Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
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Any book touted as the ‘adult Harry Potter’ runs the risk of attracting critical parries from swords of the double-edged variety. If this wasn’t enough, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell--the debut novel from Susanna Clarke--also invites comparisons with Jane Austen. Set in the early nineteenth-century, the action moves from genteel drawing rooms—albeit where a mischievous Faerie king sips tea with the wife of a very human government minister, to the bloody battleground of Waterloo, where giant hands of earth drag men to their doom. The juxtaposition of perfectly realised magical worlds and the everyday one with which JK Rowling and Philip Pullman so successfully captured our imaginations and the social comedy of Austen and Thackeray can easily be recognised. But less easy to pastiche is the ability of these writers to induce sheer narrative pleasure, and it is Clarke’s great achievement that she succeeds with this hugely enjoyable read. Gilbert Norrell is determined to single-handedly rehabilitate his sanitised and patriotic version of English magic, which has suffered a post-Enlightenment neglect after a richly dark history. He ruthlessly secures his place as England’s only magician in two marvellously drawn feats. First, he brings the statutes of York Cathedral to life and then, to facilitate his entry into London society, he brings a young bride-to-be back from the dead--a feat with terrible consequences. However, another more naturally gifted magician—Jonathan Strange—emerges to become his pupil and later his rival. Strange becomes increasingly obsessed with the Raven King—the medieval lord-magician of the North of England and pursues his desire to recruit a fairy servant to the edge of madness. Whilst the differing characters of Norrell and Strange give the book a central human conflict, it is the tension between the dual natures of civilised and wilder magic that lends it a metaphysical texture that shades the narrative with wonderful and troubling descriptions of ships made of rain, paths between mirrors and faerie roads leading out of England to a bleak yet dazzling realm. Fortunately, the precision of her storytelling never reigns in Clarke’s prodigious imagination. Clarke’s broad canvas of characters—including Wellington, Napoleon and Bryon, locations and tones are masterfully realised. However, sometimes her own enchantment with them leads her to drop her pace, although even at almost 800 pages, this is a book to which you’ll muster up little resistance. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is the perfect novel to take up residence in as the nights get longer. -- Fiona Buckland -- This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
'An elegant and witty historical fantasy which deserves to be judged on its own (considerable) merit' Sunday Telegraph 'Full of spells, bad weather, statues that talk, haunted ballrooms and sinister gentlemen with thistledown hair ... be enchanted! *****' Elle 'A nourishing, 19th-century-style novel that will warm readers through any number of dark and stormy nights ... Clarke makes her magical story ridiculously engrossing' Daily Telegraph 'This is, in both the precise and the colloquial sense, a fabulous book ... a highly original and compelling work' Sunday Times
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
114 of 124 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I'm with Neil Gaiman,
By
This review is from: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (Hardcover)
This is truly a fantastic book. I can't praise it highly enough. The plot, characters, pacing and, above all, the back story, make this a brilliant novel and a fantastic début. And, being a Yorkshire lass myself, it was certainly gratifying to find a novel that doesn't rampantly stereotype all Northerners.The story begins in 1806, when two theoretical magicians with the wonderfully Dickensian names of Segundus and Honeyfoot encounter the reclusive scholar, Mr Norrell. Their quest is to find out why magic, which was once so common in England, particularly in the North under the 300 year reign of the Raven King John Uskglass, is now a distant history to be studied by gentlemen like themselves. But they discover that, for all his bookish and condescending ways, Mr Norrell is in fact a practical magician, which he proves by bringing all the statues in York Minster/Cathedral to life. Having brought his powers to the attention of the public, he immediately sets of to London, where he plans to help in the war effort against Napoleon, and in the process resurrect English magic. At first he is not taken seriously, and it soon becomes clear Norrell will go to any lengths to become the only magician in England. But when he encounters Jonathan Strange, another magician, he seems to wake up to new possibilities. He takes Strange on as a pupil. But the two men are too different for the partnership to last. Norrell is secretive and unfriendly, hoarding magical knowledge and desperately preserving his own prestige. Strange is charming and gregarious, and becomes a hero in the wars. What starts off as mild rivalry soon escalates into a feud, with far reaching consequences. If you've see the size of this book, you'll understand it's a hard thing to summarize. At almost 800 pages it's not a coffee table book, it's a coffee table. But don't be put off. It's fast moving, brilliantly written, wryly amusing and full of nods to the ghosts of literature past. It's also quite beautiful, and I'm not just talking about the pretty cover. It's part Lord of the Rings, part Harry Potter, part The Crimson Petal And The White and part Jane Austen. I raced through it in 3 days, and am already halfway through my second reading. Apparently there's a sequel in the pipeline, and at the minute I'd gladly put back Harry Potter 6 by years to have that instead.
23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An incredible read,
By
This review is from: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (Hardcover)
An amazing book. How on earth the author managed to maintain so strongly the Dickensian/Jane Austenian(!) feel of the narrative I have no idea. It took me all of 3 months to read it - there was no possibility of "skipping" a passage because the whole book was so very readable and, may I say, even gripping in places - it would have been a pity to have missed any little bit of it! The principal characters are so real, despite many of them being obviously fictional and drawn from the realms of fantasy (difficult to understand, if you like), so that the reader is drawn into a web of fantasy woven into a story with some of the factual characters of history (Lord Byron, the Duke of Wellington, etc) as well as those which dwell only in the author's imagination. The footnotes are a joy - taking the story off at a tangent, but without losing the plot and returning it safely to the matter in hand. Not everyone's cup of tea, I have no doubt, but I and many of my friends thought it wonderful! A book which I will not send off to a charity shop, but which will live on my bookshelf for many years to come, to be re-read again and again, such is its charm and charisma. It will be interesting to see what the author comes up with next! Can't wait!
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Strange by name, strange by nature,
By
This review is from: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (Paperback)
The main virtue of this book is the way in which it portrays the magical, the surreal and the ridiculous whilst still assuring the reader of the seriousness of the overall endeavour. Whether its painting a scene with lashings of black humour, or dwelling casually on the gruesomeness of the living dead, we are convinced of the writer's commitment to genuine realism both in the characterisation and in the dynamics of the narrative. Whilst the Regency England depicted in the novel is a magical one, there is an internal consistency and wonderful focus on detail which draws us in to an experience which is the ultimate in escapism. The style and orthography of the writing makes you feel like you are entering a different world every time you open the book. The pseudo-eighteenth century style and orthography isn't quite authentic but gets about as close as the setting does to the historical one and creates the same kind of effect - the sense that you have happened upon some artifact of the past, but which doesn't quite match up with the reality we've always been told about. At some points in the book you almost find yourself believing that sorcery was a respected academic discipline in the early nineteenth century - they did wear those ridiculous wigs after all.
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