Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

I stopped reading this about 1/2 way through quite some time ago as nothing was happening. Pages and pages of descriptions of people deciding what dinner party to go to that day or what tie to wear.
Then when the TV show was coming up I decided to read a bit more and finally, things started happening.
But I didn't care for the magic system. It seems to me that big magic, like moving a city from Europe to North America should require more effort than a spell to look in on some one remotely.
All in all, I didn't care much for it, it would have helped if it had been 1/2 has long.
It reminded me why I hated reading Dickens or Melville in high school.