A review by regnarenol
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
5.0
A shade under 5 for me.
The rich Austenesque language with its sarcastic authorial voice might not be for everyone, but I only realised how much I missed this in modern writing when I started with this book. Adverbs and adjectives abound, and the dry wit, and the unapologetic verbosity had me smiling at how a turn of phrase could delight me so. Paradoxically - and this makes me sad - the fact that such language can only be found in a novel set in the Victorian era might mean that it is well and truly dead in modern writing.
Back to the writing though: there are passages which are so well done, that I had to pause, despite being completely immersed, just to savour them better. A certain experimental phase that Jonathan Strange goes through towards the end of the book, for instance.
As for the characters, even the most annoying ones, and Norrell is right up at the top of that list, are sympathetic. You might scorn their choices, but their motivations are human. The Gentleman with the thistledown hair isn't human at all, but his inhumanity is exquisitely detailed - you can't relate, you can never relate, but you just might understand. Susanna Clarke brings fantasy England to life with 'the supporting cast' though - the women, the men of the working classes, and the men of colour, who would in their own era perhaps not even make the pages of a novel. Not only are they real and rounded, but often much more likeable than the stuffy gentlemen and ladies, and if you get attached to one (or more as I did), do not worry. Their stories more often reach a satisfactory resolution than not.
I wonder though, how it would have been to read this book without reading through all the footnotes, as I might have done if I had actually read it, and not listened to the audiobook. And that is why I don't give this five stars. The book meanders, and might even seem plot-less at times, and if you're less enamoured of the language than I am, you might give it up. I very quickly accepted that this book wasn't going to be a page turner, and was never meant to be, and that all the enjoyment to be had was in the moment - in the words on the current page, in the current footnote, and I found the ride exhilarating.
The rich Austenesque language with its sarcastic authorial voice might not be for everyone, but I only realised how much I missed this in modern writing when I started with this book. Adverbs and adjectives abound, and the dry wit, and the unapologetic verbosity had me smiling at how a turn of phrase could delight me so. Paradoxically - and this makes me sad - the fact that such language can only be found in a novel set in the Victorian era might mean that it is well and truly dead in modern writing.
Back to the writing though: there are passages which are so well done, that I had to pause, despite being completely immersed, just to savour them better. A certain experimental phase that Jonathan Strange goes through towards the end of the book, for instance.
As for the characters, even the most annoying ones, and Norrell is right up at the top of that list, are sympathetic. You might scorn their choices, but their motivations are human. The Gentleman with the thistledown hair isn't human at all, but his inhumanity is exquisitely detailed - you can't relate, you can never relate, but you just might understand. Susanna Clarke brings fantasy England to life with 'the supporting cast' though - the women, the men of the working classes, and the men of colour, who would in their own era perhaps not even make the pages of a novel. Not only are they real and rounded, but often much more likeable than the stuffy gentlemen and ladies, and if you get attached to one (or more as I did), do not worry. Their stories more often reach a satisfactory resolution than not.
I wonder though, how it would have been to read this book without reading through all the footnotes, as I might have done if I had actually read it, and not listened to the audiobook. And that is why I don't give this five stars. The book meanders, and might even seem plot-less at times, and if you're less enamoured of the language than I am, you might give it up. I very quickly accepted that this book wasn't going to be a page turner, and was never meant to be, and that all the enjoyment to be had was in the moment - in the words on the current page, in the current footnote, and I found the ride exhilarating.