Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

I wrote the last post in an attempt to encourage people to support a first-time feature length filmmaker (Joss Whedon), and am now plugging the debut of author, Susanna Clarke. While these works have been critically accepted as being high in quality, it must be remembered that these two mediums are, first and foremost, industries. That is to say, these artists (and possibly the future of quality art/entertainment) rely on people paying money to see the film or read the book. While I don’t imagine that their careers are even remotely in danger of dwindling (Whedon is currently directing the upcoming big screen revision of Wonder Woman and Clarke is helping to produce the film adaptation of her novel), I feel it important to support that which is ‘virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy’.

I managed to pick Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell up at W.H. Smith while waiting for the train in the Norwich station. To put it simply: I loved it. Mind you, I started reading it at the beginning of our trip to Edinburgh, Shropshire and Wales, so it was both rather startling and enjoyable to be reading along about a group of magicians gathering at the York Minster only to look up and see none other than said Minster out of the train window. Although this experience made reading the book that much more enjoyable for me, it obviously isn’t necessary (that would make it a really expensive read if it were). If you love books, history, moral struggles, intrigue, mystery, England, magic, Faeries, humour, tragedy, creepiness, ravens, Scotland, or faux-19th century English literature, then Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is for you. If you don’t like any of these things then I hope you enjoy your boring miserable existence (but you should still buy the book).

Here’s a review (skip the tiresome first five paragraphs of plot synopsis)

Here’s another one (this is NOT meant to be an endorsement for Orson Scott Card; I just happened to like what he said about Serenity and Jonathan Strange). This review is a bit more detailed than I generally like before I read something for the first time, but I think his overall analysis helps to illustrate the relevance and depth of the story. Keep that in mind.

-m