Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Bloomsbury (New York, 2004). 1st edition, 1st printing. 782 pages. $27.95.
Description
Fantasy. Fiction. Literature. Historical Fiction. HTML:In the Hugo-award winning, epic New York Times Bestseller and basis for the BBC miniseries, two men change England's history when they bring magic back into the world. In the midst of the Napoleonic Wars in 1806, most people believe magic to have long since disappeared from England - until the reclusive Mr. Norrell reveals his powers and becomes an overnight celebrity. Another practicing magician then emerges: the young and daring Jonathan Strange. He becomes Norrell's pupil, and the two join forces in the war against France. But Strange is increasingly drawn to the wild, most perilous forms of magic, and he soon risks sacrificing his partnership with Norrell and everything else he holds dear. Susanna Clarke's brilliant first novel is an utterly compelling epic tale of nineteenth-century England and the two magicians who, first as teacher and pupil and then as rivals, emerge to change its history.… (more)
Media reviews
Her deftly assumed faux-19th century point of view will beguile cynical adult readers into losing themselves in this entertaining and sophisticated fantasy.
Many charmed readers will feel, as I do, that Susanna Clarke has wasted neither her energies nor our many reading hours.
Susanna Clarke, who resides in Cambridge, England, has spent the past decade writing the 700-plus pages of this remarkable book. She's a great admirer of Charles Dickens and has produced a work every bit as enjoyable as The Pickwick Papers, with more than a touch of the early Anne Rice thrown in
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for good measure. Show Less
"Move over, little Harry. It’s time for some real magic."
A chimera of a novel that combines the dark mythology of fantasy with the delicious social comedy of Jane Austen into a masterpiece of the genre that rivals Tolkien.
User reviews
LibraryThing member mks27
I have had an unusual, at times frustrating, and often satisfying relationship with Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell for a period of almost three months. It, like many turbulent relationships, ended this morning with a few tears and a broken heart, both mine. For most of this journey, I could not
This book was never what I expected it to be. I had hoped for an amazing ride. What I got was often intellectual, slow, and tedious. Clarke builds a detailed and beautiful world reminiscent of Dickens and Austen, a world I never once struggled to enjoy. Her settings and magic were a joy from start to finish. The magic was clever and compelling and I always found myself wanting more and believed myself cheated as it was doled out so frugally. She wrote of the magic in a way that led me to almost feel it in a physical sense.
At the same time, the plot stumbled along, seeming to disappear at points. Chapters, events, characters presented appeared to be unrelated and completely random. The reading was long and for weeks I struggled to pick it up and continue. The book contained a large number of footnotes, which added to the story and created interest, while at the same time making it more tedious and increasing my sense of frustration. I kept waiting for something to happen, for the characters to actually do something, for the situations to move or be resolved. Then came the last 200 pages and, at last, I experienced, not the ride I was seeking, but acts of courage, acts of evil, acts of love and friendship, goodness overcoming evil, pieces moving together creating plot, and a well constructed and satisfying ending.
So, the tears were for both sadness and happiness and the broken heart was because I was done and had to put the book down. It was just a sudden thing; I loved the book, finally, just at the last word.
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have imagined this book bringing me to tears and sadness at its end for I was frequently ambivalent, but it did.This book was never what I expected it to be. I had hoped for an amazing ride. What I got was often intellectual, slow, and tedious. Clarke builds a detailed and beautiful world reminiscent of Dickens and Austen, a world I never once struggled to enjoy. Her settings and magic were a joy from start to finish. The magic was clever and compelling and I always found myself wanting more and believed myself cheated as it was doled out so frugally. She wrote of the magic in a way that led me to almost feel it in a physical sense.
At the same time, the plot stumbled along, seeming to disappear at points. Chapters, events, characters presented appeared to be unrelated and completely random. The reading was long and for weeks I struggled to pick it up and continue. The book contained a large number of footnotes, which added to the story and created interest, while at the same time making it more tedious and increasing my sense of frustration. I kept waiting for something to happen, for the characters to actually do something, for the situations to move or be resolved. Then came the last 200 pages and, at last, I experienced, not the ride I was seeking, but acts of courage, acts of evil, acts of love and friendship, goodness overcoming evil, pieces moving together creating plot, and a well constructed and satisfying ending.
So, the tears were for both sadness and happiness and the broken heart was because I was done and had to put the book down. It was just a sudden thing; I loved the book, finally, just at the last word.
Show Less
LibraryThing member edgeworth
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (2004) 1006 p.
I'm going to start this review with a terrible analogy and say that Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a successful version of Temeraire. Temeraire, by Naomi Novik, was a book I read last year that created an alternate-history Napoleonic
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is based in an alternate timeline in which magic did once exist, but petered out in the early 1600s. Now, in 1806, it is a purely theoretical subject, pursued by old men as not much more than a hobby. This is until the discovery of Gilbert Norrell, a reclusive Yorkshire man who claims to be a practical magician, and who impresses disbelievers by making the statues in the Cathedral of York to come to life and speak for a single day. He is soon rushed off to London to use his magic to assist in the struggle against Napoleon.
Norrell reigns as the only main character for a few hundred pages before being sidelined by Jonathan Strange, the hip young magician who is cooler than him in every way; the Riggs to his Murtaugh, if you will. While much of the novel is dedicated to the Napoleonic Wars - Strange fights in the Peninsula and is present at Waterloo - the larger scope is dedicated to the rivalry between the two men, and the consequences of their meddling with forces they do not understand. Norrell makes a grievous error early in the book which has extensive repercussions and lends an air of horror to the entire narrative, in a way that reminded me very much of Ged's arrogant mistake in A Wizard of Earthsea.
The fictional world of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a fascinating one, and easily the novel's greatest strengths. England exists alongside a fairy realm, and fairies are an integral part of magic and greatly featured throughout the book. Forget gossamer wings and the colour pink; these fairies live in ruined castles and realms of perpetual night, and are renowned for their cruelty. Clarke's explanation is that while humans are weak in magic and strong in reason, fairies are strong in magic but weak in reason - by human standards, they are barely sane. They reminded me very heavily of the elves in Terry Pratchett's Lords and Ladies; mythological creatures harking back to Celtic mythology and the Grimm fairytales, a time when everything that shifted in the darkness beyond your campfire was terrifying, before contemporary culture re-imagined them as sweet, benevolent creatures of kindness.
Clarke has developed this world with the use of over 200 footnotes that provide background details on the world's magical history, details on the contents of fictional books, or anecdotes about historical magicians. Often these footnotes are longer than the main text on the page and sometimes tell entirely self-contained stories. One, for example, relates the tale of the foolish John Bloodworth, a magician who naively accepted the services of a fairy called "Buckler," without bothering to question why they were offered. One day while Bloodworth is away on business, a tall cupboard appears in the kitchen, and Buckler tells Bloodworth's family members that it is a portal to a place in Faerie where they can learn spells to make their lives easier, and that they can go through and be back "in time for Mass." Seventeen people enter the cupboard and are never seen again. The footnote ends with this:
Two hundred years later Dr. Martin Pale was journeying through Faerie. At the castle of John Hollyshoes (a very ancient and powerful fairy-prince) he discovered a human child, about seven or eight years old, very pale and starved-looking. She said her name was Anne Bloodworth and she had been in Faerie, she thought, about two weeks. She had been given work to do washing a great pile of dirty pots. She said she had been washing them steadily since she arrived and when she was finished she would go home to see her parents and sisters. She thought she would be finished in a day or two.
While an eerie tale in itself, this footnote provides an example of the fairies' penchant for kidnapping humans into their realm, which is quite signifcant later in the book; a small example of the masterful foreshadowing Clarke employs throughout. Another part of the backstory I found fascinating was the Raven King, the mysterious and dreaded magician who ruled northern England for three hundred years before disappearing; footnotes speculate on unknown parts of his life, detail sightings of him across the years, and reveal that, constitutionally, the English monarch is merely the regent of northern England, awaiting the Raven King's return.
At 1006 pages, this is an intimidating tome, and certainly not the kind of novel I would recommend to just anybody. If you have an interest in fantasy and can tolerate (or enjoy, as I do) long-winded writing styles and a slow pace, you should like it. If you dislike the idea of a huge amount of footnotes describing the tiny details of a fictional world (personally, I think it's heaven) then you should steer clear.
So while this book isn't for everyone, it is objectively excellent and a staggering achievement for a first-time writer. I look forward to seeing what Clarke comes up with next.
I'm going to start this review with a terrible analogy and say that Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a successful version of Temeraire. Temeraire, by Naomi Novik, was a book I read last year that created an alternate-history Napoleonic
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era with a fantasy twist, and was an abysmal failure. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell shares many of Temeraire's characteristics - Napoleonic fantasy, semi-satirical Austenian writing style, fundamental Englishness - but, unlike Temeraire, it is a resounding success.Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is based in an alternate timeline in which magic did once exist, but petered out in the early 1600s. Now, in 1806, it is a purely theoretical subject, pursued by old men as not much more than a hobby. This is until the discovery of Gilbert Norrell, a reclusive Yorkshire man who claims to be a practical magician, and who impresses disbelievers by making the statues in the Cathedral of York to come to life and speak for a single day. He is soon rushed off to London to use his magic to assist in the struggle against Napoleon.
Norrell reigns as the only main character for a few hundred pages before being sidelined by Jonathan Strange, the hip young magician who is cooler than him in every way; the Riggs to his Murtaugh, if you will. While much of the novel is dedicated to the Napoleonic Wars - Strange fights in the Peninsula and is present at Waterloo - the larger scope is dedicated to the rivalry between the two men, and the consequences of their meddling with forces they do not understand. Norrell makes a grievous error early in the book which has extensive repercussions and lends an air of horror to the entire narrative, in a way that reminded me very much of Ged's arrogant mistake in A Wizard of Earthsea.
The fictional world of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a fascinating one, and easily the novel's greatest strengths. England exists alongside a fairy realm, and fairies are an integral part of magic and greatly featured throughout the book. Forget gossamer wings and the colour pink; these fairies live in ruined castles and realms of perpetual night, and are renowned for their cruelty. Clarke's explanation is that while humans are weak in magic and strong in reason, fairies are strong in magic but weak in reason - by human standards, they are barely sane. They reminded me very heavily of the elves in Terry Pratchett's Lords and Ladies; mythological creatures harking back to Celtic mythology and the Grimm fairytales, a time when everything that shifted in the darkness beyond your campfire was terrifying, before contemporary culture re-imagined them as sweet, benevolent creatures of kindness.
Clarke has developed this world with the use of over 200 footnotes that provide background details on the world's magical history, details on the contents of fictional books, or anecdotes about historical magicians. Often these footnotes are longer than the main text on the page and sometimes tell entirely self-contained stories. One, for example, relates the tale of the foolish John Bloodworth, a magician who naively accepted the services of a fairy called "Buckler," without bothering to question why they were offered. One day while Bloodworth is away on business, a tall cupboard appears in the kitchen, and Buckler tells Bloodworth's family members that it is a portal to a place in Faerie where they can learn spells to make their lives easier, and that they can go through and be back "in time for Mass." Seventeen people enter the cupboard and are never seen again. The footnote ends with this:
Two hundred years later Dr. Martin Pale was journeying through Faerie. At the castle of John Hollyshoes (a very ancient and powerful fairy-prince) he discovered a human child, about seven or eight years old, very pale and starved-looking. She said her name was Anne Bloodworth and she had been in Faerie, she thought, about two weeks. She had been given work to do washing a great pile of dirty pots. She said she had been washing them steadily since she arrived and when she was finished she would go home to see her parents and sisters. She thought she would be finished in a day or two.
