required reading

I recently picked up Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell for a re-read. Though it was met with mixed opinions on Palimpsest, it was well liked by some literary bloggers, however. Dovegreyreader describes the way she succumbed to the book after initial resistance, and calls it a 'manna for the soul' read. And Victoria at Eve's Alexandria says that it is the book she would take to a desert island with her.

Let me add to the praise by quoting some of the papers' reviews. The Washington Post reflected on the fact that the book was being compared to The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. "Yet Clarke's book isn't at all like Tolkien. Her antiquarian romance more accurately resembles Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum, Lawrence Norfolk's Lempriere's Dictionary and John Crowley's Aegypt sequence -- deeply learned novels that reimagine the nature of history." And Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is a thoroughly satisfying reworking of history - magic here is not like magic in the Harry Potter novels where it is supposed to be present in our own reality, yet the magical community is divided off from the 'muggle' world, drawing a thick black line between the world we know in reality, and the fantastical imaginings of the novels. Nor is it quite like Lord of the Rings, though the two books do have length in common, and an enticing sense of a developed world behind the stories. Of the three comparisons made in the Washington Post, I've only read the Eco, and that a long time ago, but I'd guess that the comparison is made for the ease and the seamlessness with which the authors slot alternative imaginings into the fabric of history. In Clarke's case, her novel covers well-known(ish) history, and if you've read Vanity Fair or other works set at the time of the Napoleonic Wars you'll probably be delighted to read the passages in which Jonathan Strange serves under Wellington.

The Telegraph calls Strange and Norrell "nourishing, 19th-century-style novel that will warm readers through any number of dark and stormy nights", and it was in exactly that sprit that I picked it up again a couple of weeks ago, as the perfect Autumn read. The novel hooked me from the first twenty pages when I read it a couple of years ago, and it drew me in again this time. Why is that so?

Well, I don't read very much fantasy nowadays, having overdosed in my teens on fantasy both good and bad, and indulging in the occasional bout since (Tolkein, David Eddings, Ursula LeGuin, Robert Jordan, Anne McCaffrey, and probably one or two others I'm forgetting comprising most of my expererience). What Strange and Norrell evoked in me was a profound sense of nostalgia for reading about the fantastical and otherworldly. Here is an intricately realized world of magic, the strangeness of which delights simply because it sits so easily with the world that we recognize. Here is a world of folk stories and fairy stories, of mirrors and silver bowls, of Pillars of Darkness and enchantments. And yet, this description doesn't adequately describe the novel, and those who are afraid of the fantasy genre can relax. Unless, that is, they are wary of the Victorian pastiche genre, which is exactly where this novel falls more naturally: among the Sarah Waters, Jane Harris, and Michael Faber novels of the past few years. Clarke does the Victorian thing with dexterity: her writing never feels laboured. It is not peppered with respelllings; though the odd one or two pop up every now and then, they seem to be chosen out of delight for their quaintness and silliness, rather than an irritating attempt to add atmosphere. Sopha is a case in point. It is sprinkled (what am I saying, it is overloaded) with footnotes, and for the most part, and certainly for the first half of the book, these little digressions (like small Faerie roads in themselves) add fun, and depth, to the reading experience. And the novel is as much about wild moorland landscapes a la Emily Bronte, or Regency ballrooms a la Jane Austen as it is about Spells of Revelation, as it flickers between murky Northern landscapes and brightly-lit London mansions and clubs.

I don’t expect to win any doubters to my cause, and I’m like dovegreyreader in that I don’t really want to engage in a debate on the merits and demerits of the novel. But having just re-read the novel gives me an opportunity to declare that it delighted me. And it gives me the chance to suggest that those who haven’t yet encountered this novel at all, or those who have been teetering on the fence and dissuaded by the heaviness and price of the tome, might want to check out the first chapter in pdf, here, and the fact that there are a range of options if you want to buy it new from Amazon – a £5 hardback, a £4.46 paperback, and a £9.09 3-volume set, for those who are still worried about RSI. If my maths serves me right, they’re all less than a penny a page (On Chesil Beach is currently about 4.5 pence a page, for the sake of comparison): good value, even if you skip all of the footnotes.