Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Reviewed by Kelly O'Shea

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Also available in the Drew University Library Popular Literature Collection: POP LIT CLAa 

This book I just finished reading?  I love it.   It's on my top ten list.  I am not definitively sure what comprises my comprehensive top ten list.  But I think this would probably be on it, if it existed in any corporeal or substantial way.  It’s called Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, and it was written by a Ms. Susanna Clarke.

Maybe you are wondering why Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is amazing.  Even if you aren't, I'm going to tell you.  It's set in the early 1800s in Britain.  Clarke's Britain is different, however, as it has a deeply magical past, and magicians still exist.  At first you begin to think there are only magicians who study the history of magic.  In fact, the beginning has a flavor of Austen and Wilde - social comedy and satire, very character-driven and clever.  But as the story goes on, Clarke builds an incredible magical history, with songs, legends, mythology, and a literary and judicial history.  That's one of the reasons I loved it so much - people would mention past events, and there would be a footnote that would tell the story of, say, a court case where a servant sued his master for defamation, because the master was convinced the servant was a fairy.  Or a story of a family that disappeared into Faerie through an enchanted cupboard and were not seen again for hundreds of years would be referenced.  Clark makes thorough citations to books and court cases to add credibility to her story.  An interesting thing about this book is that it's entirely believable for it to have taken place in England.  All of it - the magic, the society, the perspectives, and the people - is so very British in character and tone.  There's enough reality in it that, most of the time, the magic seems like the most natural thing in the world.

The story itself is, for lack of a better word – epic. Yet it's an epic that mostly takes place in England, so the heroes are very ordinary and spend a lot of their time being ridiculous or disagreeable.  The plotline, which I'm not going to go into since I don't think I could do it justice, involves the Raven King, lost magic, dark enchantments, fairies, and Napoleon Bonaparte.  Clarke is a wonderful storyteller - her tone is detached enough for it to seem like a true story, but emotional enough for the reader to actually care.  For example, she tells of the stories behind an enchanted ruin of a house in Wiltshire:

On a moonlit night in 1610 two maids looked out of a window on an upper floor and saw twenty or thirty beautiful ladies and handsome gentlemen dancing in a circle on the lawn.  In February 1666 Valentine Greatrakes, an Irishman, held a convesation in Hebrew with the prophets Moses and Aaron in a little passageway near the great linen press.  In 1667 Mrs Penelope Chelmorton, a visitor to the house, looked in a mirror and saw a little girl of three or four years old looking out.  As she watched, she saw the child grow up and grow older and she recognized herself.   Mrs Chelmorton's reflection continued to age until there was nought but a dry, dead corpse in the mirror.  The reputation of the Shadow House is based upon these and a hundred other such tales. (page 227)

This book has received comparisons to Harry Potter, but only because it's British and involves magic.  It's not like Harry Potter at all - mostly because it's a story for and about adults, and some of the magic is slightly more disturbing than anything I've read by good old J.K. Rowling. There is no ultimate enemy a la Voldemort and magicians aren't born magical. They aren’t wizards and the magic world doesn't keep itself secret from the non-magic one.  The spells, in most cases, bear no resemblance to the simple Latin incantations in Harry Potter, and the importance of Faerie, or the Otherworld, makes it much more accurate to compare the story to something by Charles de Lint, C.S. Lewis, Diana Wynne Jones, Neil Gaiman or even Phillip Pullman (read more fantasy before you start comparing things to Harry Potter, is basically the point I'm trying to make).  Same goes for comparisons with The Lord of the Rings.  It's not even close to the same genre of fantasy.

                    I'm aware that I'm evincing my dorkhood here, but I have been known to like Star Wars, collect spoons, and read in my spare time.  Who does that?

Anyway, if you are a dork like me (and I think you are), I highly recommend Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.