While an eerie tale in itself, this footnote provides an example of the fairies' penchant for kidnapping humans into their realm, which is quite signifcant later in the book; a small example of the masterful foreshadowing Clarke employs throughout. Another part of the backstory I found fascinating was the Raven King, the mysterious and dreaded magician who ruled northern England for three hundred years before disappearing; footnotes speculate on unknown parts of his life, detail sightings of him across the years, and reveal that, constitutionally, the English monarch is merely the regent of northern England, awaiting the Raven King's return.
At 1006 pages, this is an intimidating tome, and certainly not the kind of novel I would recommend to just anybody. If you have an interest in fantasy and can tolerate (or enjoy, as I do) long-winded writing styles and a slow pace, you should like it. If you dislike the idea of a huge amount of footnotes describing the tiny details of a fictional world (personally, I think it's heaven) then you should steer clear.
So while this book isn't for everyone, it is objectively excellent and a staggering achievement for a first-time writer. I look forward to seeing what Clarke comes up with next.
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LibraryThing member bokai
Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is satisfyingly complex in its depth of whimsy. In her book she pays respect to English history, English literary tradition, English prejudices, English wit and English myth, and uses all of this to construct what feels like a dreamer's devotional
The plotting is slow but suspenseful throughout. Like the magic in the book, the real story spends most of the time in the background, revealing itself only at the fringes of the deceptively mundane surface plot. The conflicts and dangers are perceived, but barely stated, which gives Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell the sort of suspense one might find in a mystery novel where the reader waits with bated breath for all to be revealed. Like the Raven King himself, the immensity of the universe Clarke has created comes through in bits and pieces throughout, and is distorted through half truths, mistruths, and unfounded assumptions, so that in the end we are left with a feeling that something immense has happened, but in looking over the dry prose we can't put our finger on what it is exactly that got us so excited. The greatest magic has always been more about what we don't see, and Clarke has used this concept perfectly in Strange and Norrell.
The plot of the book is therefore difficult to explain, because it isn't really the point, as grand as it is. It is all at once about the Raven King's quietly triumphant return, Strange and Norrell's relationship, Strange's discovery of old magic, Steven Black and Lady Pole's enchantment, Childermass's loyalties, and so on and so forth. While reading one might wonder how each character will solve his or her particular predicament, but the real reason the novel pushes us forward is because we are anticipating the brilliant crash of all these disparate chains of plot into a great explosion of an ending. Hints are thrown out on occasion, but it isn't until all paths converge that we really find out how the cast of Strange and Norrell will fare.
One of the reasons the book is so long is that it takes the time to fatten up all these strands of story so that when they are all wound together one piece does not disappear among the others. Even characters as minor as Mr. Honeyfoot are complete. They can disappear for complete chapters, but when they return they are still fresh in our memory. The only people that are interchangeable are a few of the servants, and even those (Jeremey Johns) have a story of their own. So, while Steven Black serves as a sort of tool for the conclusion of Jonathan Strange's plot, Strange is in turn a tool for Steven's, because the reader is invested in the destiny of both.
Along with all of this, Clarke has an excellent sense of humor, and a firm control of description, which makes an otherwise quiet story vivid. My particular favorite was her description of someone with a broad forehead and eyebrows that looked like "caterpillars in a sea of face". Her writing is so smooth that 800 pages flew by and I never once felt that the going was tedious.
While her writing, plot, and intricate internal lore all serve as exquisite decoration, the most important part of this novel is the quiet, shadowy force that the reader can feel striding closer and closer to him as the book progresses. The Raven Lord comes closer with every turn of the page. The reader may wonder what will happen to Lady Pole, but like the magicians in the story, it is the Raven King we are all searching for by the end.
I recommend this book for anyone who enjoys English wit, complex and complete world building, magic (or more accurately the -sense- of magic) and long, slow simmering stories.
Those who like their magic and their plots flashy may not have the stamina for Strange and Norrell. Those who dislike understated anything, or who prefer their conflict up front and forceful, may wonder what all the fuss is about.
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to England. Add to this Clarke's meticulous attention to fleshing out even the smallest detail and you have one of the most complete and anchored fantasy books I've ever read. The plotting is slow but suspenseful throughout. Like the magic in the book, the real story spends most of the time in the background, revealing itself only at the fringes of the deceptively mundane surface plot. The conflicts and dangers are perceived, but barely stated, which gives Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell the sort of suspense one might find in a mystery novel where the reader waits with bated breath for all to be revealed. Like the Raven King himself, the immensity of the universe Clarke has created comes through in bits and pieces throughout, and is distorted through half truths, mistruths, and unfounded assumptions, so that in the end we are left with a feeling that something immense has happened, but in looking over the dry prose we can't put our finger on what it is exactly that got us so excited. The greatest magic has always been more about what we don't see, and Clarke has used this concept perfectly in Strange and Norrell.
The plot of the book is therefore difficult to explain, because it isn't really the point, as grand as it is. It is all at once about the Raven King's quietly triumphant return, Strange and Norrell's relationship, Strange's discovery of old magic, Steven Black and Lady Pole's enchantment, Childermass's loyalties, and so on and so forth. While reading one might wonder how each character will solve his or her particular predicament, but the real reason the novel pushes us forward is because we are anticipating the brilliant crash of all these disparate chains of plot into a great explosion of an ending. Hints are thrown out on occasion, but it isn't until all paths converge that we really find out how the cast of Strange and Norrell will fare.
One of the reasons the book is so long is that it takes the time to fatten up all these strands of story so that when they are all wound together one piece does not disappear among the others. Even characters as minor as Mr. Honeyfoot are complete. They can disappear for complete chapters, but when they return they are still fresh in our memory. The only people that are interchangeable are a few of the servants, and even those (Jeremey Johns) have a story of their own. So, while Steven Black serves as a sort of tool for the conclusion of Jonathan Strange's plot, Strange is in turn a tool for Steven's, because the reader is invested in the destiny of both.
Along with all of this, Clarke has an excellent sense of humor, and a firm control of description, which makes an otherwise quiet story vivid. My particular favorite was her description of someone with a broad forehead and eyebrows that looked like "caterpillars in a sea of face". Her writing is so smooth that 800 pages flew by and I never once felt that the going was tedious.
While her writing, plot, and intricate internal lore all serve as exquisite decoration, the most important part of this novel is the quiet, shadowy force that the reader can feel striding closer and closer to him as the book progresses. The Raven Lord comes closer with every turn of the page. The reader may wonder what will happen to Lady Pole, but like the magicians in the story, it is the Raven King we are all searching for by the end.
I recommend this book for anyone who enjoys English wit, complex and complete world building, magic (or more accurately the -sense- of magic) and long, slow simmering stories.
Those who like their magic and their plots flashy may not have the stamina for Strange and Norrell. Those who dislike understated anything, or who prefer their conflict up front and forceful, may wonder what all the fuss is about.
Show Less
LibraryThing member paradoxosalpha
I thoroughly enjoyed this hugely popular novel about supernatural magic and magicians in early nineteenth-century England. The descriptions of magic seem to suggest that the author has some first-hand experience of significant thaumaturgy, or perhaps good drugs; they present a sort of genuine
Press reviews have attempted comparisons with many other authors of fantasy literature, as well as "literary" authors. (The book was not issued under a genre imprint.) I cannot help making two of my own. The story often reminded me of the deservedly lauded Little, Big by John Crowley. Although separated by the Atlantic Ocean and more than a century, it is easy to imagine Clarke's and Crowley's stories taking place in the same universe: the human and non-human dynamics of magic are similar, and the characters are equally vivid and engaging. The chief distinction between the two books is one not of scale, but of scope. Little, Big covers more time, but its concern is essentially a single household and family. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is oriented nationally, toward the condition of England and "English magic."
The other resemblance that struck me was to Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon. Obviously, there is the "odd couple" of the titular characters, brought together for professional reasons, and subject to the stresses of difficult lives. But the deft use of metafictional elements in a historical framework, along with a vivid sense of humor, makes these two books into close kin. Unlike Pynchon's protagonists, though, neither Gilbert Norrell nor Jonathan Strange is an actual historical person. While Clarke was perfectly willing to conscript Lord Byron and the Duke of Wellington into her novel, the magicians are all thoroughly fictional. An odd consequence of this approach is that she offers many glimpses of a history of "English magic" from which have been deleted England's various legended, alleged, and actual magicians: no Roger Bacon, no John Dastin, no John Dee, no Edward Kelly, no Robert Fludd, no Simon Forman--even Merlin barely rates passing mention. In their stead, she details with high verisimilitude the received histories and legends of such de novo characters as John Uskglass, Jacques Belasis, Gregory Absalom, and Martin Pale. And she single-handedly generates a bibliography of imaginary tomes that easily competes with the Lovecraft circle's notorious catalog.
Early on in the book, I found myself nonplussed by Portia Rosenberg's illustrations. They are charcoal renderings in a loose style, reminiscent of nothing so much as late twentieth-century children's literature, putting them at odds with the archaic spellings, footnotes, and other period elements of the text. The drawings did not seem to manifest a creative imagination, other than at least one case (p. 632) in which there were details that uselessly contradicted the text. The fact that Clarke explicitly referenced caricaturists of the period, and at one point devoted an entire chapter to a story about the engravings prepared to illustrate Strange's History and Practice of English Magic, just added to the sense of Rosenberg's drawings as inappropriate and superfluous.
To conclude, I'll offer some thoughts regarding the plot that might be considered spoilers. Somewhere past the midpoint of the book, the level of dramatic irony got so high that I was almost discouraged from reading on account of sadness for the characters. I also started to suspect that the story would ultimately be an account of how magic had been eradicated from England. Not only was I wrong in that suspicion, but I have seldom been so pleasantly surprised by a happy ending.
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psychedelia ("mind opening"), as contrasted with the hackneyed tropes of occultist and drug subcultures. But the sorcery is in many ways subordinate to the characterizations and interpersonal plots of the novel, which are rich and satisfying, showing a profound insight into just the sort of motivations and tensions that emerge among colleagues and competitors in magical craft. Press reviews have attempted comparisons with many other authors of fantasy literature, as well as "literary" authors. (The book was not issued under a genre imprint.) I cannot help making two of my own. The story often reminded me of the deservedly lauded Little, Big by John Crowley. Although separated by the Atlantic Ocean and more than a century, it is easy to imagine Clarke's and Crowley's stories taking place in the same universe: the human and non-human dynamics of magic are similar, and the characters are equally vivid and engaging. The chief distinction between the two books is one not of scale, but of scope. Little, Big covers more time, but its concern is essentially a single household and family. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is oriented nationally, toward the condition of England and "English magic."
The other resemblance that struck me was to Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon. Obviously, there is the "odd couple" of the titular characters, brought together for professional reasons, and subject to the stresses of difficult lives. But the deft use of metafictional elements in a historical framework, along with a vivid sense of humor, makes these two books into close kin. Unlike Pynchon's protagonists, though, neither Gilbert Norrell nor Jonathan Strange is an actual historical person. While Clarke was perfectly willing to conscript Lord Byron and the Duke of Wellington into her novel, the magicians are all thoroughly fictional. An odd consequence of this approach is that she offers many glimpses of a history of "English magic" from which have been deleted England's various legended, alleged, and actual magicians: no Roger Bacon, no John Dastin, no John Dee, no Edward Kelly, no Robert Fludd, no Simon Forman--even Merlin barely rates passing mention. In their stead, she details with high verisimilitude the received histories and legends of such de novo characters as John Uskglass, Jacques Belasis, Gregory Absalom, and Martin Pale. And she single-handedly generates a bibliography of imaginary tomes that easily competes with the Lovecraft circle's notorious catalog.
Early on in the book, I found myself nonplussed by Portia Rosenberg's illustrations. They are charcoal renderings in a loose style, reminiscent of nothing so much as late twentieth-century children's literature, putting them at odds with the archaic spellings, footnotes, and other period elements of the text. The drawings did not seem to manifest a creative imagination, other than at least one case (p. 632) in which there were details that uselessly contradicted the text. The fact that Clarke explicitly referenced caricaturists of the period, and at one point devoted an entire chapter to a story about the engravings prepared to illustrate Strange's History and Practice of English Magic, just added to the sense of Rosenberg's drawings as inappropriate and superfluous.
