Susanna Clarke

Shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Guardian First Book Award; longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 

'Unquestionably the finest English novel of the fantastic written in the last seventy years ... Funny, moving, scary, otherworldly, practical and magical' NEIL GAIMAN

The year is 1806. centuries have passed since practical magicians faded into the nation's past. But scholars of this glorious history discover that one remains: the reclusive Mr Norrell, whose displays of magic send a thrill through the country.

Proceeding to London, he raises a beautiful woman from the dead and summons an army of ghostly ships to terrify the French. Yet the cautious, fussy Norrell is challenged by the emergence of another magician: the brilliant novice Jonathan Strange. Young, handsome and daring, Strange is the very antithesis of Norrell.

So begins a dangerous battle between these two great men which overwhelms that between England and France. And their own obsessions and secret dabblings with the dark arts are going to cause more trouble than they can imagine.

A Novel

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Fore-Shadowing.  This slight reference, to think it has greater implications, it's just so clever to see.

myantonia

1. The History and Practice of English Magic , by Jonathan Strange, vol. I, chap. 2, pub. John Murray, London, 1816.

He hardly ever spoke of magic, and when he

did it was like a history lesson and no one

Året er 1806, og engelskmennene har for lengst sluttet å tro på magi. Desto større blir overraskelsen da den tilbakeholdne Mr. Norell erklærer og beviser at han praktiserer magi. Han reiser til London for å bruke sine krefter til å hjelpe regjeringen i krigen mot Napoleon. Her møter han den unge, sjarmerende og svært arrogante trollmannen Jonathan Strange, som blir hans elev og medhjelper. Men de to mennene viser seg å være forskjellige på alle måter, og snart har samarbeidet utviklet seg til en kamp der begge vil vise sin styrke. Omtalen er utarbeidet av BS.

Novel Ideas

No, sir. He suspects, but he chuses not to know. A magician who passes his life in a room full of books must have someone to go about the world for him. There are limits to what you can find out in a silver dish of water, You know that.

And can a magician kill a man by magic?" the Duke had asked. 

And he had answered, “A magician might, but a gentleman never could”

You think that I am angry," said Mr Norrell, "but I am not. You think I do not know why you have done what you have done, but I do. You think that you have put all your heart into that writing and that every one in England now understands you. What do they understand? Nothing. I understood you before you wrote a word.”!” He paused and his face worked as if it were struggling to say something that lay very deep inside him. “What you wrote you wrote for me. For me alone.”

Yet insisted that he could hear an invisible wood growing up around the house. Whenever he paused in his work, he heard ghostly branches scraping at the walls and tapping upon the windows, and the tree-roots slyly extending themselves beneath the foundations and prising apart the bricks. The wood was old, said Robert, and full of malice. A traveller in the wood would have as much to fear from the trees as from another person hiding there.

The fire burnt low in the grate and the candles were almost out. The curtains were undrawn and no one had put up the shutters. The rattle of the rain upon the windows was very melancholy. 

“It is certainly a night for raising the dead,” remarked Mr Lascelles.

Someone was standing in the middle of the room: a tall, handsome person with pale, perfect skin and an immense amount of hair, as pale and shining as thistle-down. His cold blue eyes glittered and he had long dark eye-brows, which terminated in an upward flourish. He was dressed exactly like any other gentlemen, except that his coat was of the brightest green imaginable - the colour of leaves in early summer.

Then all the other statues and monuments in the Cathedral began to speak and to say in their stony voices all that they had in their stony lives and the noise was, as Mr Segundus later told Mrs Pleasance, beyond description. 

The Book has a very good description, and a hug world building, as if you would read a true history era of England. But by the end it got caught up with so many little details that, in my opinion where unnecessary and made the book endlessly long. The end was unexpectedly good.

Laura 

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

Personally not the most enjoyable reading experience. Footnotes all the way until the end and often ramblings about some academic dispute (completely fictional). However, the writing style was very interesting and detailed (sometimes a bit too detailed imho). Yet, about 200-300 pages less wouldn't have been missed if taken away.

The main characters were quite unlikable. Yet interesting. Books don't always need heroes and likables as main character, so it was a good choice made by the author. However, the likable characters that were in the book were not treated fairly and came a bit short, I'd say. Would've liked to see more of them and less "academic" rambling and footnotes. But this also is part of an amazing world building.

I still don't know from whose perspective this book is written and who is "I". Not sure if it matters anyway. Unexpectedly, it became rather dark towards the end.

This book might be triggering for some. It contains words of racism and is a bit sexist (surprised, since the author is a woman). But it also seems like a hyperbole of white male societies, especially the English ones. Topics such as slavery and female emancipation are treated in an interesting yet maybe a biy subtle way. 

