The Book: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clark
The Story: Summing up an 800 page book in a few paragraphs is maybe the hardest thing ever. Here is my attempt:
We’re looking at England in the early 1800’s. There are a handful of people that are studying old magic, but only one man, Mr Norrell, who is an actual practicing magician. He’s pretty bookish and keeps to himself until a bunch of circumstances draw him out and he becomes this famous magician in England.
After a few years, Jonathan Strange makes his appearance. He is much less book-learned but kind of has a natural affinity to magic. Although Mr Norrell is pretty hermity, he really likes Jonathan Strange and takes him on as a student. He gives him access to a large part of his library and teaches him about the history of magic as well as how it is applicable today.
It really doesn’t take long for their paths to kind of separate. While Mr Norrell is happy to just sit in his library and read loads of books about magic, Strange wants to use it to make a difference. He is hired by the military to do magic in the Napoleonic wars and pretty much change the course of the wars. This is just the start of the disagreements between the two magicians.
Eventually, they become enemies. Then all hell breaks loose and they have to decide if they are going to overcome their differences and win this thing or if they are going to battle each other.
So, there’s so much more than that, but that’s a brief outline that hopefully covers the major points!
What I Thought: I love giant, fat books but my attention span has been nil lately and I’ve been reading a lot of shorter ones on purpose. I’m so, so glad that I decided to take this one on. I totally fell in love. 800 pages seemed to short. I wanted more. Is that crazy?
I think what really did it for me was just the writing. It was incredible how Susanna Clark managed to capture the heart of a lot of classic authors- the blurbs compare her to Dickens and Austen- without sounding hokey. She somehow managed to sound classic and modern at the same time. Three cheers. I kept thinking that this would be a great book to read out loud because the language and the overall flow were just kind of perfect. I was stunned.
Another stunning fact: this was her first novel. My word.
I loved the characters. I thought that Susanna Clark painted a perfectly beautiful picture of England in the 18oo’s and the time and setting kind of became a character in and of itself. When Strange took an extended trip to Venice, she did the same thing there. I was also impressed with the fact that she managed to write a book that included fairies AND a pretty solid look at the Napoleonic wars. It made it feel like these magical things that were happening were entirely possible.
Am I gushing?
There was, for me, one negative: those effing footnotes. I thought the flow of the actual story was so good that I’d get kind of annoyed that there were all these little footnotes. I did end up reading all of them and some of them contained good info & stories, but I just felt like they were unnecessary as a whole. I get what she was going for here- the whole book is supposed to read like a history book written about the time- but for me it was just distracting.
Other than that, one of the best books I’ve read this year by far.
Conclusion: With all this gushing, I’m sure that you expect me to tell everyone to read this. And I do think that most people would like it, but only read it if you are in the mood for a book that doesn’t clip along like Harry Potter. I’ve heard so many comparisons of these books. I don’t get it all. This book is a little bit slow, but in a savory way, not in a bad way. If you’re in the mood for something light, skip this for now and come back to it when you want something to savor.