Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell; or, The Return of English Magic (Subtitle Mine)
In continuation of my recent nineteenth-century magician trend (see The Illusionist and The Prestige), I finally committed myself to reading all 846 pages of Susanna Clarke’s 2004 novel Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell—something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, as friends far and near have been ecstatically recommending it to me for months.
JS & Mr. N takes place a good 80-90 years prior to the two recent magician movies, however, covering a period between 1806 and 1817. This period seems to have growing appeal for fantasy/adventure writers (see His Majesty’s Dragon), because it allows writers to appeal to stereotypically female readers with Austen-esque social satire and to stereotypically male readers with Napoleonic battles on land and sea. Setting a book in this period also allows for occasional appearances by Lord Byron, which is always a plus.
(One of the most amusing parts of JS & Mr. N occurs while the titular young magician, Jonathan Strange, is visiting the European continent and discovers that, wherever he goes in Switzerland and Italy, Byron has been there just before him. Strange writes home to a friend, “I am, as far as I can tell, about a month behind Lord Byron. In every town we stop at we discover innkeepers, postillions, officials, burghers, potboys and all kinds and sorts of ladies whose brains still seem somewhat deranged from their brief exposure to his lordship. And though my companions are careful to tell people that I am a dreadful being, an English magician, I am clearly nothing in comparison to an English poet and everywhere I go I enjoy the reputation—quite new to me, I assure you—of the quiet, good Englishman, who makes no noise and is no trouble to any one . . .”
This should give you an idea of the kind of humor that peppers the novel. It often made me chuckle out loud. It’s written in the style of a nineteenth-century British novel, complete with “historical” footnotes, and the narrator consistently speaks as if she is addressing readers in the novel’s world. The world of JS & Mr. N is indeed England, and an England in which not only Byron but also Lord Wellington, William Pitt, and the mad King George III are also prominent. (As far as I recall, William Wilberforce doesn’t receive any mention, though, in spite of the fact that one of the main characters is a freed slave.) But this England also has many historical figures that our England does not, most of them magicians. This England has, above any other country, a grand history of magic, a history that reached its apex during the reign of the Raven King, a human who had close dealings with the fairies.
Since those medieval years, English magic has been declining until, by the early nineteenth century, there is only one “practical” magician in the nation, Mr. Norrell (the rest are mere “theoretical” magicians, content to study books about magic rather than books of magic). Norrell, once discovered, quite enjoys his status as England’s only practical magician and hoards the country’s largest collection of magical books, zealously guarding them against potential colleagues. He therefore has mixed feelings when Strange, with a natural magical genius largely unaided by books, appears on the scene, and much of the book deals with the ebb and flow of their relationship—though this relationship also intersects with the Battle of Waterloo, Londoners held captive by fairy enchantments, and the Return of English Magic.
Perhaps only because JS & Mr. N had been so highly recommended to me, I was a tiny bit disappointed. Only a tiny bit, because I really enjoyed the book and would recommend it to everyone who enjoys Jane Austen or George MacDonald or Jonathan Stroud (and I don’t just mention the latter because his name is similar to Jonathan Strange’s). I was fascinated by the Raven King, as he seemed to embody much of the book’s sense of Myth. However, I guess I expected to experience more Sehnsucht (C.S. Lewis uses this German word to describe something so beautiful that it hurts, a sense of longing for you-know-not-what, something beyond—ultimately for God, though even those not yet conscious of God can experience Sehnsucht.) For me, Sehnsucht is the greatest thing fantasy literature can achieve, and Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell didn’t quite do it for me. It came close, but not quite. But it’s still an extremely entertaining and worthwhile read.
My favorite character in the book is one John Childermass, a tall, ill-favored Yorkshire man who is sort of like Heathcliff-gone-right. In fact, some of my slight disappointment may have to do with the fact that I was expecting a role of greater importance for him. Oh well. He can have one in my imagination.
1 comment April 14th, 2007