To conclude, I'll offer some thoughts regarding the plot that might be considered spoilers. Somewhere past the midpoint of the book, the level of dramatic irony got so high that I was almost discouraged from reading on account of sadness for the characters. I also started to suspect that the story would ultimately be an account of how magic had been eradicated from England. Not only was I wrong in that suspicion, but I have seldom been so pleasantly surprised by a happy ending.
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LibraryThing member eleanor_eader
Susannah Clarke performs an astonishing feat with her first novel. She manages to beguile the reader to the point of obsession on the subject of magic, by virtue of discussing the politics of it. The practical, social impacts of magic upon magicians and the English public feature hugely in this
Her characters are not simply convincing; they are as alive and as important as the people who move around us from day to day. Norrell (pre-eminent and, if he could but have his way, only) practicing magician in England; Strange who first becomes Norrell’s protégé and then outstrips his master; the unnamed slave who is enchanted into Faerie along with Mrs Pole, his master’s wife, into an eerie half-life of endless balls and cruel pursuits; and the Gentleman with the Thistledown Hair who takes them there, are all completely plausible.
The length of this book seemed wearisome when I first picked it up; by the end, it felt like an elaborate faerie entrapment; I am not quite released from it yet. Footnotes, which began by irritating me out of the story, became essential snippets of history (and to those who decry the ‘excessive’ amount of footnoting in Jonathon Strange & Mr. Norrell, consider the length of the book if these side-trips had had to be integrated into the tale. To imagine not having them at all seems like an affront, once you get into the habit of acquiring all the extra information about John Uskglass and remaining faerie spells and lore).
In summation, this was a completely engrossing tale – it has pace, despite the lingering impression of having been reading it for half an eternity; it is told, set and ended brilliantly; it charms, unsettles, horrifies and plunges the reader into righteous indignation on various character’s behalf by turns.
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book, and yet the reader is as enthralled as by any fierce faerie spell. In fact, Clarke weaves magic so thoroughly through London’s history that by the end of the book one could carry the impression – for days afterwards – that magic is indeed an integral part of our country’s foundation.Her characters are not simply convincing; they are as alive and as important as the people who move around us from day to day. Norrell (pre-eminent and, if he could but have his way, only) practicing magician in England; Strange who first becomes Norrell’s protégé and then outstrips his master; the unnamed slave who is enchanted into Faerie along with Mrs Pole, his master’s wife, into an eerie half-life of endless balls and cruel pursuits; and the Gentleman with the Thistledown Hair who takes them there, are all completely plausible.
The length of this book seemed wearisome when I first picked it up; by the end, it felt like an elaborate faerie entrapment; I am not quite released from it yet. Footnotes, which began by irritating me out of the story, became essential snippets of history (and to those who decry the ‘excessive’ amount of footnoting in Jonathon Strange & Mr. Norrell, consider the length of the book if these side-trips had had to be integrated into the tale. To imagine not having them at all seems like an affront, once you get into the habit of acquiring all the extra information about John Uskglass and remaining faerie spells and lore).
In summation, this was a completely engrossing tale – it has pace, despite the lingering impression of having been reading it for half an eternity; it is told, set and ended brilliantly; it charms, unsettles, horrifies and plunges the reader into righteous indignation on various character’s behalf by turns.
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LibraryThing member pmwolohan
20 words or less: Susanna Clarke weaves an intricate, character-based tale of English magic that is well worth the page count
My Rating: 4/5
Pros: Intricately crafted characters, extraordinary blending of historical England with magical elements, language that is intricate and elegant without being
Cons: Slow pace won’t be for everyone, more character than plot driven, very little “action”
This past weekend I finally finished up Susanna Clarke's behemoth historical-fantasy tome Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell: A Novel . The story is one of magic; men of magic, acts of magic, and books of magic. In one of the earliest passages of JS&MN, Mr. Norrell explains the difference between these books, dividing them into two categories “Books about Magic” and “Books of Magic.” Books about Magic are mundane, historical texts, with very little appeal to those interested in magic. Books of Magic, on the other hand, not only discuss but contain magic within their every page and word. Make no mistake; JS&MN is a book of magic.
At first glance, this book seems like it would be a chore. Over 750 pages, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a character study of two bibliophilic magicians set against early 19th century England. Think Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre and your junior year of high school. Instead of trying to ignore the trappings of the time period, Clarke embraces them, making the two titular magicians stand out against the mundane rather than being overshadowed by it. Jonathan Strange and Gilbert Norrell both fall outside typical societal expectations and these differences ultimately made me connect with the characters more and care about their lives. Rather than struggling through each chapter, I was enthralled and often found myself reading much more than I expected.
The main focus of the book is on the two magicians and their conflicting views on the future of English magic. Should magical knowledge be hoarded for the righteous few or disseminated to the curious masses? What acts of magic are appropriate for a proper English magician? These and other questions of magical philosophy influence the paths Strange and Norrell take through the book, weaving around each other and several minor characters, each of which ultimately has a significant role to play when all is said and done. While the book was very dense, I would be at a loss to try and cut a single character or plot thread.
To be fair, this book is not for everyone. It is a very intricate, very subtle story. These are not Michael Bay’s magicians. As the title advertises, this is first and foremost the story of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell; two very multidimensional characters. My proposed litmus test would be to read the first 3 chapters or so until you get to the first act of magic. If that doesn’t move you to read more, chances are the rest of the book may not impress you. For me, once the curtain was drawn back and the magic behind the mundane revealed, I was entranced.
My Rating: 4/5
Pros: Intricately crafted characters, extraordinary blending of historical England with magical elements, language that is intricate and elegant without being
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excessive or unintelligibleCons: Slow pace won’t be for everyone, more character than plot driven, very little “action”
This past weekend I finally finished up Susanna Clarke's behemoth historical-fantasy tome Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell: A Novel . The story is one of magic; men of magic, acts of magic, and books of magic. In one of the earliest passages of JS&MN, Mr. Norrell explains the difference between these books, dividing them into two categories “Books about Magic” and “Books of Magic.” Books about Magic are mundane, historical texts, with very little appeal to those interested in magic. Books of Magic, on the other hand, not only discuss but contain magic within their every page and word. Make no mistake; JS&MN is a book of magic.
At first glance, this book seems like it would be a chore. Over 750 pages, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a character study of two bibliophilic magicians set against early 19th century England. Think Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre and your junior year of high school. Instead of trying to ignore the trappings of the time period, Clarke embraces them, making the two titular magicians stand out against the mundane rather than being overshadowed by it. Jonathan Strange and Gilbert Norrell both fall outside typical societal expectations and these differences ultimately made me connect with the characters more and care about their lives. Rather than struggling through each chapter, I was enthralled and often found myself reading much more than I expected.
The main focus of the book is on the two magicians and their conflicting views on the future of English magic. Should magical knowledge be hoarded for the righteous few or disseminated to the curious masses? What acts of magic are appropriate for a proper English magician? These and other questions of magical philosophy influence the paths Strange and Norrell take through the book, weaving around each other and several minor characters, each of which ultimately has a significant role to play when all is said and done. While the book was very dense, I would be at a loss to try and cut a single character or plot thread.
To be fair, this book is not for everyone. It is a very intricate, very subtle story. These are not Michael Bay’s magicians. As the title advertises, this is first and foremost the story of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell; two very multidimensional characters. My proposed litmus test would be to read the first 3 chapters or so until you get to the first act of magic. If that doesn’t move you to read more, chances are the rest of the book may not impress you. For me, once the curtain was drawn back and the magic behind the mundane revealed, I was entranced.
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LibraryThing member MeditationesMartini
Wonderful, wonderful! I can't believe there are still books like this, to captivate and beshiver modern-day Martin the same way as they would have 10-year-old summer or Christmas or late-night streetlight me with the vampires outside. I was way excited when I thought this was the book that would
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take the hidden-world magic jazz, Spenser to Rowling, and make it real and historical and junk, but it turns out it was so much more and in the end the fantasia was even more thrilling to me, from pagan, cold Northern European to cosmichead comicfan. Animated by a foundational myth that embraces nations and millennia, this story is noble and, in the most important way, true. Show Less
LibraryThing member kushami
I pulled this book off a friend's bookshelf and said 'What's this like?'. 'Well,' she said, 'it's very long.'
And after reading it, I agreed with her -- it is indeed very long.
I found the characters and the set-up of the magicians intriguing at the beginning of the book, but then I found myself
I felt the same way about The Crimson Petal and the White -- I got to the end, but I skipped a fair bit in the second half.
And after reading it, I agreed with her -- it is indeed very long.
I found the characters and the set-up of the magicians intriguing at the beginning of the book, but then I found myself
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waiting for it to go somewhere or do something ... somehow it never did (for me at any rate). I felt the same way about The Crimson Petal and the White -- I got to the end, but I skipped a fair bit in the second half.
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LibraryThing member Aerrin99
I understand why this book tends to get such mixed feelings. There's a lot about it to love - and a lot about it to love a little less. In particular, there are a lot of things that run contrary to most book expectations, and I see what these things can be frustrating for some readers - in
That said, I adored this book. This is the sort of book that I enjoyed just being /in/ - I felt none of my usual compulsion to race to the end to find out what happens. I did not yearn to solve mysteries or uncover the fate of any characters. I mostly just enjoyed being there, hanging out with Strange or Norrell, and uncovering little tidbits about the world they live in.
In many ways, this novel reads like a history - for me, it was more about the fantastic details of the world and the fascinating and compelling characters of two sensational historical (if fictional) men. It was like reading a biography of George Washington - you know the general course of his life and you're pretty sure he didn't really chop down any cherry trees, but gosh, the details about how that myth came to be and the circles he moved in through the course of his career are interesting!
Clarke builds a complex and detailed world that is enough like ours to feel familiar, but filled with gorgeous and lovely details that make the myths of England - its fairies and stone circles and time-worn castles and dragons and unicorns and legendary kings - into history. Some of the most creative and fascinating stuff lives in her footnotes. Clarke writes fairy tales as history, and history as fairy tales.
Her writing voice is fresh and fantastic, an almost-parodying of nineteenth century writing style that many authors have attempted - Clarke succeeds, with a tongue-in-cheek knack for description that reads both nineteenth century and very contemporary. Her narrative voice made me chuckle - or more likely, snicker - more than once.
The characters of Strange and Norrell are richly and interestingly drawn. Some of the secondary characters occasionally lapse into stereotype, but given the pseudo-historical tone of it, I found I did not mind, and in fact thought it to be rather purposeful - these characters are the same you find occupying Austenian balls or Dickensian London streets.
MINOR SPOILERS:
What's most compelling here, though, is both the book's strength and its weakness - the legend of the Raven King is built to fantastic suspense, with details and clues dropped throughout the book in a most satisfying manner. Unfortunately, this thread is not dealt with strongly enough in the end - after some particularly pointed claims about the book's events and their purpose, there needed to be something much more solid. The very end of the book takes a turn that makes you feel that in fact, the entire thing has not been about Norrell and Strange at all, and there's a tiny fluttering of anticipation in your stomach, and for the first time, the pages turn faster and faster in anticipation of things that are going to /happen/. Except they don't, not really.
Fortunately, this doesn't change the fact that all the previous pages, with the warm joy of simply /being/ in the book, did not strictly need things to /happen/ all the time. Perhaps this book will serve as the foundation for a larger story that /does/ pull on those threads, that is not about Strange and Norrell at all, but about something much older, much larger. I hear she's working on a sequel!
