
'Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell' by Susanna Clarke is a mesmerizing blend of historical fiction and fantasy, set in an alternate version of nineteenth century England. The story follows two magicians, Mr. Norrell and Jonathan Strange, as they delve into the restoration of magic in England and eventually aid in the country's victory in the Napoleonic Wars. The book intricately weaves together intricate world-building, fascinating characters, and a plot that unfolds slowly but steadily, keeping readers engaged through its detailed descriptions and rich storytelling style.
The writing style of 'Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell' is described as dense, detailed, and somewhat long-winded, reminiscent of nineteenth-century literature. The author, Susanna Clarke, creates a world that is both captivating and immersive, with elements of humor, pointed digs, and a cynical outlook on the usefulness of magic. The book is known for its historical accuracy, extensive footnotes that add depth to the narrative, and its ability to transport readers to a world where magic and reality intertwine seamlessly.
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From The Publisher:
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.
Ratings (219)
Incredible (60) | |
Loved It (65) | |
Liked It (28) | |
It Was OK (38) | |
Did Not Like (25) | |
Hated It (3) |
Reader Stats (541):
Read It (215) | |
Currently Reading (4) | |
Want To Read (234) | |
Did Not Finish (30) | |
Not Interested (58) |
9 comment(s)
It was well written and an unique storyline however I don't think I see the masterpiece worthynes of it. It's not as groundbreaking amazingness as I thought it would have been and maybe I simply hyped it up to much in my head. But I think for a such big book it just wasn't enough pay off. I really really wanted to love it tough. Maybe I'll give it a reread someday
It started out very slow and it took me a while to read it, but towards the end, I wanted more. Gah.
It's a very interesting take on traditional magic, without the fireballs and grandiose displays.
Absolutely marvelous! Very involving and satisfying. The best thing I've read in quite some time.
3.5
Immersive and novel. I enjoy Dickens and Austen and this book felt like a marriage of the two, with a bit of fantasy thrown in.
The woman within the mirror drew nearer. For a moment she appeared directly behind it and they could see the elaborate embroidery and beading of her gown; then she mounted up upon the frame as on a step. The surface of the mirror became softer, like a dense cloud or mist.
On paper, there’s a lot about
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell that usually doesn’t work for me. It’s a historical alternate history. There is no single main character (though Strange and Norrell are the clear protagonists), but instead a rather large ensemble cast. The perspective is constantly changing, flitting from character to character, some of whom appear for a few chapters and then are never heard from again. The characters are at the forefront, yes, but the narrative never dips that deeply inside their minds; it’s not an especially moving or emotional read. Very few female characters pop up, and when they do, their time on the page is brief.
And yet I
loved this book.
Susanna Clarke is a master of atmosphere, which (along with the overall tone and writing style) is what makes
Jonathan Strange so special. Ornate mirrors that act as portals to other worlds; shadows that behave strangely in candlelit rooms; hidden libraries of rare and ancient magical books; porcelain boxes the color of heartache; dark and unknown forests; bells that toll a mournful tune; grand manors fallen into ruin; hand-drawn tarot cards; magic that makes statues speak and builds ships of rain and turns holly branches to glass. It’s enchanting and
magical in the truest sense, more concerned with reveling in the wonder of it all than explaining how it works.
The prose is equally masterful. Written in the style of nineteenth-century English literature, it’s a very
quiet book and incredibly nuanced (epic fantasy, this is not); Clarke shows restraint in everything but overall length. She manages to conjure up the most atmospheric settings and imagery with a few carefully chosen words. The footnotes were original and charming, often feeling like miniature short stories in their own right and, while not always directly relevant, added to the overall atmosphere. And finally: this book is
witty. Like everything else, the humor is subtle, understated, and dry—it feels quite clever, which isn’t something you often come across—making it that much more delightful when it pops up.
When it comes to the characters, there’s such a large cast that I don’t really know where to start. Moreover, while I was certainly interested and invested, I never really fell in love with any of them (and I don’t think I was supposed to). However, each character felt incredibly
real, full of flaws and complex motivations, and it was fascinating to watch them develop and change. I was also charmed by the number of historic figures (including politicians, novelists, and poets) who are referenced or appear as characters in their own right, which was unexpected but gave it a nice touch.
The plot itself is so sprawling and intricate that it’s difficult to talk about. The section of Strange and Wellington was probably the part I like least; the section in which Strange
purposefully descends into madness
may have been the part I liked most. All told, there were no sensational “twists,” but the novel took several surprising turns.
