Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

I read only the first 150 p. or so before bogging down. It seemed structured as a series of distinct episodes, rather than as a plot that accumulates meaning and tension as it goes along - I like it when p.100, say, feels richer, for all that's happened, than p.5. The voice was charming, though. Should I pick it back up?

It does wind itself up a little more, but the sense of non-urgency remains. The highlight of the book, for me, was when Strange confronts Drawlight in Venice. If only the whole book had been so full of tension.

Were I to recommend it at all, it would have to be for the language.

Basically I think that JS&MN should have won the Man Booker Prize 2004. Even if I loved Alan Hollinghurst's novel (HE surely can write!), Susanna Clarke penned an overall more enjoyable book. It's a page-turner and no, I don't understand the critics of those who say (see above for an example) that the structure of the plot seems fragmented. Quite the contrary, it flows nicely until the very end where, admittedly, S. Clarked rushes things a bit (I think she had her editor's breath on her neck....). The language is utterly fantastic, as I already wrote on this very board, it's like W.M. Thackeray had written a fantasy novel. You can check the official website for a taste of her writing. All in all, I think this was one of the most enjoyable novels that I've read in a looong while.

I'm approaching the end of this. I do like it but i think the plot does have structure and pacing problems, and if you're going to write a novel about magic I just feel it should be more, well, magical. Plus it's pretty bloody hefty so I really need extra encouragement to keep on picking it up. There are a few GREAT moments like the one SRH mentioned above but in such a long book they kind of get swallowed. A shame.

The language is delightful and the premise should have made for an engaging read, but I got bogged down to the point of apathy just past half-way. Strikes me she could have benefitted from an aggressive editor. At two-thirds of its present length it might have been a classic, but I'll never know, unless the book and I wash up on an island together. Too many other books to get to, sorry.

I read it in one short and one long sitting over xmas vacation, so I'd agree with it being a page turner, but the end was weak. As was I.

I read this earlier this year and I have to say I loved it. Yes, it's episodic, and yes, it does repeat itself a bit (how many scenes did we need to establish that Drawlight & friend were disingenuous in their friendship with Norrell, or that the black guy was an unhappy prisoner of the fairy guy?). But on the overall it really worked, set up a good sense of time and place and managed to do the "magic in the real world" thing in a way that wasn't precious or stupid. I liked how the magic itself was often understated and matter-of-fact, and how the political relationship to it was even moreso. But what I liked most of all was that it was a work of geek fiction in which the central tension was ultimately whether two geeks could get along. It's amazing how little that approach is used, and how brilliant it can be when it's properly explored. Kavalier & Clay brushes in this direction and is stronger for it, and of course Ghost World (the comic, not the film) entirely revolves around this idea - although they're more just willing outcasts than geeks proper. The tenuous friendship between Strange and Norrell is so dead-on accurate and sweet that I had to love the book, rushed ending and all.

read it a year back. loved it.

Absolutely loved it - completely absorbing, marvelous language, intriguing story and ideas ... but I think it's something that needs to be read in just a couple sittings as it loses some of the mystery and magic if it's read in small interludes.

It is too fucking big to carry in my bag to work, so I do not read it at lunch break and thus it remains unread.

could not get into this and i really wanted to. maybe it was the wrong time of year. I should wait until winter

I just gave up on it today. Tedious and self-congratulatorially whimsical like a motherfucker. Utterly intolerable.

Sorry, I meant to post that in the ILE thread on the book. Dangol' google search, not discriminating between forums. Anyway, didn't mean to just drop in and leave a turd in the sandbox.