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particular, there's never a particularly strong plot narrative, not in 780some pages, and the end doesn't provide a great sense of satisfactory resolution. That said, I adored this book. This is the sort of book that I enjoyed just being /in/ - I felt none of my usual compulsion to race to the end to find out what happens. I did not yearn to solve mysteries or uncover the fate of any characters. I mostly just enjoyed being there, hanging out with Strange or Norrell, and uncovering little tidbits about the world they live in.
In many ways, this novel reads like a history - for me, it was more about the fantastic details of the world and the fascinating and compelling characters of two sensational historical (if fictional) men. It was like reading a biography of George Washington - you know the general course of his life and you're pretty sure he didn't really chop down any cherry trees, but gosh, the details about how that myth came to be and the circles he moved in through the course of his career are interesting!
Clarke builds a complex and detailed world that is enough like ours to feel familiar, but filled with gorgeous and lovely details that make the myths of England - its fairies and stone circles and time-worn castles and dragons and unicorns and legendary kings - into history. Some of the most creative and fascinating stuff lives in her footnotes. Clarke writes fairy tales as history, and history as fairy tales.
Her writing voice is fresh and fantastic, an almost-parodying of nineteenth century writing style that many authors have attempted - Clarke succeeds, with a tongue-in-cheek knack for description that reads both nineteenth century and very contemporary. Her narrative voice made me chuckle - or more likely, snicker - more than once.
The characters of Strange and Norrell are richly and interestingly drawn. Some of the secondary characters occasionally lapse into stereotype, but given the pseudo-historical tone of it, I found I did not mind, and in fact thought it to be rather purposeful - these characters are the same you find occupying Austenian balls or Dickensian London streets.
MINOR SPOILERS:
What's most compelling here, though, is both the book's strength and its weakness - the legend of the Raven King is built to fantastic suspense, with details and clues dropped throughout the book in a most satisfying manner. Unfortunately, this thread is not dealt with strongly enough in the end - after some particularly pointed claims about the book's events and their purpose, there needed to be something much more solid. The very end of the book takes a turn that makes you feel that in fact, the entire thing has not been about Norrell and Strange at all, and there's a tiny fluttering of anticipation in your stomach, and for the first time, the pages turn faster and faster in anticipation of things that are going to /happen/. Except they don't, not really.
Fortunately, this doesn't change the fact that all the previous pages, with the warm joy of simply /being/ in the book, did not strictly need things to /happen/ all the time. Perhaps this book will serve as the foundation for a larger story that /does/ pull on those threads, that is not about Strange and Norrell at all, but about something much older, much larger. I hear she's working on a sequel!
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LibraryThing member Dorritt
Every once in a while I chance upon a book that I wish would never end. At 700+ pages, some might be forgiven for thinking this never *would* end. Some stories, however, require sufficient time and space to spread themselves out, and this is just such a tale.
The premise of this “alternate
Fast-forward to 1806 where, in the expansive library of an ancient old house in even more ancient York, a rather peevish little scholar named Mr. Norrell has rediscovered the art of practical magic. Alas, his jealous nature seems destined to assure that no one else will ever replicate his feats … until a scattered but likeable young gentleman, Jonathan Strange, discovers himself to possess similar powers. Much of the rest of the novel derives its suspense from the growing conflict between their fundamentally different approaches toward magic: Norrell’s scholarly approach vs. Strange’s organic approach. Which path promises to lead to the ultimate goal: the re-establishment of British magic? (Before you ask – yes, this works as a metaphor for all sorts of things, including British history writ large, which has always been about the precarious balance between the rule of law and the individualism of its people.)
This conflict is captured in the form of a more literal plotline, in which Norrell inadvertently summons a faerie, “The Gentleman with the Thistledown Hair,” who proceeds to engage in all sorts of complicating amorality, first taking captive the wife of a British minister (Lady Pole), then this gentleman’s African-American slave (Stephen), and finally Strange’s own wife Arabella. Strange’s efforts to free his wife entangle him in a magic feud that alters Britain forever.
But of course there’s so much more going on here than can be captured in so simple a summary. For, much like a stroll along the King’s Roads (magical roads that run between mirrors), this seemingly simple tale is always wandering off in unexpected directions, presenting us here with gently satirical portraits of British society (a la Austen) and then there with portraits of the ghastliness of war (a la Tolstoy); here with whimsical, entirely invented magical anecdotes from British history (a la T.H. White), and then there with sudden cameos by actual historical giants – The Duke of Wellington, Lord Byron, King George III (a la George MacDonald); here with themes and symbols evocative of genuine mythology (a la Tolkein), and then there with subtle asides that later reveal themselves as powerfully illuminating metaphors (Tolkein again). All wrapped up in Clarke’s deft prose and wonderfully evocative descriptions, especially of the increasingly transparent boundary between the real world and the world of faerie.
Simultaneously witty and yet dark, whimsical yet sober, gentle yet brutal, simple yet nuanced, imaginative and yet grounded in authentic history and mythology, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is one of those works of imagination that seem, on occasion, to emerge fully-formed from our collective imagination to become the ur-text of genres to come. A little rushed at the end (seriously, if you’re already 700 pages invested, what’s another 300 pages to do the thing right?), but, taken as a whole, a magnificent and magnificently original work of imaginative fiction.
The premise of this “alternate
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reality” text is that magic once existed in Britain: that in millennia gone by, a human boy raised by fairies, John Uskglass, ruled over the northern portions of Britain and worked in tandem with lesser wizards and the island’s human kings to protect and secure its boundaries. Over time, however, Usglass has disappeared and magic become a thing to be studied by scholars rather than actually practiced. Fast-forward to 1806 where, in the expansive library of an ancient old house in even more ancient York, a rather peevish little scholar named Mr. Norrell has rediscovered the art of practical magic. Alas, his jealous nature seems destined to assure that no one else will ever replicate his feats … until a scattered but likeable young gentleman, Jonathan Strange, discovers himself to possess similar powers. Much of the rest of the novel derives its suspense from the growing conflict between their fundamentally different approaches toward magic: Norrell’s scholarly approach vs. Strange’s organic approach. Which path promises to lead to the ultimate goal: the re-establishment of British magic? (Before you ask – yes, this works as a metaphor for all sorts of things, including British history writ large, which has always been about the precarious balance between the rule of law and the individualism of its people.)
This conflict is captured in the form of a more literal plotline, in which Norrell inadvertently summons a faerie, “The Gentleman with the Thistledown Hair,” who proceeds to engage in all sorts of complicating amorality, first taking captive the wife of a British minister (Lady Pole), then this gentleman’s African-American slave (Stephen), and finally Strange’s own wife Arabella. Strange’s efforts to free his wife entangle him in a magic feud that alters Britain forever.
But of course there’s so much more going on here than can be captured in so simple a summary. For, much like a stroll along the King’s Roads (magical roads that run between mirrors), this seemingly simple tale is always wandering off in unexpected directions, presenting us here with gently satirical portraits of British society (a la Austen) and then there with portraits of the ghastliness of war (a la Tolstoy); here with whimsical, entirely invented magical anecdotes from British history (a la T.H. White), and then there with sudden cameos by actual historical giants – The Duke of Wellington, Lord Byron, King George III (a la George MacDonald); here with themes and symbols evocative of genuine mythology (a la Tolkein), and then there with subtle asides that later reveal themselves as powerfully illuminating metaphors (Tolkein again). All wrapped up in Clarke’s deft prose and wonderfully evocative descriptions, especially of the increasingly transparent boundary between the real world and the world of faerie.
Simultaneously witty and yet dark, whimsical yet sober, gentle yet brutal, simple yet nuanced, imaginative and yet grounded in authentic history and mythology, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is one of those works of imagination that seem, on occasion, to emerge fully-formed from our collective imagination to become the ur-text of genres to come. A little rushed at the end (seriously, if you’re already 700 pages invested, what’s another 300 pages to do the thing right?), but, taken as a whole, a magnificent and magnificently original work of imaginative fiction.
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LibraryThing member MickyFine
An elegantly structured novel and one that I enjoyed thoroughly, but also one that's difficult to classify. One could classify it as fantasy but it could just as easily be labelled as alternative history fiction. The book takes place over roughly a decade (1806-1817) and follows the careers of the
Clarke's work is brilliant and so well-crafted. She quietly builds a world that mixes history and imagination so smoothly. The overall plot, while building slowly over the 782 pages, reaches a captivating climax and satisfying conclusion resolving the multiple plotlines and character arcs that the reader has encountered.
Among all of the things I enjoyed about this novel, a few stick out. First, is Clarke's fantastic use of footnotes. In some ways the novel is set up as a factual accounting of the events concerning Norrell and Strange during 1806-1817 and so footnotes refer to publications by these two gentlemen. However, they also include wonderful folk tales Clarke has created in building the mythology of her world. Second, is how masterfully she includes real historical events and figures into her novel such as the Napoleonic wars, the Duke of Wellington and Lord Byron. Finally, Clarke employs a wonderfully understated wit that is thoroughly amusing. My favourite interchange is between the Duke of Wellington and Jonathan Strange about a Prussian General:
"Unfortunately, he is also mad. He believes he is pregnant."
"Ah!"
"With a baby elephant."
"Ah!"
However, while I thoroughly appreciated the cerebral enjoyment the novel provided, I had no extreme emotional connection to the book. I didn't love it. I didn't hate it. I enjoyed it. I'm not indifferent to the book by any means and definitely recommend it as a good read, but there's no overwhelming passion where I feel the desperate need to tell everyone I know that they MUST read this book. Rather, it's one I suggest you give a try. It's a lovely read.
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first two practical magicians in England to appear in several hundred years: Mr Norrell and Jonathan Strange.Clarke's work is brilliant and so well-crafted. She quietly builds a world that mixes history and imagination so smoothly. The overall plot, while building slowly over the 782 pages, reaches a captivating climax and satisfying conclusion resolving the multiple plotlines and character arcs that the reader has encountered.
Among all of the things I enjoyed about this novel, a few stick out. First, is Clarke's fantastic use of footnotes. In some ways the novel is set up as a factual accounting of the events concerning Norrell and Strange during 1806-1817 and so footnotes refer to publications by these two gentlemen. However, they also include wonderful folk tales Clarke has created in building the mythology of her world. Second, is how masterfully she includes real historical events and figures into her novel such as the Napoleonic wars, the Duke of Wellington and Lord Byron. Finally, Clarke employs a wonderfully understated wit that is thoroughly amusing. My favourite interchange is between the Duke of Wellington and Jonathan Strange about a Prussian General:
"Unfortunately, he is also mad. He believes he is pregnant."
"Ah!"
"With a baby elephant."
"Ah!"
However, while I thoroughly appreciated the cerebral enjoyment the novel provided, I had no extreme emotional connection to the book. I didn't love it. I didn't hate it. I enjoyed it. I'm not indifferent to the book by any means and definitely recommend it as a good read, but there's no overwhelming passion where I feel the desperate need to tell everyone I know that they MUST read this book. Rather, it's one I suggest you give a try. It's a lovely read.
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LibraryThing member Sile
Warning: Spoilers!
Why did I read it? Because it had wonderful reviews. I enjoy magical, historical and fantasy fiction and, it has been lauded extensively. In the end, I did not read it, but listened to it.
My Opinion? Let me preface this review by saying: I am a fan of Austen; I am a fan of
I am not a fan of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.
I purchased two copies of this book, one on my way to Australia, which I promptly handed to my grandmother before a single page was read, the second on my return for my own use. I ended up purchasing an audio copy which was over 32 hours long.
Several times I stopped listening because I found it boring; it dragged; nothing excited the listener, despite the wonderful efforts of Mr. Prebble in voice characterisation. After a while, I knew which character was speaking simply by their voice. Mr. Prebble was also very adept at handling the footnotes in that I always knew when they had ended and he had returned to the main story. Mr. Prebble really tried to breathe life into this book. Alas, he was unsuccessful.