I have two very small criticisms: First, it’s very, very,
very long, and long books just aren’t my favorite. It took me over five weeks to get through. (That said, I’ll immediately go ahead and contradict myself: I don’t think it should have been shorter. I have no idea what could possibly have been cut out as it was all wonderful and there really wasn’t any “fat.” However, the length is a big reason why
Piranesi remains my favorite from Clarke, and why
Jonathan Strange is probably not a novel I’ll be rereading, despite how enchanting it is.) Second, the ending was a bit underwhelming. I wasn’t expecting—nor would I have wanted—a big, loud, epic fantasy-style climax, but I would have appreciated something that felt a bit grander and more final. As it stands, the final chapters share the same understated, quiet tone as the rest of the novel, leaving one feeling like there was no resolution at all. However, these are such relatively minor complaints that they’re almost not worth mentioning.
I’ll end by noting that
Piranesi and
Jonathan Strange are wildly different, but there are some common threads (apart from Clarke’s general brilliance in terms of the prose itself) that I can’t help but notice. In both novels, the magic is mystical, unexplained, and full of wonder. She seems very interested in what I suppose might be categorized as “liminal” spaces: hallways, labyrinths, doorways, staircases. The atmosphere is, in a way, gothic, with statutes and crumbling old ruins throughout. And both are deeply original and imaginative with an almost dreamlike quality.
Between
Piranesi and
Jonathan Strange, suffice it to say that Susanna Clarke has me completely ensnared.
Some favorite passages:
Stone leaves and herbs quivered and shook as if tossed in the breeze and some of them so far emulated their vegetable counterparts as to grow. Later, when the spell had broken, strands of stone ivy and stone rose briars would be discovered wound around chairs and lecterns and prayer-books where no stone ivy or briars had been before.
he was caught up in the current of people and carried away to quite another part of the room. Round and round he went like a dry leaf caught up in a drain; in one of these turns around the room he discovered a quiet corner near a window.
And being a man – and a clever one – and forty-two years old, he naturally had a great deal of information and a great many opinions upon almost every subject you care to mention, which he was eager to communicate to a lovely woman of nineteen – all of which, he thought, she could not fail but to find quite enthralling.
The sky was the colour of lead and the rain continued to fall.
As the rain fell from the heavens the drops were made to flow together to form solid masses – pillars and beams and sheets, which someone had shaped into the likeness of a hundred ships.
The dining-table was laid with a heavy white damask cloth and shone with all the separate glitters that silver, glass and candlelight can provide. Two great Venetian mirrors hung upon the wall and on Stephen’s instructions these had been made to face each other, so that the reflections doubled and tripled and twice-tripled the silver and the glasses and the candles, and when the guests finally sat down to dinner they appeared to be gently dissolving in a dazzling, golden light like a company of the blessed in glory.
Yet Robert still insisted that he could hear an invisible wood growing up around the house. Whenever he paused in his work, he heard ghostly branches scraping at the walls and tapping upon the windows, and tree-roots slyly extending themselves beneath the foundations and prising apart the bricks.
She wore a gown the colour of storms, shadows and rain and a necklace of broken promises and regrets.
But just as in a dream where the most extraordinary events arrive complete with their own explanation and become reasonable in an instant, Stephen found nothing to be surprized at.
It seemed that when Childermass had made the bargain with the dead sailor he had been too poor even to afford paper and so the cards were drawn upon the backs of ale-house bills, laundry lists, letters, old accounts and playbills. At a later date he had pasted the papers on to coloured cardboard, but in several instances the printing or writing on the other side shewed through, giving them an odd look.
“They are very dirty,” said Arabella. “Oh! We magicians do not regard a little dirt. Besides I dare say they are very old. Ancient, mysterious spells such as these are often …” “The date is written at the top of them. 2nd February 1808. That is two weeks ago.”
But the Shadow House had been a ruined house for well over a century and was built as much of elder-trees and dog roses as of silvery limestone and had in its composition as much of summer-scented breezes as of iron and timber.
But then the sensation of being lost in a labyrinth must be so delightful! Oh! I believe I should give almost any thing to go there!” The young woman regarded her with an odd, melancholy smile. “If you had spent months, as I have done, wearily parading through endless dark passageways, you would think very differently. The pleasures of losing oneself in a maze pall very quickly.
and when they came to me and said that the cold, grey waters had closed over the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral and that London was become a domain of fishes and sea-monsters, my feelings are not to be described! I believe I wept for three weeks together! Now the buildings are all covered in barnacles and the markets sell nothing but oysters and sea-urchins!
