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Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell [Kindle Edition]

Susanna Clarke
3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1,003 customer reviews)

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Book Description

The international bestseller, reissued with a striking new illustrated cover. Part of The Bloomsbury Phantastic series - three books tracing the tradition of fantasy from Edgar Allan Poe to Neil Gaiman and Susanna Clarke. Susanna Clarke’s novel is an epic tale of nineteenth-century England and the two magicians who emerge to change its history. In the year 1806, in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars, most people believe magic to have long since disappeared from England -- until the reclusive Mr Norrell reveals his powers and becomes a celebrity overnight. Another practising magician emerges: the young and daring Jonathan Strange. He becomes Norrell’s pupil and the two join forces in the war against France. But Strange is increasingly drawn to the wildest, most perilous forms of magic and soon he risks sacrificing not only his partnership with Norrell, but everything else he holds dear.

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It's 1808 and that Corsican upstart Napoleon is battering the English army and navy. Enter Mr. Norrell, a fusty but ambitious scholar from the Yorkshire countryside and the first practical magician in hundreds of years. What better way to demonstrate his revival of British magic than to change the course of the Napoleonic wars? Susanna Clarke's ingenious first novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, has the cleverness and lightness of touch of the Harry Potter series, but is less a fairy tale of good versus evil than a fantastic comedy of manners, complete with elaborate false footnotes, occasional period spellings, and a dense, lively mythology teeming beneath the narrative. Mr. Norrell moves to London to establish his influence in government circles, devising such powerful illusions as an 11-day blockade of French ports by English ships fabricated from rainwater. But however skillful his magic, his vanity provides an Achilles heel, and the differing ambitions of his more glamorous apprentice, Jonathan Strange, threaten to topple all that Mr. Norrell has achieved. A sparkling debut from Susanna Clarke--and it's not all fairy dust. --Regina Marler

From Publishers Weekly

The drawing room social comedies of early 19th-century Britain are infused with the powerful forces of English folklore and fantasy in this extraordinary novel of two magicians who attempt to restore English magic in the age of Napoleon. In Clarke's world, gentlemen scholars pore over the magical history of England, which is dominated by the Raven King, a human who mastered magic from the lands of faerie. The study is purely theoretical until Mr. Norrell, a reclusive, mistrustful bookworm, reveals that he is capable of producing magic and becomes the toast of London society, while an impetuous young aristocrat named Jonathan Strange tumbles into the practice, too, and finds himself quickly mastering it. Though irritated by the reticent Norrell, Strange becomes the magician's first pupil, and the British government is soon using their skills. Mr. Strange serves under Wellington in the Napoleonic Wars (in a series of wonderful historical scenes), but afterward the younger magician finds himself unable to accept Norrell's restrictive views of magic's proper place and sets out to create a new age of magic by himself. Clarke manages to portray magic as both a believably complex and tedious labor, and an eerie world of signs and wonders where every object may have secret meaning. London politics and talking stones are portrayed with equal realism and seem indisputably part of the same England, as signs indicate that the Raven King may return. The chock-full, old-fashioned narrative (supplemented with deft footnotes to fill in the ignorant reader on incidents in magical history) may seem a bit stiff and mannered at first, but immersion in the mesmerizing story reveals its intimacy, humor and insight, and will enchant readers of fantasy and literary fiction alike.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Details

  • File Size: 3845 KB
  • Print Length: 866 pages
  • Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1582346038
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (June 5, 2010)
  • Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B003RRXXMA
  • Text-to-Speech: Not enabled
  • X-Ray: Enabled
  • Lending: Enabled
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #14,001 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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Customer Reviews

Susanna Clarke is a wonderful novelist and the story is fascinating, complex and amazingly detailed. Elizabeth Hendry  |  244 reviewers made a similar statement
One problem many books seem to have is being too long. iris flannery  |  63 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
434 of 447 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Clearing up misconceptions November 2, 2004
By Antaeus
Format:Hardcover
After reading the negative reviews of this book, I thought it would be helpful to clear up some misconceptions and set out a quick test of whether a reader is likely to enjoy "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell".

Here's my take: it's NOT Harry Potter. If you want a quick-paced book, with lots of action and easy-to-read prose, THIS IS NOT YOUR BOOK. Here's the test: If, by the end of the first chapter, you have not laughed out loud or even chuckled, YOU WILL PROBABLY NOT LIKE THIS BOOK. And that's perfectly OK - I hope I've saved you from buying it (nothing's worse, IMHO, than buying a book you end up hating).

I personally love this book - I'd easily rate it as one of the best books I've read in years. But I also love Jane Austen, Mervyn Peake and Lord Dunsany. To me, this book is both an homage to and a witty send-up of 19th century literature. But you have to like that kind of literature and "get" the jokes that the author is making (both in the style of the prose as well as the play on historical events) to really enjoy this book.

