Reading: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Many books are to be read, some are to be studied, and a few are meant to be lived in for weeks. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is of this last kind. Clarke reportedly took 10 years to write her novel, and she counts on our willingness to linger over conversational repartee and Gothic hugger-mugger, to attend to the inventiveness of each episode, to slow down and savor the period style.Washington Post

Oh boy, this book was a doozy. At 800+ pages, it is definitely not considered light reading. Especially when stylistically it tries to imitate writing from 19th century London, in which it is set. I had tried reading it several years earlier but had no patience for it. But now I was finally ready to conquer this beast of a book.

It took 6 weeks of toting around this two pound tome, but I did it! And surprisingly, I didn't find it boring or give up. Yay me! I think it is a sign of personal growth that I managed to finish this book after past failures.I think the only hurdle in this book is getting past the first chapter. Once you make it past that point, you're hooked.

Inevitably, if you write about magic nowadays you will be compared to the Harry Potter series. While this features magic in England, it is almost nothing like Harry Potter compared to the last book I read The Magicians which has a magical boarding school in it a la Hogwarts. The only similarity I could find between Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and the Harry Potter series is that both have incredibly detailed and fully fleshed out worlds. Susanna Clarke takes the real world in the early 1800s and adds a rich magical history to it. Footnotes take up sometimes a page or two as they recall the golden age of magic in England in 1291 or describing the theory behind the books of magic that Mr. Norrell reads. As a reader, I appreciate having this fully formed world to escape to.

From the reviews I read, I noticed that people didn't particularly like either of the main characters. I don't know if I had the same response while reading it. Yes, at times I grew frustrated by the actions Mr. Norrell and Jonathan Strange, but there were still parts of them I found relatable. Such as the quiet solitude that Mr. Norrell craved or Jonathan Strange's ambition to be the greatest magician of the age. To me, these characteristics made them more human. And despite their differences, I thoroughly enjoyed any part of the book that had these two characters at different ends of a spectrum playing off of each other.

In the end, I highly recommend this for anyone who has the time and arm strength to carry this large book around.

Favorite Quotes

• I have a scholar's love of silence and solitude. To sit and pass hour after hour in idle chatter with a roomful of strangers is to me the worst sort of torment.

• It is also true that his hair had a reddish tinge and, as everybody knows, no one with red hair can ever truly be said to be handsome.

For more (professional) reviews, check out the links below:
[ NY Times ] [ Washington Post ]