There is indeed a path which joins all the mirrors of the world. […] The writers I have seen all describe it in different ways. Ormskirk says it is a road across a wide, dark moor, whereas Hickman calls it a vast house with many dark passages and great staircases. Hickman says that within this house there are stone bridges spanning deep chasms and canals of black water flowing between stone walls – to what destination or for what purpose no one knows.”
I wish I could give you an idea of its grandeur! Of its size and complexity! Of the great stone halls that lead off in every direction! I tried at first to judge their length and number, but soon gave up. There seemed no end to them. There were canals of still water in stone embankments. The water appeared black in the gloomy light. I saw staircases that rose up so high I could not see the top of them, and others that descended into utter blackness. Then suddenly I passed under an arch and found myself upon a stone bridge that crossed a dark, empty landscape. The bridge was so vast that I could not see the end of it.
Statues and masonry have collapsed. Shafts of light break in from God-knows-where. Some halls are blocked, while others are flooded.
That is because I have ordered an exact copy of a meal I ate in this very house four or five hundred years ago! Here is a haunch of roasted wyvern and a pie of honeyed hummingbirds. Here is roasted salamander with a relish of pomegranates; here a delicate fricassee of the combs of cockatrices spiced with saffron and powdered rainbows and ornamented with gold stars! Now sit you down and eat!
People of both sexes, whose looks are very indifferent at the beginning, may appear almost handsome on further acquaintance.
He no longer trusted that the books, the mirrors, the porcelain figure were really there. It was as if everything he could see was simply a skin that he could tear with one fingernail and find the cold, desolate landscape behind it.
The sunlight was as cold and clear as the note struck by a knife on a fine wine-glass. In such a light the walls of the Church of Santa Maria Formosa were as white as shells or bones – and the shadows on the paving stones were as blue as the sea.
For, though the room was silent, the silence of half a hundred cats is a peculiar thing, like fifty individual silences all piled one on top of another.
It was raining outside and, what was more surprizing, inside too; from somewhere in the room came the disagreeable sound of large quantities of water dripping liberally upon floor and furniture.
Strange walked away and became one of the many black figures on the piazza, all with black faces and no expressions, hurrying across the face of moon-coloured Venice. The moon itself was set among great architectural clouds so that there appeared to be another moon-lit city in the sky, whose grandeur rivalled Venice and whose great palaces and streets were crumbling and falling into ruins, as if some spirit in a whimsical mood had set it there to mock the other’s slow decline.
Strange looked up and saw a glint in the man’s eye like a tiny candle-flame. He found he could no longer recall whether people had candles in their heads or not. He knew that there was a world of difference between these two notions: one was sane and the other was not, but he could not for the life of him remember which was which. This was a little unsettling.
Doors slammed in his mind and he went wandering off into rooms and hallways inside himself that he had not visited in years. For the first ten minutes or so he became the man he had been at twenty or twenty-two; after that he was someone else entirely – someone he had always had the power to be, but for various reasons had never actually become.
There was one tiny shop that appeared to sell nothing but Turkish Delight of an infinite number of varieties and colours.
The box was small and oblong and apparently made of silver and porcelain. It was a beautiful shade of blue, but then again not exactly blue, it was more like lilac. But then again, not exactly lilac either, since it had a tinge of grey in it. To be more precise, it was the colour of heartache.
It was as if that fate which had always seemed to threaten the city of Venice had overtaken her in an instant; but instead of being drowned in water, she was drowned in trees. Dark, ghostly trees crowded the alleys and squares, and filled the canals. Walls were no obstacle to them. Their branches pierced stone and glass. Their roots plunged deep beneath paving stones. Statues and pillars were sheathed in ivy. It was suddenly – to Strange’s senses at any rate – a great deal quieter and darker. Trailing beards of mistletoe hid lamps and candles and the dense canopy of branches blocked out the moon.
She said, “I know you do not put a great deal of faith in what men can do, but …” “I put no faith in them at all,” interrupted the unknown woman. “I know what it is to waste years and years upon vain hopes of help from this person or that. No hope at all is better than ceaseless disappointment!”
Time and I have quarrelled. All hours are midnight now.
Madness is the key. I believe I am the first English magician to understand that.
The buildings were dark and utterly silent. The only live, bright things were the stars.
But it sometimes happens that when one acts quickly and with great resolve, all the indecisiveness and doubt comes afterwards, when it is too late.