I probably took 15 hours before I discerned any sort of plot. Though it is said that in an Austen book, "nothing ever happens", it's not exactly true, whereas in the case of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, I'm afraid that it's not until section 2 of the book (around the 15 hour mark on the audio) before matters progress and some semblance of a plot emerges.
For my own part, I could have done without knowing anything of Mr. Strange's actions in the Napoleonic Wars; I am clueless as to what these chapters added to the plot other than ridiculing the perceptions of historical characters and, indeed, Mr. Strange himself. I felt some characters were shoehorned into the story even though they did not particularly add anything. The Graysteels being one instance: Apart from receiving Mrs Strange upon her return from Faery - Mr. Segundus might have been a viable alternative - I have no idea why they were created. Mr. Norrell’s servants whom Childermass directs to assist the two magicians at the last, but then desert, were another. Did I really need to know anything about them? Surely Lascelles would have fled if left on his own anyway?
Like others, I admire Susanna Clarke's ability to recreate the Regency era in a style entirely new, wherein magic "simply an arcane branch of learning, like medicine or physics, and its practitioners as essentially applied scientists". I can also appreciate the attempt to write a pastiche of authors such as Austen and Dickens and to imbibe it with ironic humour; for me, though, it failed in its delivery.
Would I recommend it? I know I am in the minority, the awards bestowed upon Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell are many, and the majority of readers can but sing its praises, but I just cannot recommend this book to anyone. I shall be disposing of my hard copy imminently.
Why did I read it? Because it had wonderful reviews. I enjoy magical, historical and fantasy fiction and, it has been lauded extensively. In the end, I did not read it, but listened to it.
My Opinion? Let me preface this review by saying: I am a fan of Austen; I am a fan of
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Dickens; and I am a fan of Tolkien.I am not a fan of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.
I purchased two copies of this book, one on my way to Australia, which I promptly handed to my grandmother before a single page was read, the second on my return for my own use. I ended up purchasing an audio copy which was over 32 hours long.
Several times I stopped listening because I found it boring; it dragged; nothing excited the listener, despite the wonderful efforts of Mr. Prebble in voice characterisation. After a while, I knew which character was speaking simply by their voice. Mr. Prebble was also very adept at handling the footnotes in that I always knew when they had ended and he had returned to the main story. Mr. Prebble really tried to breathe life into this book. Alas, he was unsuccessful.
I probably took 15 hours before I discerned any sort of plot. Though it is said that in an Austen book, "nothing ever happens", it's not exactly true, whereas in the case of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, I'm afraid that it's not until section 2 of the book (around the 15 hour mark on the audio) before matters progress and some semblance of a plot emerges.
For my own part, I could have done without knowing anything of Mr. Strange's actions in the Napoleonic Wars; I am clueless as to what these chapters added to the plot other than ridiculing the perceptions of historical characters and, indeed, Mr. Strange himself. I felt some characters were shoehorned into the story even though they did not particularly add anything. The Graysteels being one instance: Apart from receiving Mrs Strange upon her return from Faery - Mr. Segundus might have been a viable alternative - I have no idea why they were created. Mr. Norrell’s servants whom Childermass directs to assist the two magicians at the last, but then desert, were another. Did I really need to know anything about them? Surely Lascelles would have fled if left on his own anyway?
Like others, I admire Susanna Clarke's ability to recreate the Regency era in a style entirely new, wherein magic "simply an arcane branch of learning, like medicine or physics, and its practitioners as essentially applied scientists". I can also appreciate the attempt to write a pastiche of authors such as Austen and Dickens and to imbibe it with ironic humour; for me, though, it failed in its delivery.
Would I recommend it? I know I am in the minority, the awards bestowed upon Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell are many, and the majority of readers can but sing its praises, but I just cannot recommend this book to anyone. I shall be disposing of my hard copy imminently.
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LibraryThing member Hera
I loved this novel. It's like discovering a 19th century classic that one hasn't read. It's inventive, surprising and beautifully plotted. At first I was irritated by the footnotes - the plot was so exciting I didn't want to be interrupted - then I started to look forward to them. What a great
I haven't enjoyed anything so much in ages.
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imagination Clarke has, backed up by masses of research. There are so many stories within the story that I was amazed at her ingenuity. I haven't enjoyed anything so much in ages.
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LibraryThing member johnleague
A preamble: I had resisted this book since it first appeared. Its length and slow beginning put me, a reader despairing of the ever-widening girth of books of the fantastic, off entirely.
A confession: I misjudged JS&MrN.
Many readers have compared Ms. Clarke's novel to the work of Jane Austen,
And yet Ms. Clarke's pacing is not nearly so episodic as Dickens'. She is giving a guided if meandering tour of her world and its inhabitants; Dickens often places the reader on a forced march. I would have preferred a bit more marching in JS&MrN, but Ms. Clarke's delightful ending makes up for it.
Do not think as I did that this book is too long. No. It is paced too slowly. There is a difference, albeit one balanced on a knife's edge. I have often heard readers advised to "savor" this book as one would a fine meal. This is fine, but if one is feeling starved for plot or conflict, it is hard to "savor" seemingly identical courses of exposition, however tasty.
Of course, what really saves the book's leisurely (and often halting) pace are the characters. From the very first we are greeted with characters whose varying manners, outlooks and motivations ultimately push the plot ahead--however slowly. Ms. Clarke draws characters in clear relief--and convincingly manages to wind them all together by the book's conclusion. That in itself is a challenge that few writers of LONG fantasy have mastered.
Any discussion of characters would be remiss to ignore the character with whom Ms. Clarke is obviously most in love: her England. As one of the blurbs on the book jacket says, I felt that there was this whole history of England that my expensive education had neglected to teach me and that I should go to the library for Lord Portishead's A Child's History of the Raven King and John Segundus' Life of Jonathan Strange.
A note on footnotes: these helped the effect, really. At first they are a bit tedious, but they are completely in keeping with the book's antiquated sensibility (including shewed instead of showed, and chuse instead of choose). They also open a window to a vast, sprawling backstory that is illuminating but would further have slowed the pace if included in the main body of text. I would suggest, for those so inclined and possessing of enough time, that the book be read first without looking to the footnotes and then again with them.
Recommended for the patient.
A confession: I misjudged JS&MrN.
Many readers have compared Ms. Clarke's novel to the work of Jane Austen,
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largely for the British society it evokes and the gentle but savvy skewering thereof. While the evocation may be of Ms. Austen, the scope and breadth are more like Charles Dickens. The variety of characters, the sweep of landscape and setting, the sometimes pointed social commentary and the skillful tying up of loose ends and characters all bespeak Dickens to me.And yet Ms. Clarke's pacing is not nearly so episodic as Dickens'. She is giving a guided if meandering tour of her world and its inhabitants; Dickens often places the reader on a forced march. I would have preferred a bit more marching in JS&MrN, but Ms. Clarke's delightful ending makes up for it.
Do not think as I did that this book is too long. No. It is paced too slowly. There is a difference, albeit one balanced on a knife's edge. I have often heard readers advised to "savor" this book as one would a fine meal. This is fine, but if one is feeling starved for plot or conflict, it is hard to "savor" seemingly identical courses of exposition, however tasty.
Of course, what really saves the book's leisurely (and often halting) pace are the characters. From the very first we are greeted with characters whose varying manners, outlooks and motivations ultimately push the plot ahead--however slowly. Ms. Clarke draws characters in clear relief--and convincingly manages to wind them all together by the book's conclusion. That in itself is a challenge that few writers of LONG fantasy have mastered.
Any discussion of characters would be remiss to ignore the character with whom Ms. Clarke is obviously most in love: her England. As one of the blurbs on the book jacket says, I felt that there was this whole history of England that my expensive education had neglected to teach me and that I should go to the library for Lord Portishead's A Child's History of the Raven King and John Segundus' Life of Jonathan Strange.
A note on footnotes: these helped the effect, really. At first they are a bit tedious, but they are completely in keeping with the book's antiquated sensibility (including shewed instead of showed, and chuse instead of choose). They also open a window to a vast, sprawling backstory that is illuminating but would further have slowed the pace if included in the main body of text. I would suggest, for those so inclined and possessing of enough time, that the book be read first without looking to the footnotes and then again with them.
Recommended for the patient.
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LibraryThing member Larou
I am very late to this particular party – one reason for this is that I have a habit – as persistent as it is unjustified – to shy away from books that have become unexpectedly popular (which also led to me reading – and enjoying – The Name of the Wind years after everyone else), another
Just a brief glance at the table of contents, however, would already have sufficed to show me that the Jane Austen comparison is very far off the mark – Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, it turns out, is a novel in three volumes and is thus modelled after the Victorian three-deckers rather than the (comparatively) slim volumes of Jane Austen – I assume people were judging by the period the novel takes place in rather than the writing, because while the former might be Regency, the novel’s language, style and form are much more reminiscent of the likes of Thackeray and Trollope. And this is the first area (but will by no means be the last) in which Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is jaw-droppingly amazing: I have read a lot of Victorian novels in my time and therefore think I am a decent judge of those matters and can state with some confidence that Susanna Clarke really hits the nail on the head here – her style and tone, the way her plot develops, the way her characters are introduced, the narrative voice… simply everything is pitch-perfect. So, this is one level at which Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell can be enjoyed – as an utterly delightful pastiche of the Victorian three-decker novel, that comes as close as possible to the real thing as is possible for something written more than a hundred years later.
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, then, is almost exactly like a genuine novel from the Victorian Age that somehow found its way to us only belatedly - with the small proviso, however, that it has arrived in the reader’s hands not from our, but from some alternative universe version of the nineteenth century. There are quite a few historical fantasy novels that work from the principle of taking a historical period and then adding magic to it – a popular example from the same period Susanna Clarke’s novel covers would be Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series or (for some actual Jane Austen feel) Mary Robinette Kowal’s Glamourist Histories. But while Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell belongs into that category, it is very different from anything else in that sub-genre (anything I have ever read, at least). For one thing, Susanna Clarke only adds magic to her Regency period to then immediately subtract it and present us with an England where magic used to be strong but has almost entirely vanished. In fact, the entire concept of setting her novel during the Regency but telling it from a Victorian perspective already indicates a fundamental difference, a difference that is deepened by the lengths Susanna Clarke goes to not just get her facts straight, but also her characters, her writing, her very voice (and I cannot emphasize enough just how talented a ventriloquist she is – almost on every single of its many, many pages there at least one instance where a small tingle went down my spine at some particularly delightful turn of phrase in the Victorian manner). Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is vastly more ambitious than any Fantasy novel I have read in the last two or three decades, and really only comparable to the equally fantastic (but otherwise completely different) Little, Big by John Crowley (which I really need to read again soonish).
There are so many wonderful things to love about this wonderful that I could probably go on listing them for several posts, add examples and more examples of just how great this is, and end up quoting the whole thing in its entirely, but of course entirely out of order so that nobody would be able to put it together again. I won’t do that then, but confine myself to one thing which is probably what struck me the most about the novel and which (I suspect) is at the root of the enthusiasm Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell inspires in its readers (at least those that are susceptible to it), and that is Susanna Clarke’s incredible generosity as a writer.
Now, this might need some explaining. First, there is the world-building: during the whole of this massive novel, the reader cannot but admire just how extremely detailed the alternative England presented here is, from the grand historical sweep of the Napoleonic Wars down to the tiniest minutiae like her invented books having a publisher and a publishing date. This is part of the novel’s intended effect: the world here needs to appear very solid and substantial for its gradual subversion by magic to have the desired effect, and Susanna Clarke has done an amazing job at making her Regency England just as credible as the real one (and after all, none of us have actually experienced the period in question). But as utterly convincing as both the breadth and depth of her world-building are, as awe-inspiring as the effort that went into creatin all of this must have been – we still get the impression that the author is lifting the veil only on a tiny part of what she as created, that there is much, much more than would have been necessary, a whole world in fact that Susanna Clark has created for us just so that we could enjoy the single tale of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.
