book review: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Back-of-book summary: "At the dawn of the nineteenth century, two very different magicians emerge to change England's history. In the year 1806, with the Napoleonic Wars raging on land and sea, most people believe magic to be long dead in England - until the reclusive Mr Norrell reveals his powers, and becomes a celebrity overnight.
Soon, another practicing magician comes forth: the young, handsome, and daring Jonathan Strange. He becomes Norrell's student, and they join forces in the war against France. But Strange is increasingly drawn to the wildest, most perilous forms of magic, straining his partnership with Norrell, and putting at risk everything else he holds dear."
My opinion: I don't think I've ever written a book review before; I don't really know how - but here's my stab at it. Any comments appreciated (both on the content and on the delivery).
As any of you who have heard anything about Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell probably know, the cliche one-line description goes thus: if Jane Austen were to have writ a fantasy novel, this would have been it. I found Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell to be most akin to Austen's Northanger Abbey - her most, shall we say, inconsequential book, which merely concerns itself with trifling healthy concerns of young heroine who, unlike Eliza Bennet or Emma Woodhouse, is nothing special at all. Northanger Abbey boasts a sort of sarcastic, quirky tone which seems, more than anything else, to make fun of Austen's characters, and it is in this that I found Susanna Clarke's style to be quite similar. The statement that an author does not take his/her characters too seriously should only ever be perceived as a compliment, and it is only in this, most respectful, manner that I make the same claim about Ms Clarke. Indeed, she seems to approach every character with a bit of sarcastic humour, and never once forgets the vices she has created in them. Thus we have Mr Strange's eccentricity (reflected first and foremost, perhaps, in his name), Mr Norrell's greed for knowledge, and the petty concerns of the various dramatis personae (e.g., as one important Minister informs Mr Norrell, "Magic is not respectable, sir.") It is this delightful attitude that I enjoyed most about Ms Clarke's writing.
Working in tandem with Ms Clarke's writing style is, of course, her imagination. I greatly enjoyed her wonderfully wrought presentation of a magic-driven English history, full of stories of faeries and magicians. At the outset of the book, I felt disappointed that magic had "largely gone out" of the world, but my disappointment turned to delight as Clarke "brought it back to life", through both inventive stories of the past, and the action of the present. Combined with the setting of the book (Napoleonic Wars), this magic brought a sort of picturesque quality to Clarke's narrative, and I was thrilled as I visited such scenes as the battle at Waterloo (complete with the glorious Lord Wellington) and saw them painted in an entirely new light.
In any book, no matter how perfect or award-winning, one may still perceive vices. These vices, however, are largely in the eye of the beholder, and could even be called complaints of personal preference, and may never be agreed upon. Nevertheless, I still believe it is important to resent such vices as we perceive, so as to achieve a fair, "balanced", review. I therefore urge the reader to decide for himself how seriously to take the rest of my review.
The first, minor, vice that I perceived in Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was that Susanna Clarke seemed rather more in love with the world she has created than with the story she has put into it. Toward the middle of the book, I felt rather turned off by the book's slow development, as Ms Clarke seemed more content to be exploring the various instances of England's magical past, and not at all interested in moving the story forward. In fact, I actually had to put the book aside for several weeks, as it could not even keep my interest. Nevertheless, I was happy that I stuck with it, as soon enough the pace picked up again. Toward the climax of the book, however, I was again disappointed - this time by the abundance of footnotes expounding on various spells and stories of olde. Just as I was trying to feel drawn into the wonderful action of the narrative, I was again and again distracted by the presence of these footnotes - pieces that I felt guilty to have to ignore, although ultimately this is what I did. Understanding that Ms Clarke has indeed much to be proud of in inventing her world, I nevertheless felt that perhaps these footnotes would have been better off assembled into a sort of appendix, for I find it rather strange when a footnote takes up more space on a page than the main narrative itself. This, however, is mostly my own personal preference, and I urge the reader to take it with a grain of salt.
The final thing I must remark on takes us back to the point with which I opened this review: the resemblance of Ms Clarke's writing style to that of Ms Austen. Having first given a positive view on this, I would like to now mention a negative. This negative is a personal preference, and it is this: I enjoy being drawn into the action, feeling all the angst, anger, and happiness that the characters feel, and the excitement and dread that necessarily come along with a good story. In this, I found Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell mostly lacking. Ms Clarke's style puts her reader a small distance away from the action, and the slightly stiff, ironic manner of her narration - one which also never enters a character's head and forces the reader to watch from the outside - is not conducive to such blending of minds, such becoming one with a character as we often experience in the realm of fantasy. It is for this reason, and this reason alone, that I must say I did not love this book and will probably never re-read it. It goes without saying, however, that my wish to blend with the characters in this case is largely futile; it is a fundamentally different style of writing, and happens to simply be one that Susanna Clarke did not choose, and I do not hold it against her. Still, for those readers out there who are like me, and not like her, I felt this was worth saying.
In conclusion, Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a book worth reading. With its Austen-like style and wonderfully weaved world, most readers of fantasy will probably find it a breath of fresh air in a genre that has grown mostly repetitive and too grandiose to bear. Nevertheless, those readers who enjoy their books to be emotional roller-coasters should beware, for Susanna Clarke largely stays away from such notions. I am such a reader, and thus cannot confess to anything more than simply enjoying the book. I did not love it, and will not read it again, but it was definitely worth my time.
