This Hardcover Book item from Bloomsbury USA was reviewed on 9-Sep-2008.
Search ISBN:1582344167 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel Reference Book. Classifications : Contemporary Literature & Fiction Subjects Books Literary Literature & Fiction Subjects Books General Fantasy Science Fiction & Fantasy Subjects Books Historical Fantasy Science Fiction & Fantasy Subj . Click the following link to view the cover of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel. Related topics: Contemporary. Subjects. Books. Literary. Subjects. Books. General. Fantasy. Subjects. Books. requestid: 40e8b14f-ae84-44c7-9699-166354742949
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1) Hardcover Book Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel by Bloomsbury USA. It´s hard to fathom why so many of you love this book, to say nothing of the inference that A.S. Byatt would appreciate it. I gave up around page 200, as this was too simple a work, and too tiresome for further perusal. Having just finished a couple of really well written novels, I can also say that there was nothing special about the author´s prose whatever...Who is reviewing this work-fans of Harry Potter? Finally, if you want to read an intelligent, throw-back kind of novel with real drama, well drawn characters and a truly epic feel, pick up Palliser´s "The Quincunx". Light satire and pale imitations of Jane Austen do not a classic make.¤ 2) Hardcover Book Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel by Bloomsbury USA. I waiver between liking this book (I´m only a few pages from the end, so I must like it enough to keep reading) and wishing I´d never bought it.
The plot meanders all over the place. There is no one distinct story. There are several places it could have ended.
My wish is that this was a series rather than a single book. With over 300,000 words there´s plenty here for three books.
I´m amazed that Clarke managed to find an agent, much less a publisher. But, I see all those different editions and so many reviews, it must be okay.
Being a writer and knowing a lot of writers, we´d like to know what spell Clarke used to get this first "novel" published. It couldn´t be the process the rest of us are going through.
¤ 3) Hardcover Book Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel by Bloomsbury USA. I can´t believe I bought this for a dollar! Great book, especially if you only paid a dollar. My copy is not for sale, sorry.¤ 4) Hardcover Book Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel by Bloomsbury USA. Illustrations by Portia Rosenberg
This book I found purely at random as I walked through the fiction section at my local public library in search of reading material (one cannot go home empty-handed from a place where books are being given away!), starting at the front of the alphabet, hence the author´s name beginning with C. Surprisingly, this book has many similarities to Pynchon´s Mason & Dixon: A Novel, which I had just finished, in its massive size (700+ pages, surely a determining factor in discovering Clarke´s book in a random shelf scan), its purported historicity, its seamless and matter-of-fact incorporation of fantastic elements in historical settings, its depiction of the relationship of two men who are both friends and co-workers in fast public projects, and in their gentle ironic humor.
Clarke´s writing style is not so raucous as Pynchon´s, but the fantastical nature perhaps elevated. Mr. Norrell is famed as the only "practical magician" in England, an honor he has diligently sought and brought upon himself by purchasing all the books on practical magic he can find (except one who will make his appearance later!) and by discouraging all others from practicing (sometimes with the help of lawyers). Norrell is a retiring, gloomy, private man, not given to public spectacles of magic, but desiring to use his magic for the national cause. He becomes his own federal bureaucracy as it were, working with the British government to help defeat the French on the continent.
Jonathan Strange is a young, vivacious man (Norrell´s polar opposite) in pursuit of a woman he hopes to marry who has no notion of becoming a magician, practical or theoretical, until he meets with the character I introduced above who reads off a philosophy that Jonathan Strange will become the second great magician of the age. Drawn to Norrell in London, the two become master and pupil as Strange learns his craft, and partners in public works as Strange joins the British Army effort against the French.
Unlike Norrell, Strange hopes to spread the reach of British magic, and to learn more about its ancient past rooted in fairies and the "slave king" John Uskglass. In pursuit of this goal, Strange loses his wife, his sanity, his friendship with Norrell, and unlocks a chain of events that he can´t control that ultimately ends up almost all for the good, and therein is the source of a 782-page novel.
Much like Pynchon, I find it hard to rate such a tree-killing effort as a classic, despite the quality and enjoyability of the results. Well worth reading as a potential classic, but that rating weighed against the commitment of time it requires drops it to the second level.¤ 5) Hardcover Book Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel by Bloomsbury USA. I can understand why many people didn´t enjoy the book; it is long and wordy in the British sense. Personally, I enjoy this, however, I concede that there are those who do not. The novel is witty and understated in its grandeur, but it is grand, nonetheless. Also, if you do not have at least a passing grasp of British history, the novel will lose some of its efficacy. I definitely recommend the book, just know your personal tastes before you commit to reading it.¤ 6) Hardcover Book Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel by Bloomsbury USA. English magicians were once the wonder of the known world, with fairy servants at their beck and call; they could command winds, mountains, and woods. But by the early 1800s they have long since lost the ability to perform magic. They can only write long, dull papers about it, while fairy servants are nothing but a fading memory.
But at Hurtfew Abbey in Yorkshire, the rich, reclusive Mr Norrell has assembled a wonderful library of lost and forgotten books from England´s magical past and regained some of the powers of England´s magicians. He goes to London and raises a beautiful young woman from the dead. Soon he is lending his help to the government in the war against Napoleon Bonaparte, creating ghostly fleets of rain-ships to confuse and alarm the French.
All goes well until a rival magician appears. Jonathan Strange is handsome, charming, and talkative-the very opposite of Mr Norrell. Strange thinks nothing of enduring the rigors of campaigning with Wellington´s army and doing magic on battlefields. Astonished to find another practicing magician, Mr Norrell accepts Strange as a pupil. But it soon becomes clear that their ideas of what English magic ought to be are very different. For Mr Norrell, their power is something to be cautiously controlled, while Jonathan Strange will always be attracted to the wildest, most perilous forms of magic. He becomes fascinated by the ancient, shadowy figure of the Raven King, a child taken by fairies who became king of both England and Faerie, and the most legendary magician of all. Eventually Strange´s heedless pursuit of long-forgotten magic threatens to destroy not only his partnership with Norrell, but everything that he holds dear.
Sophisticated, witty, and ingeniously convincing, Susanna Clarke´s magisterial novel weaves magic into a flawlessly detailed vision of historical England. She has created a world so thoroughly enchanting that eight hundred pages leave readers longing for more.
¤7) Hardcover Book Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel by Bloomsbury USA. It´s 1808 and that Corsican upstart Napoleon is battering the English army and navy. Enter Mr. Norrell, a fusty but ambitious scholar from the Yorkshire countryside and the first practical magician in hundreds of years. What better way to demonstrate his revival of British magic than to change the course of the Napoleonic wars? Susanna Clarke´s ingenious first novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, has the cleverness and lightness of touch of the Harry Potter series, but is less a fairy tale of good versus evil than a fantastic comedy of manners, complete with elaborate false footnotes, occasional period spellings, and a dense, lively mythology teeming beneath the narrative. Mr. Norrell moves to London to establish his influence in government circles, devising such powerful illusions as an 11-day blockade of French ports by English ships fabricated from rainwater. But however skillful his magic, his vanity provides an Achilles heel, and the differing ambitions of his more glamorous apprentice, Jonathan Strange, threaten to topple all that Mr. Norrell has achieved. A sparkling debut from Susanna Clarke--and it´s not all fairy dust. --Regina Marler¤ Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 7-Oct-2008, 15823441679781582344164, 050-5X0-671-351-LQB-9SB-ZYB-8 
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel, Book, Image © Bloomsbury USA
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