But of course, there is not just that single tale in the novel – there are also the tales of Stephen Black, of Mrs Pole, of Arabella Strange. And the tales of Mr Drawlight and Mr. Lascelle, of Childermass. And not to forget the tales of the man with the thistle-down hair and of John Uskglass. And that is not even to mention all the countless short tales told in the numerous footnotes throughout the novel, scatterings from Susanna Clarke’s apparently inexhausible cornucopia of stories.
But most of all, there is the sheer exuberance of the writing that dizzies and exhilarates. I do not think I have ever read a novel that made its readers feel so very welcome, throwing the doors open wide for them, receiving them with open arms, then seating them at a sumptuously laden table, feeding them with one delicacy after the other until they’re positively bursting, then offering them some more until they’re almost suffocating from the opulence… In fact, the unrestrained hospitality does beging to appear somewhat unsettling after a while, and the reader guests may start to shift uneasily on their seats as they feel themselves more and more reminded of the unbounded generosity the man with the thistle-down hair is showing towards Stephen Black… And isn’t there another writerly influence peeking in among the stately Victorians, one slightly disreputable at that, namely the German Romantic writer E.T.A. Hoffmann? Unobtrusively at first and barely noticeable, but increasingly more prominent as the novel moves along, and, what is worse, moving from his light-hearted, quirky tales to the dark and uncanny ones like “The Sandman”…
It really is nothing short of admirable how Susanna Clarke handles the transition towards a slow darkening of the novel, mirroring the shift from Enlightenment to Romanticism, or – maybe more fitting – from first generation to second generation Romanticism (with Mr Norrell as Wordsworth or Coleridge and Jonathan Strange as Shelley or Byron). It is very subtle, barely noticeable at first, but gradually magic begins to take over the novel and its protagonists and it turns out that they have been dabbling with forces far beyond their talents or knowledge. The tale becomes increasingly uncanny, the atmosphere increasingly creepy and there is a growing awareness that the most important protagonist might be someone who we never get to see directly. In the end, everything comes together wonderfully, with enough threads wrapped up to give a sense of closure but enough mysteries left unresolved to not let the magic fade into the light of common day. And, probably not at all surprisingly, the greatest English magician of them all turns out to be Susanna Clarke.
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that I had read that Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell was kind of like Jane Austen – as I’m not very fond of that author’s works, I was not exactly in a hurry to check this novel out.Just a brief glance at the table of contents, however, would already have sufficed to show me that the Jane Austen comparison is very far off the mark – Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, it turns out, is a novel in three volumes and is thus modelled after the Victorian three-deckers rather than the (comparatively) slim volumes of Jane Austen – I assume people were judging by the period the novel takes place in rather than the writing, because while the former might be Regency, the novel’s language, style and form are much more reminiscent of the likes of Thackeray and Trollope. And this is the first area (but will by no means be the last) in which Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is jaw-droppingly amazing: I have read a lot of Victorian novels in my time and therefore think I am a decent judge of those matters and can state with some confidence that Susanna Clarke really hits the nail on the head here – her style and tone, the way her plot develops, the way her characters are introduced, the narrative voice… simply everything is pitch-perfect. So, this is one level at which Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell can be enjoyed – as an utterly delightful pastiche of the Victorian three-decker novel, that comes as close as possible to the real thing as is possible for something written more than a hundred years later.
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, then, is almost exactly like a genuine novel from the Victorian Age that somehow found its way to us only belatedly - with the small proviso, however, that it has arrived in the reader’s hands not from our, but from some alternative universe version of the nineteenth century. There are quite a few historical fantasy novels that work from the principle of taking a historical period and then adding magic to it – a popular example from the same period Susanna Clarke’s novel covers would be Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series or (for some actual Jane Austen feel) Mary Robinette Kowal’s Glamourist Histories. But while Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell belongs into that category, it is very different from anything else in that sub-genre (anything I have ever read, at least). For one thing, Susanna Clarke only adds magic to her Regency period to then immediately subtract it and present us with an England where magic used to be strong but has almost entirely vanished. In fact, the entire concept of setting her novel during the Regency but telling it from a Victorian perspective already indicates a fundamental difference, a difference that is deepened by the lengths Susanna Clarke goes to not just get her facts straight, but also her characters, her writing, her very voice (and I cannot emphasize enough just how talented a ventriloquist she is – almost on every single of its many, many pages there at least one instance where a small tingle went down my spine at some particularly delightful turn of phrase in the Victorian manner). Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is vastly more ambitious than any Fantasy novel I have read in the last two or three decades, and really only comparable to the equally fantastic (but otherwise completely different) Little, Big by John Crowley (which I really need to read again soonish).
There are so many wonderful things to love about this wonderful that I could probably go on listing them for several posts, add examples and more examples of just how great this is, and end up quoting the whole thing in its entirely, but of course entirely out of order so that nobody would be able to put it together again. I won’t do that then, but confine myself to one thing which is probably what struck me the most about the novel and which (I suspect) is at the root of the enthusiasm Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell inspires in its readers (at least those that are susceptible to it), and that is Susanna Clarke’s incredible generosity as a writer.
Now, this might need some explaining. First, there is the world-building: during the whole of this massive novel, the reader cannot but admire just how extremely detailed the alternative England presented here is, from the grand historical sweep of the Napoleonic Wars down to the tiniest minutiae like her invented books having a publisher and a publishing date. This is part of the novel’s intended effect: the world here needs to appear very solid and substantial for its gradual subversion by magic to have the desired effect, and Susanna Clarke has done an amazing job at making her Regency England just as credible as the real one (and after all, none of us have actually experienced the period in question). But as utterly convincing as both the breadth and depth of her world-building are, as awe-inspiring as the effort that went into creatin all of this must have been – we still get the impression that the author is lifting the veil only on a tiny part of what she as created, that there is much, much more than would have been necessary, a whole world in fact that Susanna Clark has created for us just so that we could enjoy the single tale of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.
But of course, there is not just that single tale in the novel – there are also the tales of Stephen Black, of Mrs Pole, of Arabella Strange. And the tales of Mr Drawlight and Mr. Lascelle, of Childermass. And not to forget the tales of the man with the thistle-down hair and of John Uskglass. And that is not even to mention all the countless short tales told in the numerous footnotes throughout the novel, scatterings from Susanna Clarke’s apparently inexhausible cornucopia of stories.
But most of all, there is the sheer exuberance of the writing that dizzies and exhilarates. I do not think I have ever read a novel that made its readers feel so very welcome, throwing the doors open wide for them, receiving them with open arms, then seating them at a sumptuously laden table, feeding them with one delicacy after the other until they’re positively bursting, then offering them some more until they’re almost suffocating from the opulence… In fact, the unrestrained hospitality does beging to appear somewhat unsettling after a while, and the reader guests may start to shift uneasily on their seats as they feel themselves more and more reminded of the unbounded generosity the man with the thistle-down hair is showing towards Stephen Black… And isn’t there another writerly influence peeking in among the stately Victorians, one slightly disreputable at that, namely the German Romantic writer E.T.A. Hoffmann? Unobtrusively at first and barely noticeable, but increasingly more prominent as the novel moves along, and, what is worse, moving from his light-hearted, quirky tales to the dark and uncanny ones like “The Sandman”…
It really is nothing short of admirable how Susanna Clarke handles the transition towards a slow darkening of the novel, mirroring the shift from Enlightenment to Romanticism, or – maybe more fitting – from first generation to second generation Romanticism (with Mr Norrell as Wordsworth or Coleridge and Jonathan Strange as Shelley or Byron). It is very subtle, barely noticeable at first, but gradually magic begins to take over the novel and its protagonists and it turns out that they have been dabbling with forces far beyond their talents or knowledge. The tale becomes increasingly uncanny, the atmosphere increasingly creepy and there is a growing awareness that the most important protagonist might be someone who we never get to see directly. In the end, everything comes together wonderfully, with enough threads wrapped up to give a sense of closure but enough mysteries left unresolved to not let the magic fade into the light of common day. And, probably not at all surprisingly, the greatest English magician of them all turns out to be Susanna Clarke.
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LibraryThing member isabelx
"The first shall fear me; the second shall long to behold me;
The first shall be governed by thieves and murderers; the second shall conspire at his own destruction;
The first shall bury his heart in a dark wood beneath the snow, yet still feel its ache;
The second shall see his dearest possession in
In the Middle Ages, Northern England used to be a separate kingdom, ruled for three hundred years by a magician known as the Raven King, who had been brought up in Faerie. In his time the roads to faerie were open, there were many strong magicians in England and many of them had fairy servants to help them in their magic. After the passing of the Raven King, English magic went into a decline and by the early 19th century when this book is set, nobody is doing magic any more, and the people who call themselves magicians are interested in the theory and history of magic, rather than its practice.
Until that is, two magicians appear who wish to rediscover the power of English magic. One is cautious and the other reckless, but both learn to their cost the dangers of fairy magic.
There is a very English quality to this book, which really appealed to me. It is rooted in English history, English customs and the English landscape.
"Can a magician kill a man by magic?" Lord Wellington asked Strange. Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. I suppose a magician might," he admitted, "but a gentleman never could".
The first shall be governed by thieves and murderers; the second shall conspire at his own destruction;
The first shall bury his heart in a dark wood beneath the snow, yet still feel its ache;
The second shall see his dearest possession in
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his enemy's hand . . ."In the Middle Ages, Northern England used to be a separate kingdom, ruled for three hundred years by a magician known as the Raven King, who had been brought up in Faerie. In his time the roads to faerie were open, there were many strong magicians in England and many of them had fairy servants to help them in their magic. After the passing of the Raven King, English magic went into a decline and by the early 19th century when this book is set, nobody is doing magic any more, and the people who call themselves magicians are interested in the theory and history of magic, rather than its practice.
Until that is, two magicians appear who wish to rediscover the power of English magic. One is cautious and the other reckless, but both learn to their cost the dangers of fairy magic.
There is a very English quality to this book, which really appealed to me. It is rooted in English history, English customs and the English landscape.
"Can a magician kill a man by magic?" Lord Wellington asked Strange. Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. I suppose a magician might," he admitted, "but a gentleman never could".
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LibraryThing member anterastilis
This is probably one of the best books I've ever read. It was in the way it was told, the pacing, the underlying stories, the timeframe the author chose, the way that the characters were carefully sculpted (just enough information to create them in your mind, but not enough to keep you from using
I'll try not to give too much away because I will probably try to get some of you to read it.
From the beginning:
I was in the U of MN bookstore picking out a birthday present for my Dad when I saw this book. I picked it up and read the first three pages. I bought it on the spot: a 30 dollar, 786 page, octavo size hardcover. I NEVER do that. I read the liner notes about how the Norrell proves that he can do magic by making the statues in the cathedral talk - and I was hooked. I had to wait several months to start it - class, etc. It took me three weeks to get through it - doesn't it seem like I've been reading it forever?
Mr Norrell and Jonathan Strange are two magicians that live in England in the early 1800's. Mr Norrell is sort of a fuddy duddy, more interested in reading up on magic than actually going out there and experiencing it. Jonathan Strange, his pupil, is enormously talented and becomes bored as Norrell's apprentice.
Then there is the Gentleman with Thistle-Down Hair, who comes from faerie and has been enchanting Englishmen and women for hundreds of years; the Nameless Slave, destined to be King; enchanted ladies who seem to drift in and out of a death-like state; fops and dandies (and all of the characters you'd expect to find in a tale of this time period); and of course, the Raven King himself: John Uskglass. John Uskglass reigned for three hundred years from Newcastle as the Raven King, a human raised and educated in Faerie: he was the King of three lands: one in England, one in Faerie, and one on the far side of Hell. His time as King was the golden age of magic in England (1000-1300ish) and his writings were considered the most important magical writings of all time. Unfortunately, they have been lost...or have they???? o.O
I'm sorry, are you hooked? Because writing that made me want to go back and read it all again.
