me wish I did. Really good writing and such interesting/complex characters.
August 30, 2020
But in that life he'd have been like Santhanam, which would have meant never knowing Harry Potter at all.
There was a time when internet data was something to be preserved.
A time when we interacted over emails, the new thing which had replaced letters.
A time when new cyber cafés were opening all over in India.
A time when we were looking towards a new century, new decade, new innovations, new possibilities, and perhaps, new life.
And a time when a single book series had taken the world by storm.
Harry Potter.
This is the book about that time.
And that age.
The absence of self awareness, like hypocrisy, is only noticed in other people.
The book's set primarily in Boston, while some parts take place in Bangalore. The prose flows smoothly, and it has an overall literary quality to it.
My favourite part of the book was the situations, the customs, the atmosphere of that time recreated so beautifully by the author.
Be it the Harry Potter fandom which was slowly emerging at that time.
Or the way a big chunk of the literary world looked down upon these new "children" books.
Or the subplot based on the very common system of arranged marriage in India.
...it was easy enough to see that Rowling wasn't a literary genius in a classical way, but that only compounded the mystery. There was something almost accidental about her magic.
The only flaw, I'd say, in the book was the characterization (though that can be blamed on the short length of the book). Barring one, all the characters are very generic and without any depth.
Also, unlike me, if you're a plot-driven reader, this book might not be for you. The plot, per se, isn't there.
The book is more about the descriptions, and the conversations, and the relationships shared by the characters, and I quite loved that!
Recommended.
There was a time when internet data was something to be preserved.
A time when we interacted over emails, the new thing which had replaced letters.
A time when new cyber cafés were opening all over in India.
A time when we were looking towards a new century, new decade, new innovations, new possibilities, and perhaps, new life.
And a time when a single book series had taken the world by storm.
Harry Potter.
This is the book about that time.
And that age.
The absence of self awareness, like hypocrisy, is only noticed in other people.
The book's set primarily in Boston, while some parts take place in Bangalore. The prose flows smoothly, and it has an overall literary quality to it.
My favourite part of the book was the situations, the customs, the atmosphere of that time recreated so beautifully by the author.
Be it the Harry Potter fandom which was slowly emerging at that time.
Or the way a big chunk of the literary world looked down upon these new "children" books.
Or the subplot based on the very common system of arranged marriage in India.
...it was easy enough to see that Rowling wasn't a literary genius in a classical way, but that only compounded the mystery. There was something almost accidental about her magic.
The only flaw, I'd say, in the book was the characterization (though that can be blamed on the short length of the book). Barring one, all the characters are very generic and without any depth.
Also, unlike me, if you're a plot-driven reader, this book might not be for you. The plot, per se, isn't there.
The book is more about the descriptions, and the conversations, and the relationships shared by the characters, and I quite loved that!
Recommended.
April 30, 2025
This review is going to have spoilers and if any if the readers enjoyed this novel I suggest you skip my review..
The protagonist,Kannan lives in Boston and becomes a Harry Potter fan. He runs in to Curtis who is a fellow fan of Harry Potter at a store and they form a friendship over the common interest in Harry Potter books. Kannan receives a marriage proposal from a girl, Malathi in Chennai and he flies to India, first to meet her and again to marry her. During the time period between the marriage and Malathi’s arrival to Boston he loses interest in the girl. First he stood her up at the airport by not meeting her and then immediately inform her that they should get divorced.
There are so many problems with this novel. First, the author himself has a clear focus on rubbing off the cast of the characters every now and then possible which is absolutely unnecessary. The protagonist has no personality. If you take the Harry Potter fandom out of him, he has nothing to offer. He is a puppet pretty much throughout the novel until his conversation with his wife when she arrives Boston. He is a spineless, privileged geek.
The novel written in 2019 about Harry Potter is completely out of its time. It may have made sense if written in the early 2000’s. A complete disappointment!
The protagonist,Kannan lives in Boston and becomes a Harry Potter fan. He runs in to Curtis who is a fellow fan of Harry Potter at a store and they form a friendship over the common interest in Harry Potter books. Kannan receives a marriage proposal from a girl, Malathi in Chennai and he flies to India, first to meet her and again to marry her. During the time period between the marriage and Malathi’s arrival to Boston he loses interest in the girl. First he stood her up at the airport by not meeting her and then immediately inform her that they should get divorced.
There are so many problems with this novel. First, the author himself has a clear focus on rubbing off the cast of the characters every now and then possible which is absolutely unnecessary. The protagonist has no personality. If you take the Harry Potter fandom out of him, he has nothing to offer. He is a puppet pretty much throughout the novel until his conversation with his wife when she arrives Boston. He is a spineless, privileged geek.
The novel written in 2019 about Harry Potter is completely out of its time. It may have made sense if written in the early 2000’s. A complete disappointment!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 12, 2019
Accidental Magic is the story of four very different people whose lives are brought together by Harry Potter. I always like when a story talks about books or movies. So when the blurb of Accidental magic says about Harry Potter, I immediately want to dive in.
I liked reading about how the fandom worked when the Harry Potter books were releasing and how readers all around(wor)shipped the story and JKR. And also I got to know about the fan-fictions, how strangers became friends because of their common interests(HP) and HP helped everyone in some or the other way.