I want to make it clear that I think it's fine if people hate this book. However, I am troubled by comments that suggest it's a bad book. That's not true - it's simply a matter of preferences. For example, I happen to detest Dickens and like comic books. But I don't think that Dickens is an awful writer and comic book writers are superior to him - Dickens just isn't my style. So I'd emphasize that, in my opinion, Susanna Clarke is a phenomenal writer. But the pleasure of this book lies as much (if not more) in the way it's written as the events that take place - so if you're not interested in prose for its own sake, it'll be hard going.
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1,655 of 1,752 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A pleasure throughout but patience required September 16, 2004
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I'm giving Jonathan Strange a 5 for the simply reason that I thoroughly enjoyed it all the way through, but I'd warn all readers to be more wary than usual of reviews (including this one). More than many books, this one I think will be a matter of true personal taste and experience will be your only truly accurate guide.

To begin with, Strange is often referred to as a "fantasy" novel, an "adult" Harry Potter (ignoring Potter's self-obvious claim to millions of "adult" readers). If you're expecting fantasy in the form of Harry Potter magic (though done by bigger people employing bigger words) or Lord of the Rings-like quests and elves, be advised neither is here. Fantastical might be a better genre-word here than "fantasy". There is certainly magic here, both human and faerie (very different forms), but when one of the major storylines is how magic has gradually disappeared from England and when one of the major characters has as his purpose the destruction (not Black Tower hordes of evil monsters destruction but economic, social, or legal destruction) of those who would become magician, as you might imagine there isn't a lot of magic going on, at least not for the first few hundred pages. Those looking for a lot of wand-waving or fireball-flinging would best look elsewhere.

One of the signs of the book's maturity is that one can't really generalize too much about the magic in it. Magic is almost invisible in the beginning and near-constant toward the end. It is scholarly, bookish and tedious and also vigorous, physical and exciting. It is human and Faerie and a melding of the two. It is all-powerful (Spain complains about the rearrangement of several of their country's geographic landmarks) and ineffective (you can see visions in water but they seldom are helpful). It is the subject of dry articles in academic journals and the cause of near-rumbles in local taverns. It is wonderfully complex and realistic. It is at times dazzlingly original (ships and sailors formed of rain, statues anguished over crimes committed beneath them), and handled often as if it is the most pedestrian, mundane aspect of daily life, except for the whole raise-the-dead, towering-shaft-of-neverending-night sort of thing.

As for other fantasy genre elements, there is no band of diverse creatures setting out on a quest to defeat some dark lord; no tall, shining elvish archers; no nomadic horse-loving tribes. If you want to find a Tolkien analogue, it isn't Lord of the Rings but Smith of Wooten Major, an often forgotten story about the collision of the human and faerie realms.

Strange is also referred to as a historical novel. It is set in early 19th century England, Wellington and other historical figures make their appearance, characters travel in carriages rather than cars. But the book's historical setting, like its magical element, is more pervasive than emphatic. It exists alongside the characters and story and serves them rather than being front and center as is true of so many historical novels. One is always aware of the historical setting, but I don't think anyone would come away from Strange with a truly enlarged understanding of the time period, as say one might from Lindsay Davis' mystery series set in ancient Rome, where specific foods and social rituals and forms of clothing etc. are constantly set before the reader. The setting is utterly believable, I'm sure meticulously researched, detailed and accurate, but it still doesn't feel like a "historical novel". Which from my view is a strength not a weakness.

My advice therefore is not to place your should I read or not bet on the book's labels. What should you know?

It's long. Very long. Longer than it seems according to the page count, since there are pages and pages of small-type footnotes throughout. Is it too long? I'm sure many people will think so. It takes its time in setting up story and character, leisurely is probably too fast-paced a description. It is far from compelling in the first few hundred pages in the sense of "must turn page to find out what happens". Personally, I found it compelling through character and style rather than plot. If you prefer plot, then prepare to be somewhat bored until the latter third where it moves along more speedily and in more traditional compelling manner.

It's discursive. Very discursive. It will wander away quite often and sometimes at great length from the major plot lines, interrupting with academic asides or summaries/analyses of old folktales, or snippets of poetry. Again, some will probably find this maddening, some will simply skip the footnotes entirely. I liked the discursive nature of the book and found the footnotes often as enjoyable as the main text, always tolerable, and only rarely annoying.

It is often beautifully written. it's one of those books where you'll pause over a line to reread it or let its effect linger a little while, whether due to the simple beauty of description, the efficiency of its brevity, or its dry wit. It is a true pleasure to read. Not to find out what happened. Simply to read.

It's often funny. It is at times frighteningly dark. It has at times a domestic feel and at other times a grand mythic feel, especially in connection to the Raven King, the mysterious magician-king of old North England who also ruled over a land of Faerie and allegedly another land bordering Hell who disappeared centuries ago with the promise of return. Whether that return is to be wished for or not is the core dispute between the two magicians of the title.