Alisa 

Personally not the most enjoyable reading experience. Footnotes all the way until the end and often ramblings about some academic dispute (completely fictional). However, the writing style was very interesting and detailed (sometimes a bit too detailed imho). Yet, about 200-300 pages less wouldn't have been missed if taken away.

The main characters were quite unlikable. Yet interesting. Books don't always need heroes and likables as main character, so it was a good choice made by the author. However, the likable characters that were in the book were not treated fairly and came a bit short, I'd say. Would've liked to see more of them and less "academic" rambling and footnotes. But this also is part of an amazing world building.

I still don't know from whose perspective this book is written and who is "I". Not sure if it matters anyway. Unexpectedly, it became rather dark towards the end.

This book might be triggering for some. It contains words of racism and is a bit sexist (surprised, since the author is a woman). But it also seems like a hyperbole of white male societies, especially the English ones. Topics such as slavery and female emancipation are treated in an interesting yet maybe a biy subtle way. 

In short: well crafted, but a bit long.

Recommended season: late autmn/winter 

Wir schreiben das Jahr 1806. Seit Jahrhunderten gibt es keine Zauberei mehr in England. Doch während auf dem Festland der Krieg gegen Napoleon tobt, entdecken die Zaubereihistoriker, dass es noch einen praktizierenden Magier gibt: Mr. Norrell, ein Einzelgänger, der zurückgezogen in Hurtfew Abbey in Yorkshire lebt. Noch ehe sich Regierung und High Society von dieser Überraschung erholt haben, taucht ein zweiter Zauberer auf: der junge, charismatische Jonathan Strange. Die beiden Männer, die unterschiedlicher nicht sein könnten, schließen sich im Dienste der Krone zusammen, um in den Krieg einzugreifen. Doch Strange wird von der dunklen, mysteriösen Magie des Rabenkönigs angezogen, des größten Zauberers aller Zeiten. Um mehr über ihn zu erfahren, riskiert er sogar die Freundschaft zu seinem Mentor. Doch Mr. Norrell hat ebenfalls ein magisches Geheimnis, das ihn und alles, was er sich aufgebaut hat, zerstören könnte, wenn es jemals ans Licht käme ...

Roman

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

Tamara

Loved the first 80%. The last 20% took me forever to get through.

ghost girl in satin

A wonderful book from start to finish. Susanna Clarke's writing is fabulous. I really like her little touches of humor, and the way she designed her magical system as well as her universe. I'm sad to have to leave the characters, all very different from each other but delightfully human.
I highly recommend this book.

Annabella

Annika Arguemore

I probably won't be able to finish this since the copy I borrowed was from the library. I'll have to return this in order to get my clearance filled up, you know, so I could graduae. Therefore, yhis one's on hold until I find another copy to borrow.

Schwarze Edition

Marie

Unfortunately I read it in German (long time ago), which probably doesn't do it justice.

I was hooked by page one which almost never happens. Like if Neil Gaiman and Jane Austen had a book baby. Whimsical, unique and clever. Witty and fascinating. One of my new favs for sure.

Bowie 

Michael Springer

This was one of those rare fantasy novels that reminded me why I write fantasy, and what fantasy can be when it is done well. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys a good story. I thought I knew where the whole story was going, but discovered when I was very close to the end that I had been wrong.

In nineteenth-century England, all is going well for rich, reclusive Mr Norell, who has regained some of the power of England's magicians from the past, until a rival magician, Jonathan Strange, appears and becomes Mr Norrell's pupil.

Peter Read

It's been a while since I read this book, but I remember loving how quasi-real it felt, specifically the footnotes throughout the book really made it extra-special for me. I like history books and this one read a little like one, in a weird kind of way. I guess this book set me up really well for Lev Grossman's The Magicians (and to a lesser extent the sequel The Magician King), which I also really liked. I guess I am a sucker for the premise that some secret, hidden something is going on that we normals don't know about. Like Harry Potter, or to a lesser extent, True Blood (the TV Show anyway).

Anja Hansen

Amazing. Looking forward to reread it in the future

Prashanth Srivatsa

At once engrossing, imaginative and magical in its truest sense, JN & MN is a fascinating journey down the shadowy psych of its eponymous characters, while managing to remain rich in tone and language for a whole friggin' 1000 pages. Clarke has given out a fantasy blockbuster here.

Tylar M

Amazing fantasy novel that didn't need foot notes that took up half the page.

