Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke (2004), is an exceptional historical fiction/fantasy novel. The first several pages of the paperback edition are given over to glowing praise from one reviewer after another. Several liken Clarke's work to Tolkein. At first blush, this is hard to see, as Mr Norrell is firmly grounded in early 19th-century England, not in a Middle Earth of invented languages and histories. But in fact, Clarke has invented a good bit of history, though she does not dramatically introduce it; rather, it just comes up in telling the story. (And after all, why make a big deal of it? Every schoolchild knows that John Uskglass, the magical Raven King, ruled northern England from Newcastle for 300 years.) Like Borges, Clarke has invented much of her magical history through books, and Mr Norrell is peppered with footnotes citing the works of the great English magicians.

Clarke has also captured many plot elements of the Brontë and Austen novels we read in high school. There is a strong sense of social class and propriety, and it matters how many pounds per year one has. These flavors, captured in the language as well as the action, is layered with more familiar history. (Look, there's the Duke of Wellington! and Lord Byron!)

The plot centers on Mr Norrell and Jonathan Strange (really), the first two practical, practicing magicians seen in England for hundreds of years. It takes a while for the magic to kick in, but when it does, it is grounded in the common, natural world, with the everyday-ness of a (19th-century) Twilight Zone. This magic (generally) does not explode on the scene with mystical pyrotechnics, but rather reshapes reality in a way that characters (and the reader) sometimes do not even perceive. And the limitations of the magicians make the magic more interesting. As Jonathan Strange discovers when trying to free a grounded ship, the ability to summon winds is no help if you do not understand sailing.

Mr Norrell is a long book (over 1,000 pages in paperback), and I did find it dragging a bit around two-thirds of the way through. (But when you're flying to Nigeria and back, you don't want some ephemeral Crichton in your bag.) But this is a minor quibble, probably one I won't even notice when I re-read this book, soon. You should get reading, too.