Someone told me that this is "Harry Potter for Grown-ups". I have some problems with this. #1: Who says Harry Potter isn't for Grown-ups? #2: This story is less flamboyant and action-packed. It moves along at a good, comfortable pace, and it doesn't make magic a 'spectacle' like Harry Potter does (no aunts get turned into balloons). It takes place in London, and veers more towards the realism side of 'magical realism'. It could have happened. It honestly could have happened. I'm not entirely sure in my mind that it didn't happen.
Anyway, I imagine that someone who likes Harry Potter would like this. It is a 700+ page book about magic, after all. Having read all of the Harry Potter books (and anxiously awaiting #6), I'll say that Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell went so far beyond the Harry Potter books in creating a world in my mind. I felt like the magic was done on me. It planted ideas that a month ago I wouldn't have considered - such as, are there people in the world who truly believe that other worlds exist on this planet alongside (but hidden from) ours? I'd like to discuss that with someone who was gung ho about it. Weird, huh? Well, read the book and then we'll see if we can figure out the King's Roads to Faerie together.
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your imagination) and of course, of course the descriptions of the magic that was done. This is right up there with Northern Lights series, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Chronicles of Narnia, and the Mists of Avalon. I've got a shelf for my 'favorite books' and this is going right on it.I'll try not to give too much away because I will probably try to get some of you to read it.
From the beginning:
I was in the U of MN bookstore picking out a birthday present for my Dad when I saw this book. I picked it up and read the first three pages. I bought it on the spot: a 30 dollar, 786 page, octavo size hardcover. I NEVER do that. I read the liner notes about how the Norrell proves that he can do magic by making the statues in the cathedral talk - and I was hooked. I had to wait several months to start it - class, etc. It took me three weeks to get through it - doesn't it seem like I've been reading it forever?
Mr Norrell and Jonathan Strange are two magicians that live in England in the early 1800's. Mr Norrell is sort of a fuddy duddy, more interested in reading up on magic than actually going out there and experiencing it. Jonathan Strange, his pupil, is enormously talented and becomes bored as Norrell's apprentice.
Then there is the Gentleman with Thistle-Down Hair, who comes from faerie and has been enchanting Englishmen and women for hundreds of years; the Nameless Slave, destined to be King; enchanted ladies who seem to drift in and out of a death-like state; fops and dandies (and all of the characters you'd expect to find in a tale of this time period); and of course, the Raven King himself: John Uskglass. John Uskglass reigned for three hundred years from Newcastle as the Raven King, a human raised and educated in Faerie: he was the King of three lands: one in England, one in Faerie, and one on the far side of Hell. His time as King was the golden age of magic in England (1000-1300ish) and his writings were considered the most important magical writings of all time. Unfortunately, they have been lost...or have they???? o.O
I'm sorry, are you hooked? Because writing that made me want to go back and read it all again.
Someone told me that this is "Harry Potter for Grown-ups". I have some problems with this. #1: Who says Harry Potter isn't for Grown-ups? #2: This story is less flamboyant and action-packed. It moves along at a good, comfortable pace, and it doesn't make magic a 'spectacle' like Harry Potter does (no aunts get turned into balloons). It takes place in London, and veers more towards the realism side of 'magical realism'. It could have happened. It honestly could have happened. I'm not entirely sure in my mind that it didn't happen.
Anyway, I imagine that someone who likes Harry Potter would like this. It is a 700+ page book about magic, after all. Having read all of the Harry Potter books (and anxiously awaiting #6), I'll say that Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell went so far beyond the Harry Potter books in creating a world in my mind. I felt like the magic was done on me. It planted ideas that a month ago I wouldn't have considered - such as, are there people in the world who truly believe that other worlds exist on this planet alongside (but hidden from) ours? I'd like to discuss that with someone who was gung ho about it. Weird, huh? Well, read the book and then we'll see if we can figure out the King's Roads to Faerie together.
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LibraryThing member Macophile
I am an avid reader. I buy books and read them as soon as I get them, then go looking for more. I've read and loved Hawthorne, Dickens, Twain, Alcott, Bronte, Austin, and even some Melville (I mention these because they have been compared to this book's "denseness")...But this book has been sitting
If you like dry, long, boring books based on 'fantasy' this is for you... But if you don't, for heavens sake don't waste your money... go buy Jane Eyre, or Wuthering Heights or something...or if "thicker" books aren't up your alley go get some Artemis Fowl or Terry Pratchet books.
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on my shelf for over a month. I keep pulling it out hoping that maybe time has let it ferment or meld itself into a readable book, but no such luck. I have yet to get past the first chapter. Reading it feels like slogging through quicksand with cinder blocks attached to your feet. I tried flipping ahead in the book in hopes it would be better and every so often I find a passage where there is something interesting, like conversation instead of the history of a non-existent magical community... but for the most part this book is serving as a dust collector. The only thing that keeps me coming back to it, besides the fact that I have never let any book go unread once I got my hands on it, is the fact the last page in the book is very captivating...so I keep thinking for a book to end so well it must be good somewhere in the middle.If you like dry, long, boring books based on 'fantasy' this is for you... But if you don't, for heavens sake don't waste your money... go buy Jane Eyre, or Wuthering Heights or something...or if "thicker" books aren't up your alley go get some Artemis Fowl or Terry Pratchet books.
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LibraryThing member Aerow
One of the best novels I've ever read. The story takes place in the early 19th century and deals with two magicians who try to bring magic back to England. The book is dark, light, comical, serious. utterly disturbing, imaginative, frightening, and above all - thoroughly addictive.
It took me quite
In this book, you will find so many new ideas and instances you've never read or have imagined. You will instantly find yourself willing to accept this historical tale as true history. You will find yourself fascinated with and almost interested in magic. Yet, by the end, you are happy to leave it where it is - not because of any catastrophic events or portrayal of magic as "evil" - but, because this book makes you overwhelmingly happy to be exactly who you are. Because in the end of all things, you can only truly be yourself.
It took me quite
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a while to get through this book, which is nearly 800 pages long. However, not a word from the author is wasted. There is no filler. The entire book was very thoughtfully written and every ounce of it is enjoyable. I would highly recommend it to people with rampant imaginations, as well as to people who need to form an imagination from scratch. This book will blow you away.In this book, you will find so many new ideas and instances you've never read or have imagined. You will instantly find yourself willing to accept this historical tale as true history. You will find yourself fascinated with and almost interested in magic. Yet, by the end, you are happy to leave it where it is - not because of any catastrophic events or portrayal of magic as "evil" - but, because this book makes you overwhelmingly happy to be exactly who you are. Because in the end of all things, you can only truly be yourself.
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LibraryThing member BeyondEdenRock
I have a very clear memory of visiting a bookshop, a good few years ago. I had a birthday book token, and I wasn’t too sure what I might buy. I saw a display of thick hardback books, some with black covers and some with white covers. I was intrigued by the title, and when I picked one of those
That was how my first copy of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell came home.
It was quite a few years before I read the book and I had quite a few false starts before I read it all the way through. It wasn’t that I didn’t love it – I loved it from the start – but it was such a big book, I so wanted to linger, and I kept getting distracted, by life and by other books.
I finally read the whole book last year, when I realised that I could count three volumes as three novels; and that I didn’t need to dawdle, because if I loved the book as much as I thought I would I’d be going back to read it again and again.
I did love it that much; and maybe more.
What did I love?
I loved that though this very big book, divided into three volumes, looks so much like a take on a Victorian novel, it is set somewhat earlier, during the Napoleonic Wars. And while I have seen it suggested that the style echoes some wonderful authors – Austen, Trollope and Dickens are the names I have seen most often – and while I can see all of those influences, none of them dominate. The style suits the period, suits the story, and it is the style of a storyteller with a keen eye, a gentle wit, and perfect control of her material.
The story began in an England where magic had died after the disappearance of its greatest magician, The Raven King, who had come out of the Land of Faerie to reign in the north. Magic was a dry academic subject, not a practical art.
One man asked why that was, and events that the Raven King had prophesised began to unfold:
"Two magicians shall appear in England.
The first shall fear me; the second shall long to behold me;
The first shall be governed by thieves and murderers; the second shall conspire at his own destruction;
The first shall bury his heart in a dark wood beneath the snow, yet still feel its ache;
The second shall see his dearest possession in his enemy’s hand.
The first shall pass his life alone; he shall be his own gaoler;
The second shall tread lonely roads, the storm above his head, seeking a dark tower upon a high hillside.
I sit upon a black throne in the shadows but they shall not see me.
The rain shall make a door for me and I shall pass through it;
The stones shall make a throne for me and I shall sit upon it.
The nameless slave shall wear a silver crown,
The nameless slave shall be a king in a strange country."
I love that the world of this book is so very alive, that it is a very real England, overlaid with the history and presence of magic. The detail is wonderful, and the love that Susanna Clarke, the architect of that world has for it shines from the pages.
I loved that the prophecy played out in the story, and that even though I had ideas about what was going to happen I never really knew, and that what did happen was exactly right.
I loved that such a wonderful array of characters from that world were presented to me, and that they were so very well drawn with just a few simple strokes. Each and every one had a part to play, and there is no one I won’t be glad to see come to the fore.
It’s difficult to pick favourites, but I was always pleased to see Mr Segundus, who asked that important question; I was fascinated, and moved, by what happened to Emma, Lady Pole; I was intrigued by the mysterious Mr Childermas, Mr Norrell’s man of business …. that reminds me that I am very taken with the names, which are distinctive without being gimmicky, and fitting without ever feeling contrived.
I particularly loved the characters and the relationship of Mr Norrell and Mr Strange, and that even thought their differing natures and view about the history and restoration of magic in England drove them apart, their love of magic pulled them together.
I loved the magic, that has been so beautifully woven into real history and that is so nicely understated. The set pieces are wonderful. There’s a wonderful early scene in York Minster that might be one of my favourite scenes in any book, ever. And I was so impressed with the part that Jonathan Strange had to play in the Napoleonic War, alongside the Duke of Wellington, that I found myself wishing he would appear when I was reading a certain classic with interminable scenes set during that same conflict.
I was delighted that nearly all of the magic drew on the natural world. It would have been easy to overplay the magic, but that didn’t happen. This was always a human story set in a real world where magic just happened to have a part to play.
I loved that end of the story echoed the beginning, and that the seeds of that ending were sown very quietly, and very early in the story. And I loved that though the ending was an ending, it might also be the start of something else.
Most of all, I loved that even though the book wasn’t quite perfect, that there were one or two sequences that dragged, it didn’t matter, that I still loved the book as a whole. Because the idea was so wonderful, because its execution was so clever, and because everything came together and worked quite perfectly.
I didn’t want to leave that world, I wanted to know what was happening around the stories when interesting characters were offstage, I wanted to know what had happened before, what would happen afterward, and I so wanted to be part of it all.
I found a book that spoke to both my childish love of a magical world and my grown up love of period fiction.
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copies to see what it was all about I was smitten.That was how my first copy of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell came home.
It was quite a few years before I read the book and I had quite a few false starts before I read it all the way through. It wasn’t that I didn’t love it – I loved it from the start – but it was such a big book, I so wanted to linger, and I kept getting distracted, by life and by other books.
I finally read the whole book last year, when I realised that I could count three volumes as three novels; and that I didn’t need to dawdle, because if I loved the book as much as I thought I would I’d be going back to read it again and again.
I did love it that much; and maybe more.
What did I love?