Ryan LaFerney

Agh! Where to start! This is one of the most haunting, lyrical, moving, otherworldly, funny novels I've ever read. This is one of my favorite books. It is quite simply mesmerizing.

Kwan Ann Tan

** spoiler alert **
           The ending felt just a little rushed, given the luxurious & leisurely pace that we'd just taken throughout the book--I admit to being really surprised but very pleased with Stephen's ending but ah I just feel like so much more could have been done!! it could have been different!

Cindy Lieberman

Susanna Clarke envisions a complete shadow world with kings, faeries, and magic intersecting with England in the late 1800s. It reads more like historical fiction than fantasy thanks to the author’s exhaustive research and gift for prose. 

In the story, the practice of magic has gone from England save for the work of the reclusive Mr. Norrell. He has purchased every last useful book on the subject and hordes them in his country estate. Around the same time, a young man is met on a road by a stranger who suggests he might do well to take up the practice of magic and sells him three spells. The young man, Jonathan Strange, is everything Mr Norrell is not: young, outgoing, personable, and somewhat reckless in his application of magic. The conflicts between Norrell and Strange are a good part of this novel, but so too are the machinations behind the scenes from the faerie world. There’s lots of drama and intrigue, interesting characters, and a small amount of humor (it could have used a tad more).

I decided to read it based on its appearing on a list of the best audiobooks plus the strength of @Apatt ‘s Review. I’m very glad I did. This book is a masterful achievement.

Arianna M

Entirely delicious. Clarke's style is delightful, ironic, engaging.
I can't recommend this enough.

sophia n

i have this weirdly specific memory of wandering through the discount section of borders back in 2007 with one of my friends (we used to just ... go to borders after school ... to just dick around ...) seeing the raven on the cover of this book and zooming to it, sitting down on the floor in front of the discount shelf and flipping to a random passage in the middle and just LOVING it.

i impulse bought it then and there, and my friend laughed at me like "when you ever gonna read that tome" and i mean. she was kinda right, bc i didn't actually start it until 2009, and then finally finished it some point in 2010 (can't really remember exactly when, sorry goodreads) and i've never been more proud of finishing a book in my life (this is probably an exaggeration but let me have it ok)

this book. this BOOK. it's truly such an atmospheric read, and i was shocked that i ended up connecting and caring about so many of the characters AND the plot. so many moving pieces, such a slow burn, but in the best way. i think my only criticism really, remembering back when i finished it and after having invested so much time in it, i felt like the ending was very ... abrupt. but after time has passed, i find i'm endeared to the ending more and more. this book is quite a journey.

anyway justice for childermass bye

Kirsten Simkiss

Well, this book is definitely not a speed read. That being said, I enjoyed it quite a bit, even though it was pretty slow for most of the book. I feel like a 4 star rating is definitely fair.

As I have said, and I'm sure other reviews have said, the book is quite slow. And for a book of this length, that speed may not be something every reader can stand. However, the pace is quite consistent and it does a good job of creating story lines that connect and collide later on in the story to make everything come together for a pretty fantastic climax and ending. I enjoyed how it ended for most of the characters, though I found the ending for the Strange family - pardoning the expression - a little strange. Everyone's ending was very fitting. My favorite ending was, by far, Stephen's ending, which was fantastic and lovely.

The story is a bit gory in some areas, although not excessively so. Just enough to get the point across. Otherwise, it reads as a very English novel and the bits of humor are similarly quite English. 

I found that all the characters, though there were many, were easy to remember and distinguish. Sometimes when you read a book with as many pages and as many characters, the side characters sometimes blur together. I never had that problem with any of the characters as they were all made very distinct and had very distinct takes on people's personalities. Stephen and Arabella were, by far, my absolute favorites. I really really loved Stephen's ending. It was poetic and it was accepting. I loved that the story never let you forget he was born as an African slave, but it never villified or let him be lesser as a character because of it. He was every bit as important as Mr. Norrell and Mr. Strange. While Arabella was more overlooked as a character, I found her perspective on every situation to be wonderfully logical and practical. She was never really framed as a damsel in distress, even when she was one.

All in all, I would definitely recommend this to others. However, my recommendation would absolutely come with a warning regarding the pacing of the story and the length. My copy was 782 pages long, which can be a bit much for some readers.

Nicole Dykeman

DNF @ 266 pages. I just...do not care. I really tried to like this. The reviews on the back are fabulous and it came recommended by several authors I admire, but I fail to see the appeal. The writing is difficult to wrap your head around—it feels more like reading an academic text than anything else. And the characters, particularly Mr. Norrell, are just not likable. If the book were shorter, I might have powered through, but at 800+ pages, this just isn’t worth my time to finish.

