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I finished Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell yesterday. I am here going to attempt to write a coherent review/summary of my thoughts about it. I hope. Suffice it to say that it was good: read it. I may be a little spoilery, though I will do my best.
I like writing reviews. I only do them rarely, but still...they are highly fun and entertaining and all that whatever.
Maybe I'll go and write something actually original now. On the off chance that I actually ever finish FullMoon would anyone want to read the whole thing and give me an honest opinion of its quality? I like it, but... *chews nails* Just a question.
I picked up this book months ago on a recommendation from a fantasy community, meaning to read it. I began it and was quickly distracted, and just kept putting it off, perhaps (odd as it is) intimidated by the length, a considerable 1,006 pages in mass market paperback. But recently, I picked it up again after finishing Lucifer's Hammer (hello, contrast) and started reading it again, determined to finish.
Reading the inside review quotes, I see that it has been compared to Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Neil Gaiman, Jane Austen, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens, Alastair Gray, Patrick O'Brian and hundreds more just in a few pages. Quite frankly, I find these comparisons insulting. Clarke's book is thoroughly and essentially her own, and truly isn't comparable to anything else I've read recently. In complete honesty, it blew me away.
The book began, admittedly, a bit slowly, which is always a difficult thing for me to get past. But the dry story of Mr. Norrell and his dreary and uneventful life only served to underline the contrast between him and his pupil to be, Jonathan Strange - a reckless, wry, young scholar as unlike Norrell as anything, and yet, as his wife observes, intrinsically the same. The plot was woven like a tapestry, overlapping, intertwining widely varied storylines and, in the last couple hundred pages, pulling them all together into a neat little rug, but one not quite finished, with a little hole in the middle left for the reader to fill, just the way I like my endings. Not everything was perfectly tied up.
And the characters! Lascelles was thoroughly loathable, Drawlight was amusingly despicable - I moved quickly from dislike to pity of him. The gentleman with the thistledown hair was fascinating and, as a writer, I can imagine him being extremely fun to write. Stephen Black was well written so that, within a few pages, I felt that I had his character pinned down within an inch.
But hands down, the most fascinating character was Jonathan Strange. I watched his descent from a person of reason to taking wider and wider risks in the face of his love for magic, and after his wife's "death" slipping even further into his studies away from the real world and eventually, fully into madness. My pity for him was mixed with a sort of anger that made me want to shake him, but also fascination with what he was doing. Jonathan Strange, in short, drew me completely into the depths of Susanna Clarke's altered England, and despite the need to do finals, had me sucked into a vortex where, for a time, the world in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell seemed very nearly more real than my own. A book has never done that to me before, and I don't expect, will do it again.
Not to mention that I enjoyed among the rather macabrely dark bits, the dry humor that Susanna Clarke interjected seemingly effortlessly, making me half smile even while wrinkling my nose or sniffling a bit over Jonathan's predicament. (No laughing at me and my sentimalism.)
In short, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell gave me the most fun and the most involvement in a book that I've had since Perdido Street Station. It was a delightful and original ride. I would recommend it heartily, even to people who aren't fans of fantasy - and that's not something you hear from me very often.
I just might have to go back and read it again.
Reading the inside review quotes, I see that it has been compared to Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Neil Gaiman, Jane Austen, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens, Alastair Gray, Patrick O'Brian and hundreds more just in a few pages. Quite frankly, I find these comparisons insulting. Clarke's book is thoroughly and essentially her own, and truly isn't comparable to anything else I've read recently. In complete honesty, it blew me away.
The book began, admittedly, a bit slowly, which is always a difficult thing for me to get past. But the dry story of Mr. Norrell and his dreary and uneventful life only served to underline the contrast between him and his pupil to be, Jonathan Strange - a reckless, wry, young scholar as unlike Norrell as anything, and yet, as his wife observes, intrinsically the same. The plot was woven like a tapestry, overlapping, intertwining widely varied storylines and, in the last couple hundred pages, pulling them all together into a neat little rug, but one not quite finished, with a little hole in the middle left for the reader to fill, just the way I like my endings. Not everything was perfectly tied up.
And the characters! Lascelles was thoroughly loathable, Drawlight was amusingly despicable - I moved quickly from dislike to pity of him. The gentleman with the thistledown hair was fascinating and, as a writer, I can imagine him being extremely fun to write. Stephen Black was well written so that, within a few pages, I felt that I had his character pinned down within an inch.
But hands down, the most fascinating character was Jonathan Strange. I watched his descent from a person of reason to taking wider and wider risks in the face of his love for magic, and after his wife's "death" slipping even further into his studies away from the real world and eventually, fully into madness. My pity for him was mixed with a sort of anger that made me want to shake him, but also fascination with what he was doing. Jonathan Strange, in short, drew me completely into the depths of Susanna Clarke's altered England, and despite the need to do finals, had me sucked into a vortex where, for a time, the world in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell seemed very nearly more real than my own. A book has never done that to me before, and I don't expect, will do it again.
Not to mention that I enjoyed among the rather macabrely dark bits, the dry humor that Susanna Clarke interjected seemingly effortlessly, making me half smile even while wrinkling my nose or sniffling a bit over Jonathan's predicament. (No laughing at me and my sentimalism.)
In short, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell gave me the most fun and the most involvement in a book that I've had since Perdido Street Station. It was a delightful and original ride. I would recommend it heartily, even to people who aren't fans of fantasy - and that's not something you hear from me very often.
I just might have to go back and read it again.
I like writing reviews. I only do them rarely, but still...they are highly fun and entertaining and all that whatever.
Maybe I'll go and write something actually original now. On the off chance that I actually ever finish FullMoon would anyone want to read the whole thing and give me an honest opinion of its quality? I like it, but... *chews nails* Just a question.
