day 04 → your favourite book
Jonathan Strange
and
Mr Norrell
"Can a magician kill a man by magic?" Lord Wellington asked Strange. Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. "I suppose a magician might," he admitted, "but a gentleman never would."
Historical fantasy fiction, set in some alternate universe where magic really existed, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is not a novel I recommend to everyone. My paperback edition is something like, 1,000 pages long? And this novel? It has extensive footnotes. If you enjoy the sort of literature that has footnotes, and is incredibly long (some would say boring, but they are the sort of people who find Sherlock Holmes novels yawn worthy and Tolkien too descriptive), then this is your sort of novel. Think Dickens or Austen, and a very adult Harry Potter, with a touch of Tolkien. (AKA, it is written like a 19th century novel, so yes, if you are bored by 19th century novels, you probably shouldn't read this.) The magic in this novel is gorgeous, and richly imaginative; and the characters are fully fleshed out and fascinating. The novel creates a compete world, and if magic had been real at this point in time, I can completely believe that this is how it would have played out. Basically, I may be alone in fangirling, but fangirl I will. ♥♥♥
It's 1808 and that Corsican upstart Napoleon is battering the English army and navy. Enter Mr. Norrell, a fusty but ambitious scholar from the Yorkshire countryside and the first practical magician in hundreds of years. What better way to demonstrate his revival of British magic than to change the course of the Napoleonic wars? Susanna Clarke's ingenious first novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, has the cleverness and lightness of touch of the Harry Potter series, but is less a fairy tale of good versus evil than a fantastic comedy of manners, complete with elaborate false footnotes, occasional period spellings, and a dense, lively mythology teeming beneath the narrative. Mr. Norrell moves to London to establish his influence in government circles, devising such powerful illusions as an 11-day blockade of French ports by English ships fabricated from rainwater. But however skillful his magic, his vanity provides an Achilles heel, and the differing ambitions of his more glamorous apprentice, Jonathan Strange, threaten to topple all that Mr. Norrell has achieved. A sparkling debut from Susanna Clarke--and it's not all fairy dust. --Regina Marler
and
Mr Norrell
"Can a magician kill a man by magic?" Lord Wellington asked Strange. Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. "I suppose a magician might," he admitted, "but a gentleman never would."
Historical fantasy fiction, set in some alternate universe where magic really existed, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is not a novel I recommend to everyone. My paperback edition is something like, 1,000 pages long? And this novel? It has extensive footnotes. If you enjoy the sort of literature that has footnotes, and is incredibly long (some would say boring, but they are the sort of people who find Sherlock Holmes novels yawn worthy and Tolkien too descriptive), then this is your sort of novel. Think Dickens or Austen, and a very adult Harry Potter, with a touch of Tolkien. (AKA, it is written like a 19th century novel, so yes, if you are bored by 19th century novels, you probably shouldn't read this.) The magic in this novel is gorgeous, and richly imaginative; and the characters are fully fleshed out and fascinating. The novel creates a compete world, and if magic had been real at this point in time, I can completely believe that this is how it would have played out. Basically, I may be alone in fangirling, but fangirl I will. ♥♥♥
It's 1808 and that Corsican upstart Napoleon is battering the English army and navy. Enter Mr. Norrell, a fusty but ambitious scholar from the Yorkshire countryside and the first practical magician in hundreds of years. What better way to demonstrate his revival of British magic than to change the course of the Napoleonic wars? Susanna Clarke's ingenious first novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, has the cleverness and lightness of touch of the Harry Potter series, but is less a fairy tale of good versus evil than a fantastic comedy of manners, complete with elaborate false footnotes, occasional period spellings, and a dense, lively mythology teeming beneath the narrative. Mr. Norrell moves to London to establish his influence in government circles, devising such powerful illusions as an 11-day blockade of French ports by English ships fabricated from rainwater. But however skillful his magic, his vanity provides an Achilles heel, and the differing ambitions of his more glamorous apprentice, Jonathan Strange, threaten to topple all that Mr. Norrell has achieved. A sparkling debut from Susanna Clarke--and it's not all fairy dust. --Regina Marler