Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

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.