Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Magical., 18 Jan 2007
A collection of wonderful short stories upon the themes of English magic and the inhabitants of Faerie by Susanna Clarke, author of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel. Once again Clarke's attention to detail, us of annotation and academic conventions bestows an extra layer of realism to these tales, so they read almost as histories, or at least well established folklores with hundreds of years of tradition and storytelling behind them. These are true fairy-tales, in the tradition of the brothers grimm. One or two of the tales may be confusing if the reader is not entirely familiar with the story of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel (although the ingenous use of footnotes fills in the gaps for the uninitiated), however for those who found Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel too long and difficult to get into, this may be the perfect way to get into the work of a truely original writer. And for those who did enjoy it, well, this is just a treat. Highly recommended, Susanna Clarke is definately a writer I will be watching closely from now onwards.
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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Fun With Fairies, 25 Aug 2006
The eight short stories in this collection are set in the same England as Clarke's popular novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (which I have not read), an England in which magic is at least nominally present and faeries are human-like creatures with very considerable powers. All but one of the stories, which range in length from a few pages to 45 pages, have been previously published over the last ten years in various anthologies such as Starlight 1, 2, and 3, and Black Swan, White Raven and Black Heart, Ivory Bones.
Although the leadoff story, which gives the book it's title, concerns Dr. Strange and a trio of witches, the bulk of the stories (and certainly the more memorable ones), revolve around the capricious doings of various powerful fairies. A somewhat less powerful fairy is at the heart of he second story, "On Likerish Hill", which riffs on the Rumplestilsken story. The third story, "Mrs. Mabb", is an excellent old-fashioned tale about a poor young woman whose fiancee has been ensorcelled by a fairy queen. "The Duke of Wellington Misplaces His Horse," is a comic interlude featuring the famous hero of the Peninsular and Napoleonic Wars, and how he survives an accidental visit the the Fairy Kingdom.
Another longer, and somewhat more engaging story is "Mr. Simonelli or the Fairy Widower", in which a Cambridge scholar turned local rector matches wits with the local fairy lord. Another long and fairly decent story is "Tom Brightwind or How the Fairy Bridge...," in which a Jewish doctor and fairy lord making their way cross-country stumble upon a village severely in need of a bridge. What happens is somewhat obvious, but it's a story well told. The seventh story, "Antickes and Frets" is a somewhat perfunctory one about Mary Queen of Scots and some magical embroidery. The final story, which appears here for the first time, is the brief "John Uskglass and the Cumbrian Charcoal Burner". It's another classic story, this time of a lowly woodsman taking on a fairy lord, matching prayers to the saints again fairy magic.
On the whole, the collection should be of great interest to fans of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and of intermittent interest to those unfamiliar with Clarke's work. The prose is generally highly formal and stylized, which matches the tone of the stories but becomes somewhat tiresome over the course of a book. Similarly, the plots of the various stories often cover the same ground (humans matching wits with fairies), so that reading the book straight through becomes a touch tedious. Taken individually, each story has something to recommend it, and I suspect that they would feel much more distinctive in their original appearances, alongside the works of many different kinds of writers. in that vein, perhaps the best way to approach this book is to read a story of month or so, mixing it up with other kinds of reading so that Clarke's voice retains its distinctive nature.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Eight Trips Back to Faerie, 5 Nov 2006
In this first collection of short stories, Susanna Clarke returns to the world she created in her first novel, the excellent "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell", with more stories about the world of Faerie and England. Jonathan Strange visits his wife's brother in the town of Grace Adieu and discovers there three women who secretly practice magic and deal with any menaces that come to their town with strict severity. A re-telling of the folk tale "Tom Tit Tot" is the basis for "On Lickerish Hill" where Clarke employs rural dialect in the telling of a young woman who, in return for a favour from a faerie, must guess his name within one month or else she will become his.
My favourite was probably "Mr Simonelli, or The Faerie Widower" which is about a priest called Mr Simonelli who goes to the town of Allhope to be the new rector there and finds that the town is ruled by a mysterious fellow who lives outside the town in a ramshackle house, whose name is John Hollyshoes. The setting and the air of desolation within an isolated countryside town brought to mind the work of the Bronte sisters, especially Emily, and adds to the atmosphere of blasted heaths and doomed country folk. Who will help them? Mr Simonelli to the rescue! I thought this story was most effective as even though it's set within Clarke's world of faeries and magic and England in the regency period, it stands apart from her novel and could be read by somone unfamiliar with her work and still enjoy it.
"Tom Brightwind, or How the Fairy Bridge was Built at Thoresbury" is another cracking read as is "Mrs Mabb" both of which feel like they had been cut from Clarke's novel and resurrected here but are still pleasures to read nonetheless. The shorter stories, "The Duke of Wellington Misplaces his Horse" and "Antickes and Frets", are both about embroidery and are the less energised of the tales but fit in well between the longer tales as breathers. Both stories are about real people as well, the Duke of Wellington and Mary, Queen of Scots.
There are eight stories in this collection (more! more!) and the first seven have been published before, though I'm glad they were reprinted in this volume as I had no idea that she had had published short stories. The eighth is an unpublished story called "John Uskglass and the Charcoal Burner" which is about a charcoal burner and his pig Blakemore who thwart John Uskglass, The King of the North, and shows Clarke's comedic side in putting down probably the coolest character in her world.
As for the illustrations, they are a wonder, I am going to see about getting some books by Charles Vess, so wonderfully does he draw. And the cover of this book! So eye catching, so classy, so understated yet outstanding! In design and spirit they recall Aubrey Beardley's iconic work. One of the best designed covers I've seen this year.
Clarke writes about magic but she needs none to enchant the reader, using only her skill as a writer and her unique imagination to burn the story into your mind and float into your dreams. A highly recommended read and I'm not the only one who hopes that the sequel to "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" won't take her nearly as long as her first book (which I think was around ten years). Meanwhile, books like this are designed to stop the hunger but I for one am only made hungrier for more. Keep it up and keep them coming, Ms Clarke!
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