Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8491 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-05
• Binding: Paperback
• 1024 pages

Amazon.co.uk
Any book touted as the `adult Harry Potter' runs the risk of attracting critical parries from swords of the double-edged variety. If this wasn't enough, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell--the debut novel from Susanna Clarke--also invites comparisons with Jane Austen. Set in the early nineteenth-century, the action moves from genteel drawing rooms—albeit where a mischievous Faerie king sips tea with the wife of a very human government minister, to the bloody battleground of Waterloo, where giant hands of earth drag men to their doom. The juxtaposition of perfectly realised magical worlds and the everyday one with which JK Rowling and Philip Pullman so successfully captured our imaginations and the social comedy of Austen and Thackeray can easily be recognised. But less easy to pastiche is the ability of these writers to induce sheer narrative pleasure, and it is Clarke's great achievement that she succeeds with this hugely enjoyable read. Gilbert Norrell is determined to single-handedly rehabilitate his sanitised and patriotic version of English magic, which has suffered a post-Enlightenment neglect after a richly dark history. He ruthlessly secures his place as England's only magician in two marvellously drawn feats. First, he brings the statutes of York Cathedral to life and then, to facilitate his entry into London society, he brings a young bride-to-be back from the dead--a feat with terrible consequences. However, another more naturally gifted magician—Jonathan Strange—emerges to become his pupil and later his rival. Strange becomes increasingly obsessed with the Raven King—the medieval lord-magician of the North of England and pursues his desire to recruit a fairy servant to the edge of madness. Whilst the differing characters of Norrell and Strange give the book a central human conflict, it is the tension between the dual natures of civilised and wilder magic that lends it a metaphysical texture that shades the narrative with wonderful and troubling descriptions of ships made of rain, paths between mirrors and faerie roads leading out of England to a bleak yet dazzling realm. Fortunately, the precision of her storytelling never reigns in Clarke's prodigious imagination. Clarke's broad canvas of characters—including Wellington, Napoleon and Bryon, locations and tones are masterfully realised. However, sometimes her own enchantment with them leads her to drop her pace, although even at almost 800 pages, this is a book to which you'll muster up little resistance. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is the perfect novel to take up residence in as the nights get longer. -- Fiona Buckland -- This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Sunday Times
`A fabulous book … dazzling … highly original and compelling'

Claire Colvin, Daily Mail
`Extraordinary flights of the imagination … a leisurely, engaging read that draws you into another world. Ideal for escapists'

Customer Reviews

Brings life to magic
Having just written my first ever negative review of a book, I wanted to write a review of a nice book and this is it! Strange & Norrell is not a light or simple read, it is not the greatest work of fiction or fantasy but it is a book of scale and interest, of magic and real involvement. Months after I have finished it and with many books since, this has stayed with me. It has stayed with me because it draws you in to it and you feel absorbed by the story. It is a fantasy novel with little comparison to most others that I have come across. In short an original book that creates an alternative historical Britain with wholly believable characters and history of magic. It may not be to everyone's taste, as some other reviews demonstrate but if you like intrigue and detail and have patience, then this is for me a most rewarding read.

Wonderful, wonderful book
Wonderful book. Very addictive and enthralling - it was such a disappointment that it had to end. Susanna Clarke has done an incredible job of constructing an alternative and beguiling History of England incorporating magic in a believable way. The multitude of footnotes citing imaginary books on magic add to the illusion, and the author's love of Jane Austen shines through in the wry dialogue and critique of the social conventions of the time, such as the canyon between the 'gentlemen' of the novel (all of whom turn out to be crooks, liars or deeply flawed), and the servants, Stephen Black and Childermass, whose behaviour contrasts with that of their masters. This is the second time I've read this book in the last 12 months. It's just so enjoyable. Read it as soon as you can

CD Audio book is a very poor quailty product
Please let us be clear here. All the reviews, here, seem to talk only of the book, and not the Audio CD version, quite misleading. I think thats very poor. As people want to know about the quality of the CD version. Well to sum up the packaging is very very poor, made from cheap fragile card board. Repeated listening will destroy the case. The discs are very poorly labeled, in small font type. The reading of the book is good. BUT the cheap packaging spoils the whole deal.