By: Suzannah Clarke
The problem with trying to read 50 books in a year is that it discourages you from picking up a tome like Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, which weighs in at just over 1000 pages. I'd been wanting to read this since last year since my friend Mark's recommendation, and there it was sitting on the shelf among very few other english books at a book traders in Li Jiang. Tough descision - I could easily read three other books in the time it would take to tread JSaMN, but could I just let the opportunity pass? It was too much good fortune to find this book in a country where English books are hard to come by and usualy overpriced.
It was a good gamble- JSaMN is great read. The story follows the lives of title characters, two magicians who are intent on bringing magic back to england in a world where magic once ruled but has long since been forgotton. Until recently, the only magicians were "theoretical magicians" who study magic, but never perform it. Their excuse is that they are above doing the magic, they are scholars who study it instead. All this changes with the reluctant appearance of Mr. Norrel. He is a reculsive and disagreeable magician who is brought out of obscurity by a Mr. Secundus, one of the few theoretical magicians who has any real intellectual curiosity. For the first 250 or so pages of the book, Norell helps England rediscover magic, but is so neurotic about its application, that he refuses to share his skills with anyone else. This sets the stage for the appearance of a second magician, the younger, more forward thinking Jonathan Strange to appear with a slightly different set of values.
The book is anything but predictable, and as the plot winds through the slow re-emergence of magic in England, the relationship between Strange and Norrell shifts downhill. Magic that they have invoked brings all kinds of unintended consequences, and they soon become embroiled in the Napoleanic war, an old prophesy, and a unwittingly evil fairy.
JSaMN is a highly original book, told as if the author is reciting an exciting bit of history (and complete with a ton of funny and detailed footnotes which expand her universe), although it also owes a great debt to the canon of British fantasy that came before it. Certainly the irreverent tone is reminiscent of Douglass Adams, the sense of magical wonder of Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling, and the attention to detail of a truly unique world of Tolkien. Clarke masterfully weaves some of the best threads of her predecessors into a completely new tapestry. Highly recommended.
4 comments:
Excellent.
I shall read it right away. I have been carrying it around since I moved to LI. And by carrying it around I mean it has been sitting on my book shelf. One of my former students recommended it to me, but since she read the Silmarillion in one night and carried this thing around for weeks and months, I though, dang, can't be that goood. But with your hearty recommendo I shall pick it up next. Or after next.
hope you enjoy it! I wouldn't call it a 'page turner' which might explain the time your student spent with it- but its very well done indeed, and i really enjoyed the story.
This, too, is in my list of books I want to read, and it's sitting there waiting for me to sign it out at Le Biblio Nationale!
It does look a bit daunting though. Besides the magic theme, is anything else that's kind of similar to Harry Potter?
Yeah- I definatly think that there's something about this book that makes it the natural progression for younger readers to move from HP to JS. I can't put my finger on exactly, although off the top of my head, I'd have to say that its a little more dense, a little more mature, and it widens the scope of cause and effect beyond the story of the main characters.
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