I loved that though this very big book, divided into three volumes, looks so much like a take on a Victorian novel, it is set somewhat earlier, during the Napoleonic Wars. And while I have seen it suggested that the style echoes some wonderful authors – Austen, Trollope and Dickens are the names I have seen most often – and while I can see all of those influences, none of them dominate. The style suits the period, suits the story, and it is the style of a storyteller with a keen eye, a gentle wit, and perfect control of her material.
The story began in an England where magic had died after the disappearance of its greatest magician, The Raven King, who had come out of the Land of Faerie to reign in the north. Magic was a dry academic subject, not a practical art.
One man asked why that was, and events that the Raven King had prophesised began to unfold:
"Two magicians shall appear in England.
The first shall fear me; the second shall long to behold me;
The first shall be governed by thieves and murderers; the second shall conspire at his own destruction;
The first shall bury his heart in a dark wood beneath the snow, yet still feel its ache;
The second shall see his dearest possession in his enemy’s hand.
The first shall pass his life alone; he shall be his own gaoler;
The second shall tread lonely roads, the storm above his head, seeking a dark tower upon a high hillside.
I sit upon a black throne in the shadows but they shall not see me.
The rain shall make a door for me and I shall pass through it;
The stones shall make a throne for me and I shall sit upon it.
The nameless slave shall wear a silver crown,
The nameless slave shall be a king in a strange country."
I love that the world of this book is so very alive, that it is a very real England, overlaid with the history and presence of magic. The detail is wonderful, and the love that Susanna Clarke, the architect of that world has for it shines from the pages.
I loved that the prophecy played out in the story, and that even though I had ideas about what was going to happen I never really knew, and that what did happen was exactly right.
I loved that such a wonderful array of characters from that world were presented to me, and that they were so very well drawn with just a few simple strokes. Each and every one had a part to play, and there is no one I won’t be glad to see come to the fore.
It’s difficult to pick favourites, but I was always pleased to see Mr Segundus, who asked that important question; I was fascinated, and moved, by what happened to Emma, Lady Pole; I was intrigued by the mysterious Mr Childermas, Mr Norrell’s man of business …. that reminds me that I am very taken with the names, which are distinctive without being gimmicky, and fitting without ever feeling contrived.
I particularly loved the characters and the relationship of Mr Norrell and Mr Strange, and that even thought their differing natures and view about the history and restoration of magic in England drove them apart, their love of magic pulled them together.
I loved the magic, that has been so beautifully woven into real history and that is so nicely understated. The set pieces are wonderful. There’s a wonderful early scene in York Minster that might be one of my favourite scenes in any book, ever. And I was so impressed with the part that Jonathan Strange had to play in the Napoleonic War, alongside the Duke of Wellington, that I found myself wishing he would appear when I was reading a certain classic with interminable scenes set during that same conflict.
I was delighted that nearly all of the magic drew on the natural world. It would have been easy to overplay the magic, but that didn’t happen. This was always a human story set in a real world where magic just happened to have a part to play.
I loved that end of the story echoed the beginning, and that the seeds of that ending were sown very quietly, and very early in the story. And I loved that though the ending was an ending, it might also be the start of something else.
Most of all, I loved that even though the book wasn’t quite perfect, that there were one or two sequences that dragged, it didn’t matter, that I still loved the book as a whole. Because the idea was so wonderful, because its execution was so clever, and because everything came together and worked quite perfectly.
I didn’t want to leave that world, I wanted to know what was happening around the stories when interesting characters were offstage, I wanted to know what had happened before, what would happen afterward, and I so wanted to be part of it all.
I found a book that spoke to both my childish love of a magical world and my grown up love of period fiction.
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LibraryThing member kylekatz
A bookseller's book. If you've ever wanted to stumble into a dusty old book shop and discover a cache of very old magic books, this is the book for you. Magicians in England think magic is dead until two new magicians come to light, Mr. Strange and Mr. Norrell. Mr. Norrell has gone around England
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hoarding all the magic books into his library. Two schools of thought spring up around them. Norrellites are cautious and believe in long years of study before any actual magic is performed. Strangites believe in taking more risks. The problem is that there are other realms that can be reached by magic: Faery and Hell. Perhaps Mr. Strange is out of his league without Mr. Norrell's help? Great book. Show Less
LibraryThing member annisarsha
This book truly got under my skin to the point where I would find myself reflecting on it during the day, anxiously awaiting the time I'd immerse myself in it. Truly a great read, touching, funny, insightful, and actually quite believable. Nearing the end of the book, I found myself intentionally
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reading slower because I didn't want it to end. Teared up quite a bit! Show Less
LibraryThing member Kasthu
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is an eccentric book. It takes a lot of time and patience; but in the end it is worth all the effort. This book is rather an odd one to classify- its like nothing else I've ever read. It puts me in mind of a combination of Edmund Spenser's The Fairie Queene and
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell takes place between the years of 1808 and 1817, covering the events that took place in the wars against Napoleon and his French armies. Susanna Clarke tries to make light of a period of English history which was particularly troubling for the English. Throughout the course of the book Strange and Norrell perform acts of magic which include, but are certainly not limited to: creating roads which disapear again; moving rivers and other geographical features (ie moving Brussels to America); creating illusions to confuse the French; walking through mirrors; and looking into a bowl of water to determine what other people are doing. The book is filled with all kinds of fantastic similes- for example, "House, like people, are apt to become rather eccentric if left too much on their own; this house was the architectural equivalent of an old gentleman in a worn dressing-gown and slippers, who got up and went to bed at odd times of day, and who kept up a continual conversation with friends no one else could see" (452).
There are some other characters which are worth paying attention to: Sir Walter Pole, a minister in Parliament; his wife, Lady Pole, who is brought back from the dead thanks to Mr. Norrell; Pole's butler, Stephen Black; Strange's wife, Arabella; a street performer named Vinculus; and the mysterious man with the thistle-down hair.
Strange publishes an article in the Edinburg Review which challenges the views of his former tutor, Mr. Norrell; he later publishes a book called The History and Practice of English Magic, which outlines the subject from its beginnings to the present. Of course, there is a lot missing, as Mr. Norrell won't allow Mr. Strange to view the 4000 + books in his library at Hurtfew Abbey in Yorkshire. The article and the book cause a divide in the relationship between the two magicians. It is at this point in the book that it becomes clear that the magic performed in this book is a lot more serious than we'd previously thought. In Fairie, there is a place called Lost-hope, where Stephen Black, Lady Pole, and later Arabella Strange spend all their time. The place is symbolic of the fates of all three of these characters.
As Susanna Clarke mentions, "magic is the noblest profession in the world" (456). It may just be true, in the case of this book. I've said before that, although Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is a long, often complicated book, it is not without its mysteries. It is precisely because of this that this book is worth reading.
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Dickens's Pickwick Papers. I would argue that this book is nothing like Harry Potter- the magic in the Harry Potter series in darker and more sinister, though the magic performed in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell turns out not to be all that it appears. Don't be intimidated by the length of the book- nearly 800 pages- this is a good, satidfying read which will have you hooked. The action centers around two magicians: Mr. Norrell and Mr. Strange, the former of which is determined to get rid of all the magicians in England aside from himself- and successfully wipes out all of the magicians of the city of York. He them goes to London, where he tries to bring the spirit of magic back into England. I found it interesting that Clarke combines religion and magic in an interesting way- Mr. Norrell performs a spectacular act of magic in York Cathedral. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is filled with all kinds of magical lore and magical history. Primary in the events of English magic is the reign of the Raven King, aka John Uskglass, whose reign lasted for 300 years. There are the Other Lands, which include Faerie, Northern England, and the Other Side of Hell.Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell takes place between the years of 1808 and 1817, covering the events that took place in the wars against Napoleon and his French armies. Susanna Clarke tries to make light of a period of English history which was particularly troubling for the English. Throughout the course of the book Strange and Norrell perform acts of magic which include, but are certainly not limited to: creating roads which disapear again; moving rivers and other geographical features (ie moving Brussels to America); creating illusions to confuse the French; walking through mirrors; and looking into a bowl of water to determine what other people are doing. The book is filled with all kinds of fantastic similes- for example, "House, like people, are apt to become rather eccentric if left too much on their own; this house was the architectural equivalent of an old gentleman in a worn dressing-gown and slippers, who got up and went to bed at odd times of day, and who kept up a continual conversation with friends no one else could see" (452).
There are some other characters which are worth paying attention to: Sir Walter Pole, a minister in Parliament; his wife, Lady Pole, who is brought back from the dead thanks to Mr. Norrell; Pole's butler, Stephen Black; Strange's wife, Arabella; a street performer named Vinculus; and the mysterious man with the thistle-down hair.
Strange publishes an article in the Edinburg Review which challenges the views of his former tutor, Mr. Norrell; he later publishes a book called The History and Practice of English Magic, which outlines the subject from its beginnings to the present. Of course, there is a lot missing, as Mr. Norrell won't allow Mr. Strange to view the 4000 + books in his library at Hurtfew Abbey in Yorkshire. The article and the book cause a divide in the relationship between the two magicians. It is at this point in the book that it becomes clear that the magic performed in this book is a lot more serious than we'd previously thought. In Fairie, there is a place called Lost-hope, where Stephen Black, Lady Pole, and later Arabella Strange spend all their time. The place is symbolic of the fates of all three of these characters.
As Susanna Clarke mentions, "magic is the noblest profession in the world" (456). It may just be true, in the case of this book. I've said before that, although Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is a long, often complicated book, it is not without its mysteries. It is precisely because of this that this book is worth reading.
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LibraryThing member atheist_goat
I’m far from sure that I liked this. I think it comes down to the fact that if I wanted to read Dickens or Austen or Beatrix Potter (yes, she was cribbed from too), I would read Dickens or Austen or Beatrix Potter, and I never felt my life much emptier for the lack of Napoleonic fantasy written
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by any of these people. The story was fairly fun, but the effort of the writing style was so apparent that reading it was exhausting. I didn’t encounter a single sentence that felt like it had come naturally from Clarke’s pen, and that bothered me. Show Less
LibraryThing member JandL
Some do not cotton to the winding, maze-like footnotes or perhaps the direction of the plot. I liked both, as well as the shimmering atmosphere of an England thick with magic.
Subjects
Awards
Booker Prize (Longlist — 2004)
Hugo Award (Nominee — Novel — 2005)
Nebula Award (Nominee — Novel — 2005)
Costa Book Awards (Shortlist — First Novel — 2004)
Audie Award (Finalist — Fiction — 2005)
Locus Award (Finalist — First Novel — 2005)
Mythopoeic Awards (Finalist — Adult Literature — 2005)
World Fantasy Award (Nominee — Novel — 2005)
The Morning News Tournament of Books (Quarterfinalist — 2005)
SF Site Reader's Choice (#1 — 2004)
British Fantasy Award (Nominee — August Derleth Fantasy Award — 2005)
Indies Choice Book Award (Winner — Adult Fiction — 2005)
SF Site Editor's Choice (#1 — 2004)
Salon Book Award (2004)
British Book Award (Winner — Newcomer — 2005)
International Horror Guild Award (Nominee — First Novel — 2004)
British Science Fiction Association Award (Shortlist — Novel — 2004)
Waverton Good Read Award (Longlist — 2005)
Guardian First Book Award (Shortlist — 2004)
Geffen Award (2007)
Booklist Editor's Choice: Adult Books (Fiction — 2004)
Locus Recommended Reading (First Novel — 2004)
Christian Science Monitor Best Book (Fiction — 2004)
Village Voice Favorite Books (2004)
Booklist Top of the List: Best of Editors' Choice (Audio — 2005)
The Guardian 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read (Science Fiction and Fantasy)
Mir Fantastiki: 100 main fantasy and science-fiction books (Historical Fiction — 79)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2004
Physical description
782 p.; 6.34 inches
ISBN
1582344167 / 9781582344164