Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Ratings510
Average rating4
I'm bored honestly, and I don't expect to pick this up again. Dread reading it. More skimming than reading. And just, sorry.
Equally odd and interesting it felt like one of the truest feeling fake histories I've ever read. It feels a little more like a reference book than a novel at times but that's not a bad thing. It's so convincing that you can almost imagine that this world really could have been our own. It's slow and dense and I loved it. It's so unlike anything I've read in this genre and I'm glad I made the effort.
It's rich and rewarding. Definitely worth the read.
Torn between 4 and 5 stars, so halfway it is. I loved the story, but at the same time I really think it could've been told in a lot less without losing the essence of it. It took me a month and a half to read, which is unheard of! I bet some marvellous human being of the Internet has made a guide on which chapters to skip and still be on top of the events. I can think of at least three off the top of my head, and even more that could've been paragraphs instead of entire chapters.
I loved the atmosphere of the story, the actual history of the time mixed with the imagined magical history of England. The fairies felt very real as a race and I love that Clarke went with the gender neutral term “magician” instead of “wizard”. (Which definitely feels wrong for the setting.) I really enjoyed the descriptions of Strange's war commission, no matter how gritty, and I sort of love how much I despised Drawlight and Lascelles, as that much emotion towards a fictional character is usually good in my book. I only wish the author had managed to bring the same emotion into the less shitty characters, as well. (Namely Strange. Norrell had both good and bad moments, as people tend to do.)
I didn't love the fact that there was a lot of information that had nothing to do with the story or with the history of magical England. Did we need to read two chapters about Jonathan Strange's family and his servant that didn't play much of a part in the story? I think not. Did we need to have a casually racist chapter about a French officer and his black servant, no matter how proud the officer was said to be of said servant? Not really.
A lot of things could've been said without so much attention being brought to it, which would've also made the reading experience less dragging. As it is, it felt half like a history book, half like a fantasy story. Sometimes the narrator was referred to, mostly not, and I feel like maybe there was just SO MUCH of the story that even Clarke herself got a bit confused. She didn't even name The Raven King before the halfway point, after which it was used constantly! It felt really clumsy and I don't understand why that would've been done on purpose.
I'm also not a huge fan of the ending, as it felt a bit rushed and like all the things I'd been waiting to happen just came ALL. AT. ONCE., slapped me on the face and ran away cackling. Bollocks at the magicians just running off into the sunset! Bollocks at the fairy's curse on Strange not dying with it's caster!
All that having been said, I am really happy I've finally read this book and I will most likely read it again at some point in the distant future. (Or sooner, if I find that guide for reading it faster.) Clarke's Piranesi is one of my favourites, and I was happy to find little details that reminded me of it, namely the King's Road with it's labyrinth-like qualities that brought to mind the House. At time Strange, too, reminded me of Piranesi and I loved that.
This has been on my TBR for over 9 years and I've always been put off because I knew how slow it would be...and I was right!
This is incredibly slow, meandering and some chapters are even boring and pointless, however I never wanted to stop with it, I was swept away in the history and magic of the story.
I will say that I really put a lot of my enjoyment down to the new narration by Richard Armitage, it's brilliant and I know I wouldn't have made it all the way through without listening to it on audio.
Oh what a beautiful ending. What a beautiful book.
I was confused, at first, at all the comments talking about it’s slow pacing because I thought it was paced just fine. Then that last 200 pages hit and we were suddenly in a mad sprint.
How enchanting, often funny, overall a great joy.
Susanna Clarke, the woman that you are. After this and Piranesi, I am devoted to consuming all your writing for the rest of my mortal life.
I cannot for the life of me understand why this is so popular. This is a ponderous, pretentious wandering through a setting of no color or vibrancy and with characters that are immediately forgettable. DNF at 10%.
I loved Piranesi, but reading this was a real struggle. I first picked it up around 2008 or so, and stopped reading. This time I finally made it through, but I don't get the hype at all. Other reviews compare it to Austen, but it lacks what makes Austen good. Characters in this book don't really grow or change much, and the dialogue between them isn't very interesting or revealing. The pacing was so slow, then lightning fast in a bad way: “oh the climax has already happened, I missed it. “
Clarke does a great job of conveying that Norrell is a fearful, introverted, annoying, unwise, pain in the ass, the kind of elderly man with no sense about people whatsoever. But that part is repeated so unnecessarily often. Austen would have painted the whole picture in one striking sentence and then moved on.
Strange is a much more interesting character, but we never really see the effects of anything on him emotionally. The ending was terrible.
I liked the Graysteels and Flora, and her relationship with Jonathan Strange. That part was clever.
This is a masterpiece. I would give it six stars if I could. What an absolutely astounding achievement — incredible world building, extraordinarily well drawn characters, beautifully written, the pace never drops… what an accomplishment. I am in awe.
“Jonathan Strange y el Señor Norrell” es una novela fantástica que nos sumerge en el mundo de la magia inglesa del siglo XIX a través de la relación de un maestro y su pupilo, que no podrían ser más distintos del uno al otro. Clarke deleita con una prosa elegante y fluida, que recrea con gran detalle la época y la cultura de Inglaterra durante las guerras napoleónicas.
