Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell: A Novel | Susanna Clarke

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell: A Novel | Susanna Clarke | Jack Vance and Jane Austen

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Jonathan Strange &...

	Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell: A Novel Susanna Clarke Tor Books, 2006 - 1024 pages average customer review:based on 733 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Improves Like a Fine Wine

First of all, I have to admit that my mind has been mixed on this book. Actually, I started it a year or so ago and put it down. It is SOOO long and I was losing interest. Images, however, kept coming back to me and something drew me in with the resolve to slog through it from beginning to end. From that persepective, I have been reluctant to recommend this book to friends as it is a great investment of time. Therefore, I cannot discuss my thoughts with anyone but you, dear reader.

I am not a fantasy fan but got entirely engrossed in this novel as it did not appear to be fantasy but history with an otherwordly air. I found the plot to be complex and even (do I dare admit it) plausible. Because of the length, the protagonists keep changing but everything gets woven into the end.

The language was beautiful and the spells and prophesies sheer poetry. I thought the footnotes were some of the best parts of the book. They speak so vividly of other sources that I was actually Googling the reference works to see if they were available. Sadly, all were fiction.

The lasting impression I have is that there are other worlds with which we only sometimes intersect. Faeries are definately more than the cute little statues in my garden and if I ever meet one, I will head the opposite way! Beware of men with thistledown hair and if you see a flock of crows/ravens, lock your doors as the king may be lurking about. Beware of any bargain that seems too good to be true, as the price exacted can be enormous - and those ancients can be so tempting and alluring!

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Jack Vance and Jane Austen

If either of these writers are among your favorites, read this book. If both are, you will recognize this as the first candidate for the greatest fantasy novel of the 21st Century.

What an act of courage to write a 1000-page first novel, investing a lifetime's energy without knowing if it will be rewarded.

It was rewarded. This is a masterpiece. If she never writes again, her place in literature is assured. But I surely hope she does.

My 100-word book review

Susanna Clarke's debut novel is epic in scope, meticulous in its attention to detail and also maddeningly long. Set in an alternative Regency England where magic, not science, is the dominant paradigm, this is a story of friendship, power and bitter rivalry. The fictitious tale of Strange and Norrell is cleverly interwoven with actual events and visited by a number of historical personages, which serves to make it all the more convincing. I particularly liked the quasi-Arthurian mythos of the Raven King. Despite its length and the all but glacial speed of the plot, I'm glad I picked this up.

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Successfully creates a world where magic is possible

Susanna Clarke's novel transgresses the boundaries of Victorian literary fiction, fantasy, and the historical novel. As a fan of some of the Victorians myself, I found Clarke's imitation of their writing style and novelistic structure to be quite precise. Her concerns with the human soul, with survival after death, and with the struggle of good and evil within a human being are both modern and typical of the 19th century.

The reader slowly walks into a world that is partly familiar and partly quite bizarre. It's the English drawing-room, calling-card era, with the overlay of magic, an art that is allegedly long forgotten. Clarke's mock-scholarly footnotes are charming.

However, the book takes just a bit too long to get started and to invite the reader in.

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Love It or Hate It - Or Both?

With the possible exception of "War and Peace (Oxford World's Classics)" and the Bible (well, and "Ulysses," which I still haven't finished and perhaps never will), no other book has taken me this long to read.

I picked it up at an airport in London one day and was immediately delighted by the combination of 19th-century storytelling with 20th-century magic, both of which are elements that I love.

Then, however, the story seemed to get stuck in all the telling. More and more was told, less and less was shown. About Mr. Norrel, the introvert magician who is the main focus of the first part of the book, it says, "He hardly ever spoke of magic, and when he did it was like a history lesson and no one could bear to listen to him." That, I must confess, also seemed to be a fit description of the book at times.

Thus I put it aside and turned to other literature.

After a few months, I picked it up again and gave it another try. And slowly - sometimes too slowly - I was pulled in. The more work I put into the book, the more it grew on me, so that by the time I reached the riveting finale, I had come to love the book.

Now I feel like I might re-read it one day. It's a book that requires patience, and definitely a love for 19th-century storytelling. But if you give it the time of a 19th-century reader spending long afternoons in his library, then it can become a dear companion.

Shall I give it five stars? I'm torn. At times I hated it. I've come to love it. Maybe four stars will serve it best.

- Jacob Schriftman, Author of The Crack Beneath the Worlds and Other Books

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