The start was nice and the HP fandom stuff was good but after some time the story was in a straight line. The narration is not for me. The character arcs could have been better. I was looking forward to an amazing read but I'm sad it didn't work for me.
I liked reading about how the fandom worked when the Harry Potter books were releasing and how readers all around(wor)shipped the story and JKR. And also I got to know about the fan-fictions, how strangers became friends because of their common interests(HP) and HP helped everyone in some or the other way.
The start was nice and the HP fandom stuff was good but after some time the story was in a straight line. The narration is not for me. The character arcs could have been better. I was looking forward to an amazing read but I'm sad it didn't work for me.
October 24, 2023
Accidental Magic is interesting: by using the lens of fandom, it comments on loneliness, connection, and what it means to live multiple lives. The commentary on these themes, especially towards the last 25% of the book, is unique and thought-provoking. As a study of the characters Kannan and Rebecca, the book likewise excels. The author clearly knows Cambridge (and Boston) and I loved the backdrop being a character as well.
But as a story... unfortunately, it's barely one. It takes so long to get started, and then it's over before you know it. The fandom sections (and ship debate) are tedious, especially in the light of all that's happened recently with JKR. I didn't know where the chapters were going and was practically counting down pages for the languishing middle of the book. I would hesitate to recommend it to anyone.
But as a story... unfortunately, it's barely one. It takes so long to get started, and then it's over before you know it. The fandom sections (and ship debate) are tedious, especially in the light of all that's happened recently with JKR. I didn't know where the chapters were going and was practically counting down pages for the languishing middle of the book. I would hesitate to recommend it to anyone.
Read
December 27, 2019I am a Harry Potter fan, but I am so not into fan fiction. This being said and out of my system, I am not judging the book on the premises it is set, for I knew beforehand that a major part of it is going to be around the world of HP fandom.
I'd spare the facts that can be easily learnt from the blurb and the information. The four main characters have their life altered thanks to HP fandom and the story rolls from there.
The problem was, the story moved in an extremely slow manner. Keshava sports a lexicon to die for but I am afraid it wasn't fully appreciated by me, for when I am reading fiction, I need the story to move at a pace of, if not Cheetah, at the least a squirrel. The philosophy and judgements tired me out to the extent that I had to DNF the book for a while, and by a while I mean a week.
I didn't find this as funny as it claimed to be. I, for one, feel betrayed. But what I LOVED was Harvard tours! I intend to experience it myself one day and this is just me putting it out there in the universe. Boo, you listening?
I'd spare the facts that can be easily learnt from the blurb and the information. The four main characters have their life altered thanks to HP fandom and the story rolls from there.
The problem was, the story moved in an extremely slow manner. Keshava sports a lexicon to die for but I am afraid it wasn't fully appreciated by me, for when I am reading fiction, I need the story to move at a pace of, if not Cheetah, at the least a squirrel. The philosophy and judgements tired me out to the extent that I had to DNF the book for a while, and by a while I mean a week.
I didn't find this as funny as it claimed to be. I, for one, feel betrayed. But what I LOVED was Harvard tours! I intend to experience it myself one day and this is just me putting it out there in the universe. Boo, you listening?
March 9, 2020
Picked it up because of the HP reference hoping to find magic by the end of the book , pulled an all nighter and finished the book ended up being disappointed by how it ends. A one time read for the HP fanatic in you who cant stop picking this book up
Read
March 30, 2020A novel about four people who meet/get together due to their love for Harry Potter. Interesting premise but a vague plot which kind of meanders and doesn't get anywhere. Deep exploration of the HP fan fiction community but not much else.
December 2, 2024
Book starts off well, but there is no definite resolution for Grimmet, Rebecca and Malathi .
Book was just alright. Loved all Santhanam-related bits.
Book was just alright. Loved all Santhanam-related bits.
October 15, 2025
I was gonna give this book 3 or 3.5 stars for a neat premise and quick read but Kannan’s actions towards the of the book put were so perplexing and annoying it honestly put me in a bad mood
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 29, 2020
I'm so so disappointed by this. It had all the makings of something lovely and delicious to read on a bad day. I even picked this one up right after re-reading Harry Potter in lockdown, just to relish it even more.
But I just couldn't make sense of it. Boston is talked about as if every reader has lived there for years. References to art/writing are used as if everyone has received an Ivy League education in literature.
There's nothing likeable, genuine, or relatable about any of the characters. The only one with any sort of personality is Annabel who's described as somewhat overbearing. Malathi is sweet but clearly a supporting character/plot device.
In terms of plot, almost nothing happens except for Kannan being insensitive to the point of being cruel to Malathi. The opening of the book says "let's fall in love" but even fondness was barely touched upon.
But I just couldn't make sense of it. Boston is talked about as if every reader has lived there for years. References to art/writing are used as if everyone has received an Ivy League education in literature.
There's nothing likeable, genuine, or relatable about any of the characters. The only one with any sort of personality is Annabel who's described as somewhat overbearing. Malathi is sweet but clearly a supporting character/plot device.
In terms of plot, almost nothing happens except for Kannan being insensitive to the point of being cruel to Malathi. The opening of the book says "let's fall in love" but even fondness was barely touched upon.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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