I hope you enjoy it. It’s a magnificent book imo.
If you got the hardback, don’t read it lying on your back, as it might fall and cause you a black eye.
Personal experience? Me? It is to laugh!
I watched the first episode of the TV show and thought “this is pretty dull, but seems like the kind of thing that would read better than it plays visually.”
Two weeks later, I’ve been disabused of that notion. Just can’t barely force myself to read more than a few paragraphs at a time and just finally made it through the talking statues (so: about 20 minutes into the first episode). So dull.
I just finished it last night and loved it. The first part was a little slow to pick up but once Mr. Norrell does his particular act of magic for the Prime Minister’s wife, it picks up and becomes faster paced. I thought the footnotes and back story on the Raven King were lots of fun as was Strange’s experiences with Wellington.
The story of Stephen Black was especially well done, in my opinion. The way he falls in to the fairy’s enchantment was so accidental and real to me. And I thought the ending was perfect.
I had two books going on at the same time- A Thousand Splendid Suns which is quite dark and Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell was a relief to that darkness without being silly.
Uh, aren’t both sides of this debate doing that? One side likes it and another side doesn’t.
I think, while it is of course futile to argue who is right or wrong in a matter of taste, it is interesting to see why one side likes it and the other doesn’t.
To my mind, there are three reasons people commonly give for not liking it:
(1) Don’t like the language. Find it pretentious.
(2) Plot moves too slowly. Dull.
(3) Breaks the rules of fantasy/alternative history. Can’t suspend disbelief.
In contrast, people who like the book find the use of language part of its charm, are enjoying the ride too much to complain about the pace, and don’t care that it breaks the rules of fantasy/alternative history because, to them, it isn’t a “genre” novel at all, but basically a comedy of manners with a fantasy setting.
To my mind it’s not an argument about tastes, it’s an argument about the nature and purpose of the work, and about what is psychologically plausible or not.
I haven’t read the whole thread, but I know I’m in the minority of really not liking this book. If you don’t like it by now, put it away and never look back.
While I can see the objections of the “alternate history” crowd, I’ve always found that learning the politics and intrigues of an imaginary reality was tedious. And, particularly in a fantasy where you’re not extrapolating from one deviation from recorded history, it’s also quite pointless. So if an author wants to postulate that some enormously unlikely concatenation of events results in pretty much the same cast of characters and geopolitical layout occurring in the alternate reality at the time the story starts, I’m actually OK with that.
I’d rather be told “Napoleon vs. England” and be instantly up to speed with the geopolitical situation than have to suffer through pages of alternate reality CSPAN.
Thank God for ebook readers!
Fair enough.
Definitely so! My reasons may not be your reasons…my reasons may in fact be absolutely and diametrically opposed to your reasons…but I do have reasons.
In some differences over tastes, it isn’t really explainable. If someone doesn’t like chocolate, they don’t actually have a “reason.” It just doesn’t taste good.
The fact that this applies in this case (Strange and Norrell) also is a source of some confusion. In addition to my not liking it on various specific grounds…I also just plain kinda didn’t like it.
(I do adore comedies of manners in genre. Alexei Panshin’s “Villiers” novels, or Walter Jon Williams’ “Maijstral” novels are the peachiest! Anyone who does like Strange and Norrell might give these a peep. As well as anyone who doesn’t!)
Spot on, old prune.
I moderately enjoyed Jonathan Strange, but only for the language; I enjoy historical fiction that is written in the style of the age. Patrick O’Brian and George Macdonald Fraser also wrote that way. But O’Brian and Fraser could also tell a gripping tale; purely as a story, Jonathan Strange was a failure. I finished it, but, like Trinopus, only out of sheer, bloody-minded stubbornness.
Piffle! A netbook has a built-in, stable base and can rest on your belly whether you are awake, asleep, or dead.
There seem to be many “Maijstral” novels. Do they start to suck halfway through the second one, like a series of which I recommended the first volume above?
??? I can’t tell if you’re disagreeing with me, or agreeing. Anyway, hooray for readers of any kind, so you don’t have to hold up an immense heavy hardcover. (I, too, like to read lying on my back. Strange and Norrell was painful to read! But not as painful as it was for Uniqueorn!
I believe there are three of them, and, alas, the first is the best, the second is next best, and the third is third best. I wouldn’t say that they ever suck; they’re still plenty fun all the way to the end.
(It’s a little tricky, as the collection of all three books has been given a new title of its own, but it is only books one, two, and three under one cover.)
WJW said that the books were a disappointment to him. They were harder to write than anything else of his – comedy is hard! – and they did not sell well. They sold so poorly, in fact, that the sales figures torpedoed another deal he was negotiating. But the books are much beloved by at least some few of his fans, and I did have the joy of telling him this in person.
Although obviously the book has an “alternate history” setting, I didn’t get any sense that it was supposed to be of that genre. Alternate history books tend to be driven by the difference in history; in this book it’s largely scene setting for the comedy of manners that forms the main plot. The history bits are relegated to the footnotes and occasional conversational snippets.
It may even make more sense to say it’s not so much an alternate history setting as a fantasy setting closely based on reality. Potato, potahto, I suppose.
Yes, I don’t consider JS&MN to be in the alt-hist genre, really. It’s more of a magical fantasy/Austenian novel with a historical setting, some of the details of which happen to diverge from our own timeline. But those divergences are not the point of the story.
This is one of the books I have started several times and stalled out in the middle, unable to finish.
I like the BBC series far more than the book; I just couldn’t visualize the action and characters on paper, so there’s something about the writing that doesn’t engage my brain. I even tried again after seeing the first two episodes – again, no dice.
Other books/authors I am unable to finish:
Infinite Jest (David Foster Wallace)
Madame Bovary (Flaubert)
Anything by Thomas Pynchon, Salman Rushdie, or Don DeLillo
I had to read Bovary for three separate classes. Note that “had to read” /= “finished.” What a dreadfully dull book about a horrid, selfish woman! I got up to the British candy scene in Gravity’s Rainbow and figured it was all downhill from there so I quit, humming “Savoy Truffles” as I put the book away.
My TBR pile is a bit unwieldy. I just picked this (Strange and Norrell) up yesterday and finished it, well, technically this morning. I really liked it. I immediately started searched for the sequel. There are some short stories, and Susanna Clarke is apparently working on a something (and has been for some time).
I really enjoyed it.
My biggest problem with Turtledove is that he has lost any imagination he may have had. His more recent novels (last decade or so) have been exactly historical events with the ID numbers filed off and different names inserted.
It’s possible that Norrell knew some Parlor tricks before.
But there are other magicians that arrive after them: Part of their purpose is return magic.
Also - there is one part of the ending that doesn’t make sense to me at.
The death of the Gentleman with the Thistledown Hair undoes all of his works except the Darkness around Strange (and Norrell). Why? This does not compute.