BOOK REVIEW: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is Susannah Clarke's award-winning fantasy novel from 2005 that swept the international best-seller lists by storm (unbeknownst to me at the time). It was one of the many books I read on My Trip to Italy in January 2008. Other amazing books I read on that trip were Junot Diaz ' The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (click to see MadProfessah's review) and Special Topics in Calamity Physics.

It won the 2005 Hugo Award as well as the 2005 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. It lost the 2005 Nebula award to Joe Haldeman's Camouflage.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is the debut novel by Susannah Clarke. It is a 1,000-plus page tour de force combination of fantasy, folk tales and English manners.

The central conceit of the book is that magic has left the British Isles and only a certain Mr. Norrell is the only genuine magician left in the entire country. Unfortunately, Norrell turns out to be a reclusive, misanthropic egomaniac.

The book is set in 19th century Britain and so has the feel of a classic work by Dickens or Austen with odd Olde English spellings of words, especially verb tenses. However, the book is long, very long, and it is also very slow, in a deliberately languorous way. This is clearly a choice by the author, but it is a dangerous one. It turns Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrel into a book that one is not going to finish in one, two or even ten sittings. It is only the richness of the world and curiousity about the ultimate fates of the two central characters that keeps one coming back for more.

When one gets to the end, one is satisfied and pleased that one has made it to the end, like completing a marathon, but it is not something one will set out to repeat any time soon.

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A-.

OVERALL GRADE: A/A-.