Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Susanna Clarke’s debut novel Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is an incredibly ambitious undertaking. Within approxamitely 800 pages, Clarke brings to life an alternate history of England, replete with wry humor, vivid and horrific imagery and hundreds of footnotes citing dozens of obscure (and, of course, fictional) magical texts. As the title suggests, the novel’s primary focus is the uneasy relationship between the two eponymous magicians, but it is to Clarke’s credit that this relationship occurs in a world which she has populated with equally interesting and detailed characters.
The story does not begin with Strange or Norrell, but with an England that has seen the rise and fall of magic within its boudaries. In the Dark Ages, the Raven King brought magic into England, thereby playing a crucial role in the foundation of the country. As the centuries passed, magic saw a great decline, and by the 19th century (the setting of the novel), it is not practised at all. People have forgotten how to perform magic, and they study it only as a sort of history. Enter Mr. Gilbert Norrell, who wishes to bring magic back into England, to aid the nation in its war against the French. Norrell becomes an overnight celebrity, despite his lack of social skills, and his great aversion to parties and human interaction. An avid hoarder of books and knowledge, Norrell is very much opposed to sharing magic with anyone, but he is immediately charmed by one Jonathan Strange, a young, talented magician. The two characters are a study in contrast. Where Norrell is humorless, unfriendly, and cautious, Jonathan is full of ironic wit, charm and recklessness. It is therefore no surprise to anyone when the two have a falling out. The interesting thing about these two protagonists is that they are so flawed. Norrell is simultaneously greatly talented and and incredibly petty, while Jonathan’s cheek, though charming, can easily slip into a magnificent arrogance that endangers everyone around him. Despite their differences in character, their obsession with magic is all-consuming in both, and they suffer great losses for it.
The novel is paced slowly, and anyone searching for a quick fix of dueling wizards, thunderbolts and battling armies of otherworldly creatures would be served best elsewhere. Unlike most modern writers, Clarke takes the time to linger on details and observations that are not action-based. Her prose purposely mimicks that of a 19th century novel, with its longer descriptions of characters and places as well as its old-fashioned spelling of words (ex. “”chuse”). Her hilarious observations into human nature bring to mind Jane Austen while her vast “bibliography” of magical history (the aforementioned “footnotes” add a touch of authenticity to the other fabricated material) makes for an entirely realized world in the style of Tolkien’s Middle Earth. For most of the book’s length, however, the reader will not be treated to battles and wars, or even magic, since the task before the two protagonists is to bring it back from the brink of extinction. The novel reads like Dickens or Poe, not like Eragon (and thank goodness for that!).
Although Jonathan Strange has been described by some as fantasy horror, the terrors that Clarke presents are not explicit in nature. Rather, they are like nightmares forgotten upon waking: there is a sense of feeling unnerved, without an ability to understand why, as the source of our fears is banished to the periphery of our consciousness, where we can’t locate it. The sense of fright in Strange can be described more accurately as dread, for the reader begins to understand, much more than the characters do, that things are about to get very dark, indeed. Nevertheless, there are some magnificently haunting scenes interspersed throughout this otherwise understated novel: the rise of the dead during the Napoleonic Wars, the statues of London coming to life and bearing witness to all the crimes they’ve seen over the centuries, and empty ships made of water menacing a harbor, just to name a few. The suspense is built subtly and slowly, but the patient reader will be rewarded with an epic climax that brings all the characters into play, and makes the entire journey a most memorable one. Fantasy fans will find this a worthy addition to their bookshelves.
-Artemis
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