Tiene muchos pies de nota que enriquecen el lore de la historia (de hecho, hacen que el relato se sienta un libro de historia auténtico!) , pero pueden ser bastante extensos y hace que el libro requiera ‘shots' de paciencia varias veces durante su lectura.
4.5/5
The most gentlemanly take on magic I’ve ever read. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell are engaging and interesting protagonists and the contrast between them makes for a great story. The plot was not entirely clear at points but this book was more about its characters and their world than specific actions or storylines.
I struggled through this book, it is very sliw. It took me a year to commit to finish it. It reads kinda like a biographical history, and while it was enjoyable, I fell asleep multiple times. It is very character focused, so you become well aquanted with everybody's motivations and ideals. It wasn't until part three that the plot really took off. I recommend it, but not after a long day.
I didn't like this book. It was slow and boring and just didn't meet my expectations very well. This book was too long by half or more.
An instant favourite. Susanna Clarke has mastered the English language, crafting her prose so that it straddles Gothic literature and modern-day fantasy, retaining the best features of both, and diluting neither. The foundation of the magic in believable folklore, the eccentricities of the rituals, the fantastic meta-commentary on books... it's as if this book was designed to tick every one of my boxes.
I only have one critique and it's a weak one—some footnotes felt superfluous. However, others felt essential, so I don't have the first idea how one would decide what to include or not.
Also how refreshing to read a long story that begins and concludes within the same boards! No slight on trilogies, but I am predisposed to like a book that stands alone.
I tried reading this book twice. The first time, I made it to 30%, lost interest, and didn't go back to it. The second time, I read up to 20%, lost interest, and here we are. As much as I loved the TV series, I don't gel with the book at all. I love historical fiction, fantasy, fairy tales, etc., but the writing here is what slows me down. There are too many very long passages that say and add nothing to the plot, and it takes way too long for the action to build up.
I'm really sad that I can't bring myself to read this book in it's entirety, but c'est la vie.
Se vi piacciono i romanzi inglesi dell'Ottocento e un tocco di low fantasy / realismo magico, questo libro fa per voi, altrimenti potete risparmiarvi le quasi mille pagine.
How can a book about magic be so boring? I'm so shocked at how unreadable this was to me. I loved the last book I read by this author and I knew this was going to be different so I wasn't expecting the same I honestly wasn't. But was not prepared for this level of disinterest.
Fantasy has not been much on my radar for many a long year, in fact I would say that I have read no pure fantasy much past my mid-twenties (shuuuush! 40 odd years ago). The obvious was Tolkien and C S Lewis in my teens but most other reading of the genre paled in comparison to the point that it was not that memorable. Sci Fi lasted longer with Science Fantasy being a favourite but that too became a lost cause.
So how did I come to read this fantasy, one not like anything I recall reading before?
In early 2018 I found it in an Op Shop for a measly $2 and after reading the cover blurb it seemed interesting. Like a lot of my Op Shop purchases it was put away in a dark corner bound to become the usual distant memory, or at least I thought. As with all readers of novels I had had a vague idea to write a book, mine based on a distant relative who was involved in nonsense about being the illegitimate son of Edward VII and closer relative who was once a member of the British Magic Circle. The idea was of combining the two characters in a book about a magician confidence trickster. After a few ideas jotted down I was typical of the dreamer, no idea where to go. Magic especially. A slightly odd uncle was hardly the basis for deep knowledge on said subject. Read about it, I thought and looked as to what I had.
I recalled I had this book so last Boxing Day I began this long brick of a novel and have to say that I have found it magnificent from page one. In my opinion a truly English fantasy that I have found breathtaking in scope, wondrous in the story telling and just damn well enthralling. The atmospheric shadowy feel, the spells cast, the deviousness of some characters, the seeming naivety of others. And the footnotes! How good are they? There is also, at times, a sense of humour pervading that shines through some dark, wintry, rainy, snowy gloom. Blend all this with an alternative telling of early 18oo's English history, magic returning after a long slumber to be used in the Napoleonic wars amongst other things and I was totally dragged in. For me this was a great fantasy. I will read this author again.
So that has left me thinking that writing a novel is but a dream. Compete with this? Not on your life. I have not that type of magic in me.
DNF at 60%
I went into this book on the back of reading Piranesi. Having had a great experience with Clarke's writing I could think of nothing better than getting into another thousand pages of amazing characters, beautiful description, and hilarious dialogue.
How mistaken I was.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is one of the blandest experiences I have been subjected to whilst reading. The plot progression is painfully slow and the interesting characters that were present in Piranesi are painfully absent. Although the events take place over a number of years, it never feels like you are moving forward.
After meandering through one too many uninteresting and tedious conversations between the books many tiresome characters, drifting off and dreaming that I was reading something else, anything else, I decided to put the book down.
Don't let the unending stream of 5-star reviews fool you. This book might have been worth the read at the same length as Piranesi, but being forced to endure unending pages of paint-drying boredom was something that I refused to continue.
Do not recommend.