“There is no engagement. It is true that I was attached to him once. But that is all over and done with. You must not suspect me of it! It was for friendship’s sake that I asked him to promise me. And for his wife’s sake. He thinks he is doing it for her, but I know that she would not want him to do magic so destructive of his health and reason – whatever the object, however desperate the circumstances! She is no longer able to guide his actions – and so it fell to me to speak on her behalf.”
To a magician there is very little difference between a mirror and a door.
Daedalus’s Rose: a fairly complicated procedure devised by Martin Pale for preserving emotions, vices and virtues in amber or honey or beeswax. When the preserving medium is warmed, the imprisoned qualities are released. The Rose has – or rather had – a huge number of applications. It could be used to dispense courage to oneself or inflict cowardice on one’s enemy; it could provoke love, lust, nobility of purpose, anger, jealousy, ambition, self-sacrifice, etc., etc.
All the shadows in the room did something odd, something not easy to describe or explain. It was as if they all turned and faced another way.
Behind the stone-and-oak passages of Starecross Hall, a vision of another house leapt up. Childermass saw high corridors that stretched away into unthinkable distances. It was as if two transparencies had been put into a magic lantern at the same time, so that one picture overlaid the other. The impression of walking through both houses at once rapidly brought on a sensation akin to sea-sickness. Confusion mounted in his mind and, had he been alone, he would soon have been at a loss to know which way to go. He could not tell whether he was walking or falling, whether he climbed one step, or mounted a staircase of impossible length. Sometimes he seemed to be skimming across an acre of stone flags, while at the same time he was scarcely moving at all. His head spun and he felt sick.
He saw not one woman, but two – or perhaps it would be more accurate to say he saw the same woman doubled. Both sat in the same posture, looking up at him. They occupied the same space, so that he had the same giddy feeling in looking at her as he had had walking through the corridors. One version of Lady Pole sat in the house in Yorkshire; she wore an ivory-coloured morning dress and regarded him with calm indifference. The other version was fainter – more ghostly. She sat in the gloomy, labyrinthine house, dressed in a blood-red evening gown. There were jewels or stars in her dark hair and she regarded him with fury and hatred.
The first thing that struck him was the immense quantity of candles. The room was full of light. Strange had not troubled to find candlesticks; he had simply stuck the candles to tables or to bookshelves. He had even stuck them to piles of books. The library was in imminent danger of catching fire. There were books everywhere – scattered over tables, tumbled on the floor. Many had been laid face-down on the floor, so that Strange should not lose his place.
Mr Norrell, I have changed England to save my wife. I have changed the world.
They looked at each other for a long moment, and in that moment all was as it used to be – it was as if they had never parted; but she did not offer to go into the Darkness with him and he did not ask her. “One day,” he said, “I shall find the right spell and banish the Darkness. And on that day I will come to you.” “Yes. On that day. I will wait until then.”
This book has it all: history, drama, magic, romance, conflict, action and touches of humor. There are interesting characters to root for or to hate. I really loved reading this and did not want it to end.
Today, this is my "read it before" book. I've been thinking about trying to do one old review coupled with a review for a book I've just finished.
Let me start by saying that the fiction in the book was still good. The story was there, and I thought that it certainly held water.
My issue was with the structure and writing. Maybe the way that the fiction was delivered.
It wasn't the footnotes. I'm a fan of footnotes for the most part, having cut my teeth on Terry Pratchett books. Those books are usually more "Tee hee! I must see what quip follows!" rather than enriching the experience as was done here.
For me, the latter half of the book became a hard, dogged march through the pages. Everything wandered around, and it just felt like nothing got done. Ever.
Okay, not true. There were rare moments when things got done that made me excited that I had sat through enough of it that it was going to pick up, and then it didn't.
I felt like I was told a lot of things rather than shown them, but even then, a great deal of it still felt like the scene in Austin Powers where he's going to run down the guy with the steamroller.
Bah. Just not my cuppa. However! Maybe it's yours? If you're into the kind of 1800s stroll through an oil painting book, but you want some crazy magic/raven king action thrown into your oil paintings...
(Note to self. Take up buying 1800s oil paintings in thrift shops and adding the raven king and thistledown hair men to them...)
One of the longest books I’ve read, but Clarke’s writing made the time fly. I was able to really melt into the story.
About the Author:
Susanna Clarke was born in Nottingham, England, in 1959, the eldest daughter of a Methodist minister. She was educated at St Hilda's College, Oxford, and has worked in various areas of nonfiction publishing. She has published a number of short stories and novellas in American anthologies, as well as her collection of short stories entitled The Ladies of Grace Adieu, and Other Stories.
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