That’s part of the whole point of the book - that, in part, it is a comedy on the manners (and often, hypocrisy) of the era, including its notions of honour.
We know from the book what Mr. Strange thought on the matter. Wellington asked whether a magician could kill someone with magic, and Strange answered something like that he supposed a magician could, but that a gentleman never would.
The reason the abswer is funny/ironic is that, of course, Wellington himself was a “gentleman” involved in killing lots of people, and Mr. Strange was there to help him do it - yet here he was, insisting that he would not directly kill people with magic.
In short, you guys are missing the point somewhat in the criticism - part of the point of the author is to use fantasy to hold up a mirror to the time. If she had written a straight alternative history in which everything was different and realistic, that would be a totally different book with a totally different point.
I thought the book kind of read like the first in a long series. The first half is all introduction and then the plot happens in the second half of the book. If you like plot in your novels, then the book definitely gets better.
Physically, quite doable. In Turtledove’s Southern Victory / Time-Line 191 series: when the Confederate States are the first to develop a working atomic bomb – using a motor vehicle, they sneak it by land into Philadelphia (the US capital in the series), and set it off there.
I felt the same. The writing styling came across to me as an immersion-breaking affectation by the author. I often love when authors can alter the style of their narrative to fit the same contemporary time of the setting, but Susanna Clarke didn’t rise above gimmicky for me.
I guess I’m not necessarily a good person to ask on the OP’s question because I found the novel fascinating from the first chapter. I do enjoy the Austen-esque comedy of manners and the footnotes to made up secondary sources was a completely joy! It started slow (but I absolutely loved the world building) but accelerated quite fast by the end. It became, and remains, one of my favorite novels.
I do also agree that picking out why would their be a Napoleonic War if there was a magical invasion by the Raven King in the 1000s does miss the point. The novel is basically a comedy of manners of the Napoleonic Era (including humorous ideas of class and proper behavior, in a very Austen way) involving the speculation of what if this era was further complicated by actual magic.
I even bought Clarke’s short story anthology (Ladies of Grace Adieu) when it came out and am only disappointed that Clarke hasn’t written anymore.
The question of whether a gentleman would exploit the use of magic for their personal gain has absolutely no relevance whatsoever to the book’s plot. Norrell and Strange were not randomly selected to be magicians. They were, explicitly, part of a spell the Raven King had cast to get rid of the Gentleman With the Thistledown Hair.
They did not accidentally have personality traits that led to them not exploiting their magic - they were specifically selected for the personality traits that the Raven King’s spell needed.
There’s no need to speculate why some other magician wouldn’t have teleported London into the Marianas Trench in a fit of pique, or snatched Napoleon into prison, because there weren’t going to be any other magicians. The Raven King brought back magic to have two magicians do what he needed done, and then set up circumstances so those two magicians got put away where they’d be no bother after they were done.
Now, I really do not want to read this book – not even if it were miraculously transmuted to be in standard modern English. (No judginess intended – different ones of us like and dislike different stuff, and it’s all fine.)
I’ve read & even enjoyed some Alternate History. But much of that genre is essentially a mind game–change one historical occurrence & then see what follows. If the resulting book’s characters are “types” & the prose style is pedestrian–or even clumsy–too bad.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a fantasy. It’s also highly literary & has an idiosyncratic style. It helps if one knows the history of the period & enjoys challenging reading–including all those footnotes! It is not for everyone. (The TV series is highly compressed (partly for budgetary reasons) & obviously lacks the “literary” elements. But I’m quite enjoying the characters & the visual details.)
I enjoy Alt History as well… somewhat. I’ve read some of Turtledove’s stuff and its seemed fairly interesting, but some of the summaries of his latest stuff, I’m like… um, I really don’t want to read that crap. And Turtledove’s books were what you described, Bridget Burke, all types and clumsy prose in service of the plot. It gets boring fast.
I loved the book and am enjoying the TV miniseries, all in all, although I’m not as gaga about it as I would’ve hoped. If you like the book, Clarke’s short-story collection The Ladies of Grace Adieu, set in the same universe, is also well worth your time.
Shortish answer: I’m with Trinopus and Alessan on this issue – I want alternative history to be alternative history – citing your own words elsewhere above: a fantasy wherein “this world’s history strongly resembles our own” (and the book mostly about “fantasias” with other agendas); maybe I’m blinkered, but “I can’t be doing with that”.
Bridget Burke, quoted below, sums it up well – stuff like JS&MrN isn’t for me: my loss, maybe, but so be it.
To me an alternate history novel is set in a world with a history identical to our own, up to some specific point, where one specific difference occurs.
This book doesn’t really fit by that definition.
A more teleological definition would be, an alternate history novel is one the point of which is to explore the implications that would follow from a single change in a history otherwise identical to our own up to that point. Again, this book doesn’t really fit by that definition.
I can understand not liking the book for many reasons, (for example, as you said, not liking it because it involves fantastic creatures and their agendas–that I can completely understand!) but not liking it because it’s a bad alternate history novel makes no sense–because it’s not an alternate history novel.
Well, yes, it kinda is. Napoleonic wars, real historical events, but with a major difference in the setting. (Magic!)
There is no law that says that magical alternative history novels aren’t AHNs. Sure, it’s a fantasy novel also. It’s also a novel of manners and fashion. There’s also no law that says a book must be categorized only once.
(I don’t actually claim that there is a law that AHNs must reject ceteris paribus; I just dislike the ones that don’t, and consider them highly inferior AHNs. There are a handful of Romance Novels that have bitterly unhappy endings. They’re still Romance Novels…just damn oddball ones!)
(The first Western novel I ever read had an ending where the eastern tenderfoot accidentally shot the hero and the schoolmarm, both, dead! A really major WTF ending!)
And that I have enjoyed, though I don’t think it was exaggerated.
Hint: Novels, especially fantasy novels, aren’t real, and you will be frustrated if you can’t force-fit them into reality, or your preconceptions of what reality should be.
Yeah, plot was what I was looking for. Still haven’t found one, which is very much like reality, but I’m beginning to enjoy it more and will finish it, if only to give the sticks up Trinopus and Alessan’s butts a push. I find it hard to imagine them enjoying anything.
Yes and no. Even fantasy has to have rules, or else it will lack a sense of internal consistency.
John Campbell (apocryphally?) claimed that no one could write a science fiction mystery story, because the hero would just build an invention that solved the mystery. We know better today: we have many science fiction mysteries, and they work because “just building an invention that solved the mystery” is forbidden. It’s taboo. Anybody who tried it would be pilloried in the reviews.
Same with fantasy. Stories where the hero suddenly develops a new “power” or prays real hard to the gods, or plucks some new magic spell out of his butt – aren’t popular. (Ugh. Yes, people do write them. Ugh twice.)
Even fantasy fiction has to have enough “implicit reality” to allow the reader to suspend disbelief.
“A Wizard of Earthsea” succeeds in this. “The Magic May Return” succeeds at this. “Lord of the Rings” largely succeeds at this.
But for many of us, Strange and Norrell did not.
I think you may be making the mistake of arguing against people’s tastes and preferences, something which is classically viewed as futile.
