{"id":54576,"date":"2025-08-09T04:28:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T04:28:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/54576\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T04:28:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T04:28:06","slug":"book-review-louis-sachars-debut-adult-novel-is-a-zany-adventure-of-science-and-magic-opinion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/54576\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Louis Sachar’s debut adult novel is a zany adventure of science and magic | Opinion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anatole isn\u2019t just any magician. He\u2019s the magician of Tiger Castle, whom the king of Esquaveta once declared to be the greatest magician in all the land.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Magician of Tiger Castle\u201d is Anatole\u2019s chance to set the record straight. Not about his greatness \u2013 he fully accepts the title the king bestowed on him \u2013 but about what really happened in 1523 with the princess of Esquaveta, the apprentice scribe she fell in love with, the prince she was betrothed to, and the prisoner who was kept in the dungeon for 100 years.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the debut adult novel from Louis Sachar,<\/a> author of the Newbery Medal-winning middle-grade novel, \u201cHoles,\u201d and the \u201cWayside School\u201d series of memorably wacky vignettes. \u201cThe Magician of Tiger Castle\u201d is every bit as creative and endearing as Sachar\u2019s dozens of children\u2019s and young adult books that enamored kids and teachers alike for decades.<\/p>\n

The novel is told like a memoir, first-person from the magician himself. Only, he\u2019s never been a true magician; we quickly see that he\u2019s more of a misunderstood pioneer of medicine and modern science.<\/p>\n

Calling attention to the thin, hazy line between science and magic, Anatole also dips into miniature medical history lessons. So, while you\u2019re following the story of this bald magician, hypersmart scribe and headstrong princess, you\u2019re also learning about why old-timey physicians wore beaked masks or how leeches are still sometimes used in medicine today.<\/p>\n

Though it\u2019s classified as an adult novel, \u201cThe Magician of Tiger Castle\u201d is fairly clean, with only one or two curse words, a handful of innuendoes and some light violence, but nothing explicit.<\/p>\n

You can read the surface-level story and have a great time, but Sachar also brings literary elements to the modern fantasy-adventure table. Chess games reveal the protagonists\u2019 strengths while mirroring their evolving relationships, as well as their increasingly complicated schemes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Magician\u201d is self-aware and fourth-wall breaking, stepping outside the narrative to explain a word choice or cultural context for the fictional kingdom set somewhere near modern France. The plot is like a zany Dungeons & Dragons<\/a> campaign played with friends; the storyline is meandering but with a definite aim and purpose, and the characters are lovably boisterous (or hateful, in the case of the antagonists).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s funny, surprising, smart and weird, and fully lives up to the high bar you\u2019d expect from a great like Sachar.<\/p>\n

Book facts \u201cThe Magician of Tiger Castle\u201d by Louis Sachar (Ace) 320 pages, $30<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anatole isn\u2019t just any magician. He\u2019s the magician of Tiger Castle, whom the king of Esquaveta once declared…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[64,63,457,134,1721],"class_list":{"0":"post-54576","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-books","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-opinion"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}