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Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Susanna Clarke. Bloomsbury: 2004 (hardcover). ISBN: 1582344167. 800 pages.
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At a whopping 782 pages, this novel might seem scary to the slow reader. But fear not, because those pages go whipping by. The year is 1806 and things look grim, both for the English people as a whole and for the ragged bunch of Englishmen who persist in calling themselves magicians.
The future of Britannia is threatened by that pesky petite Frenchman who will lend his name to short, insecure men for generations to come, and the nation has no hope of a modern-day Merlin who might lend a supernatural hand. Hundreds of years have passed, we learn, since any English magician has actually practiced magic-those erudite few that remain confine themselves to writing and presenting densely theoretical papers on Britain's murky magical history. But just at this most depressing of hours, the York Society of Magicians stumbles upon a blast from the past in the form of one Mr. Norrell, a genuine practicing magician who can deliver miracles on cue. Giddy with his new popularity, the formerly reclusive and fatuously boring Mr. Norrell decides his government needs him in order to defeat Napoleon. Unfortunately, just as he's settling down to enjoy himself as England's greatest (and by his order, its only) authorized magician, Norrell is challenged by the emergence of an even greater magical talent. The tall, dark, and handsome young Jonathan Strange becomes Norrell's grudging pupil, but chafes under his master's jealous, fussy, and obstinate insistence that English Magic should Keep it Simple. As Strange grows more and more interested in the long-buried secrets of English magic and its elusive founder (a folklore hero known as the Raven King), he becomes more and more oblivious to a certain unexplainable gentleman with thistledown hair who's taken quite a shine to Strange's pretty wife. You, however, aren't likely to overlook this particular gentleman; in fact, you are likely going to become increasingly and acutely aware of every tiny hair creeping up the back of your neck each time he appears.
You've probably guessed by now that fans of fantasy and historical fiction are going to lose their minds over the joy of this book. But we predict that the ridiculously brilliant Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell will make a clean sweep in the seduction of book lovers of all kinds-even those who tend to get impatient with Rings and Towers and Time Travel. (GBL's Ellen Moore addresses any fellow cynics: "Take it from me, because in general I hate fantasy and sci-fi and all that weird Dungeons and Dragons cr*p. But this book is awesome. In all seriousness, your great-great-grandchildren are going to be reading it. And Harry Potter is going to get really jealous.") On more respectable authority, we'll turn you over to a sound byte from Time magazine: "Ravishing. . .combines the dark mythology of fantasy with the delicious social commentary of Jane Austen into a masterpiece of the genre that rivals Tolkein." Fantasy guru Neil Gaiman add his own unequivocal stamp of approval: "unquestionably the finest English novel of the fantastic written in the last seventy years." Tempted yet?
CLICK HERE to read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell's own reactions to the publication of the book and their unforgiving views on the author, Susanna Clarke.
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