Soon, another practicing magician comes forth: the young, handsome, and daring Jonathan Strange. He becomes Norrell's student, and they join forces in the war against France. But Strange is increasingly drawn to the wildest, most perilous forms of magic, straining his partnership with Norrell, and putting at risk everything else he holds dear."
My opinion: I don't think I've ever written a book review before; I don't really know how - but here's my stab at it. Any comments appreciated (both on the content and on the delivery).
As any of you who have heard anything about Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell probably know, the cliche one-line description goes thus: if Jane Austen were to have writ a fantasy novel, this would have been it. I found Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell to be most akin to Austen's Northanger Abbey - her most, shall we say, inconsequential book, which merely concerns itself with trifling healthy concerns of young heroine who, unlike Eliza Bennet or Emma Woodhouse, is nothing special at all. Northanger Abbey boasts a sort of sarcastic, quirky tone which seems, more than anything else, to make fun of Austen's characters, and it is in this that I found Susanna Clarke's style to be quite similar. The statement that an author does not take his/her characters too seriously should only ever be perceived as a compliment, and it is only in this, most respectful, manner that I make the same claim about Ms Clarke. Indeed, she seems to approach every character with a bit of sarcastic humour, and never once forgets the vices she has created in them. Thus we have Mr Strange's eccentricity (reflected first and foremost, perhaps, in his name), Mr Norrell's greed for knowledge, and the petty concerns of the various dramatis personae (e.g., as one important Minister informs Mr Norrell, "Magic is not respectable, sir.") It is this delightful attitude that I enjoyed most about Ms Clarke's writing.
Working in tandem with Ms Clarke's writing style is, of course, her imagination. I greatly enjoyed her wonderfully wrought presentation of a magic-driven English history, full of stories of faeries and magicians. At the outset of the book, I felt disappointed that magic had "largely gone out" of the world, but my disappointment turned to delight as Clarke "brought it back to life", through both inventive stories of the past, and the action of the present. Combined with the setting of the book (Napoleonic Wars), this magic brought a sort of picturesque quality to Clarke's narrative, and I was thrilled as I visited such scenes as the battle at Waterloo (complete with the glorious Lord Wellington) and saw them painted in an entirely new light.
In any book, no matter how perfect or award-winning, one may still perceive vices. These vices, however, are largely in the eye of the beholder, and could even be called complaints of personal preference, and may never be agreed upon. Nevertheless, I still believe it is important to resent such vices as we perceive, so as to achieve a fair, "balanced", review. I therefore urge the reader to decide for himself how seriously to take the rest of my review.
The first, minor, vice that I perceived in Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was that Susanna Clarke seemed rather more in love with the world she has created than with the story she has put into it. Toward the middle of the book, I felt rather turned off by the book's slow development, as Ms Clarke seemed more content to be exploring the various instances of England's magical past, and not at all interested in moving the story forward. In fact, I actually had to put the book aside for several weeks, as it could not even keep my interest. Nevertheless, I was happy that I stuck with it, as soon enough the pace picked up again. Toward the climax of the book, however, I was again disappointed - this time by the abundance of footnotes expounding on various spells and stories of olde. Just as I was trying to feel drawn into the wonderful action of the narrative, I was again and again distracted by the presence of these footnotes - pieces that I felt guilty to have to ignore, although ultimately this is what I did. Understanding that Ms Clarke has indeed much to be proud of in inventing her world, I nevertheless felt that perhaps these footnotes would have been better off assembled into a sort of appendix, for I find it rather strange when a footnote takes up more space on a page than the main narrative itself. This, however, is mostly my own personal preference, and I urge the reader to take it with a grain of salt.
The final thing I must remark on takes us back to the point with which I opened this review: the resemblance of Ms Clarke's writing style to that of Ms Austen. Having first given a positive view on this, I would like to now mention a negative. This negative is a personal preference, and it is this: I enjoy being drawn into the action, feeling all the angst, anger, and happiness that the characters feel, and the excitement and dread that necessarily come along with a good story. In this, I found Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell mostly lacking. Ms Clarke's style puts her reader a small distance away from the action, and the slightly stiff, ironic manner of her narration - one which also never enters a character's head and forces the reader to watch from the outside - is not conducive to such blending of minds, such becoming one with a character as we often experience in the realm of fantasy. It is for this reason, and this reason alone, that I must say I did not love this book and will probably never re-read it. It goes without saying, however, that my wish to blend with the characters in this case is largely futile; it is a fundamentally different style of writing, and happens to simply be one that Susanna Clarke did not choose, and I do not hold it against her. Still, for those readers out there who are like me, and not like her, I felt this was worth saying.
In conclusion, Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a book worth reading. With its Austen-like style and wonderfully weaved world, most readers of fantasy will probably find it a breath of fresh air in a genre that has grown mostly repetitive and too grandiose to bear. Nevertheless, those readers who enjoy their books to be emotional roller-coasters should beware, for Susanna Clarke largely stays away from such notions. I am such a reader, and thus cannot confess to anything more than simply enjoying the book. I did not love it, and will not read it again, but it was definitely worth my time.