Mounir Bashour

One of the best books I have ever had the pleasure to read.
Susana Clark is incredibly talented. Its a huge shame she has not written anything before or since this masterpiece.
Thank you SF Said for recommending it to me.

Eva Bailey

I feel so accomplished for finishing this. Very very VERY slow paced, but somehow still enthralling. Susanna Clarke's writing is so vivid. Really enjoyed this story. Could have done without all the footnotes though, but once I got used to them it was fine.

SOON TO BE A MAJOR BBC SEVEN-PART TV SERIES

Sian Wadey

Before I'd even heard of the book I saw the enigmatic trailer for Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. I heard Vincent Franklin's grand introduction of 'MR NORRELLLLLLLL!' before I even laid one eye on the novel. 
It wasn't long before I purchased the book and dived in head first. The main error I made was trying to read it while on a sightseeing holiday in Amsterdam. I was so tired that I couldn't really concentrate and this is what this book requires. But that's not a bad thing.
The first characters you meet are Segundus and Honeyfoot, two theoretical magicians who live in York and want to know why magic isn't performed any more. Introduce the suspicious little man that is Mr Norrell. 
The first third of the book centres around Norrell, his developments as a magician and his progress in London with the government. Then enters Jonathan Strange and their relationship soon blossoms.
One of the first things any reader realises is that this is not simply a story, or a novel, it is a world. Susanna Clarke has created this wonderful environment, with intertwining, exciting lands all closely linked with British history. It's almost as if this book is real, with its footnotes and explanations and that somehow the magic has been hidden from us. 
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is an epic, sprawling book, full of eccentric characters, including the titular ones. In the Author's Note Susanna Clarke said that she didn't particularly like either of her main characters. Although I found Norrell awkward and grumpy, there were moments when I found him endearing. And I particularly liked Strange, although in the third quarter of the book I did find myself rolling my eyes at some of his antics. 
The gentlemen is a particularly interesting character, as is Stephen Black. All of the narrative surrounding them was gripping as their relationship changed and developed throughout the story. The women also play a vital role with Arabella and Lady Pole providing strong females in a time dominated by men. Without giving too much away, Lady Pole's degeneration throughout the novel is astounding and again, another thing to keep you hooked.
I felt that when Strange goes to Venice, the book loses momentum a little bit. I wasn't as gripped as I had been before and the Greysteels turned up, characters that I found a little pointless if I'm honest. However in the last two hundred pages the action picked back up again.
To sum it all up, this novel took me almost a month to read, but I enjoyed dipping into the pages, I relished it and enjoyed the fact that it was a slow read for me. This is like nothing I have ever read before and while Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is still on TV, I don't feel like I've finished it. In fact, there could have been another novel to follow this one, to explore what has happened since. I'll have a breather from novels over 600 pages, but I definitely want to explore Susanna Clarke's other works.

Cams Campbell

I bought this on the strength of a recommendation by freelance journalist and regular MacBreak Weekly panelist, Andy Ihnatko. His recommendation was based on the fact that the audible version is 32 hours long and yet is still only one credit! Thus, one can 'stick it to the man' with this audiobook. Well, there was a little more to it than that. My interest was piqued and the review I read convinced me that I would enjoy it. 

I found it to be rather a clever book in that it seems to rise above the geekish realm of fantasy and sci-fi and enter the mainstream. Yes, it is in essence a fantasy book, but not like any other I've read. There are no elves and goblins, no magic talismans, no underdogs coming into their powers and having to save the world from evil against the odds. Rather this is a tale of 19th century England and features such historical characters as Napoleon and Wellington. 

The style is a literary one, reminding one of Jane Austen and the Brontes and the characters would not seem out of place in a Dickens novel. 

We begin in the north of England, where practical magicians no longer, well, practice magic and the theoretical magicians read books on magic and discuss it in their clubs and societies. That is until Mr Norrell comes along, a practical magician intent on being the only one of his kind. He agrees to prove to the theoreticians that he can do magic, but makes them agree that, if he is sucessful, the theoretical magicians should give up magic all together. 

Then Jonathan Strange comes along as another real magician and we follow the relationship between him and Mr Norrell throughout the tale. 

The audiobook is read by Simon Prebble and he does a good job. I enjoyed the book a lot but do feel that it could have been shortened without losing too much. The constant footnotes became a little grating but I had got used to them by the end. I don't think that I would read this again and I would be hesitant to recommend it to my fantasy-loving friends, but to those of you who do enjoy the 19th century novel, I'd have no hesitation in recomending it.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell A Novel

Reviews

Highlights