Book Report: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell

Well, and I had several times picked up Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell from the library shelf, hefted it in my hand, and returned it to the shelf. It looked interesting enough, in a general sort of way, but not enough to carry such a large and heavy book around. And, most importantly, the idea of taking such a brick into the bathtub was preposterous. So when would I read it?

So. A few months having passed, and a few awards and shortlists having been announced, I decided I really would read the thing. And got onto a waiting list at the library, and waited for a month or so. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one to be persuaded by the hype. Finally, my turn came up, I lugged the thing home, and read it.

It was OK.

Some of the funny bits were quite funny, and some of the poetic bits were quite poetic, and the created world was fairly interesting and inviting. I didn’t care much for or about the characters; there were perhaps two or three minor ones that I began to root for, and invariably they were dropped. My main complaint was that I had no idea where the story was going. In part, that was because Susanna Clarke wrote it intending to keep the plot convoluted and surprising, but in large measure it was because the plot was muddied and pointless. For a plot fiend like myself, it was frustrating to get halfway through the book, and discover that not only do I not know who the protagonists and antagonists are, or what the source of contention between them is, but I don’t care, either.

The main villain (the man with the thistledown hair) appears to be a petty and unthreatening creature, and although we are told of his monstrousness in growing detail, I never really saw it, and was never really convinced that all this foofurah was about him. The two main characters, who appear to be adversaries but are not, become reconciled in an unlikely and worse uninteresting manner, and the one who is portrayed as consistently wrong is not (to my mind) convincingly redeemed.

The best bit, for me, was when Jonathan Strange goes to the continent to help in the Napoleonic wars; the details of how he can and can’t help with the war effort are fun. It’s not a surprise that this bit comes with a ready-made plot, a clear goal, and lots of obstacles. It was a trifle frustrating to find Mr.Strange’s powers growing so rapidly, as it made the obstacles much less obstacly. And, of course, having decided on a magic that is irrational and poetic, Ms. Clarke couldn’t very well lay out clear limits to its use that defines an obstacle in itself, which was too bad, as I like that sort of thing. But she does come up with surprising uses for (and results of) magic in wartime, and that bit of the book is loads of fun, occasionally troubling, and generally brilliant.

The thing I think Ms. Clarke was most successful at was creating not just a world (early nineteenth-century London, with magic working but in disuse, and with a dimly stated history that diverges widely from our own) but a fictional literary milieu. The book gives every evidence of being right in the middle of a style of book that has never, in fact, existed; it borrows from three or four actual styles, mixes them knowledgeably and generously, and comes up with something that is new and familiar. It’s fun to read, but although it’s definitely a nice genre to visit, I wouldn’t want to live there.

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.