It is character driven. There are many wonderful scenes of "action", more so toward the latter half, but they tend to be understated while the book focuses more on character. Both Strange and Norrell are fully-fleshed out characters, totally believable in all their assets and flaws. We are given the time to know them and if Strange seems more appealing due to his more active role in the book, Norrell is no less accessible or recognizable for his minor jealousies and passiveness, though we may wish to deny the same traits in ourselves. The story of their meeting, their partnership, their sundering and what comes next is one of the major storylines and one of the more engaging, even if it happens mostly on the interior and despite the fact that the characters themselves are not particularly compelling by nature.

There is a lot more one could say about this book. It's a lengthy work and a dense work. One could discuss the conflict between wild faerie and civilized England--presented in shades of grey rather than black and white. The sharp social commentary. The distant narrative tone. But this review is edging close to the length of one of her footnotes, so I'll bring it to a close.

Try Jonathan Strange. If it doesn't draw you along, keep trying. If it still doesn't, try skimming footnotes, skimming pages, dipping in now and then to keep up on plot and catch one of those well-crafted lines, then come in for a landing and try again word by word. It isn't a rollercoaster ride on a summer Saturday . But it is a memorably gorgeous walk on a crisp autumn day, filled with slow sensual delight. Highly recommended.
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456 of 491 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Quite the book. September 3, 2004
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book is hard to describe. In terms of genre, it is both fantasy and well-researched historical fiction, which makes it a rather rare bird. The writing style falls somewhere between Austen and Gaiman and Dickens. The plot is somewhat rambling and disjoint, forsaking the standard quest narratives; in some ways it is a fantastic history of England, in some ways a tale of rescue. If it is anything, it is the story of the relationship between the two title characters, but one of them is not even introduced for two hundred pages.

. Unlike most of the better modern fantasy, this book is not a page-turner, and I mean that as a compliment; rather, it is a book to savor. Not that the plot isn't engaging - it is - but I frequently found myself comparing how many pages I'd read to how many I had left, deciding that I was burning through the book too quickly, and setting it down while I turned the passages I'd just read over in my head.

As befits a character-driven fantasy, almost all the characters are likeable, or at least understandable; even when they take larger-than-life action, they do so for incredibly human reasons. There are also a number of historical-character cameos, all of them well-drawn and believable..

I do not agree with Mr. Gaiman's statement that this is "the finest English novel of the fantasticke to appear in the past 70 years." Tolkien is better; his work has an epic grandeur that this book lacks, perhaps because Susanna Clarke so realistically and concretely evokes the precise historical era at which she aims : the imagination has a somewhat wider canvas to paint on when reading Tolkien or similar high fantasy, with more blank space to be filled in by the reader. Setting fantasy in a specific historical setting means that the magic stands out against the realistic elements, rather than dictating the whole scope and shape of the world, and readers who prefer their fantasy more total - who prefer to sink themselves into a wholly fantastic world - may prefer other books. (On the other hand, readers who prefer to sink themselves into specific historical eras, but still appreciate fantasy elements, will no doubt enjoy this book, especially the ways in which the author incorporates magical elements into the recorded historical happenings of the era, such as, for example, the battle of Waterloo). I would also argue that Mr. Gaiman's novels are "better," in that I personally prefer them slightly, if only because they tend to have a little more tension and action in them.

But on the whole this book is very, very good, and I recommend it highly to anyone who likes historical fiction, fantasy novels, or just quality writing and well-drawn, likeable characters. This is not, however, fantasy for the action-oriented, or for those who desire a bad guy or monster every few pages. This is a book to be read while sitting in a comfortable chair by a warm fire, something drinkable near at hand; a book to be quietly enjoyed.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Marvelous, Entrancing and Magical
This debut novel from Susanne Clarke is one of my all-time favorite books. I've read this long, wandering and complex novel several times, and I've often tried to think through why... Read more
Published 12 days ago by Ned D. Hayes
4.0 out of 5 stars Long
I enjoyed the storyline and the book, but it seemed long. Good to read, though, and has imaginative food for thought.
Published 29 days ago by Dusty R. Roth
5.0 out of 5 stars Well written/Delicious story
Susanna Clarke is a thinking writer ... I always love a book where the verbiage challenges me AND I get a story that is intricate and satisfying!
Published 1 month ago by vk
5.0 out of 5 stars On my fifth reading of this book and still loving it.
I love this book, but I should warn you I love complicated plot dense Victorian or Victorian pastiche-style novels. The longer the better. Read more
Published 1 month ago by JG Siro
5.0 out of 5 stars Subtlmazing
yeah i made a new word just for this book because it deserves it

you know how you flip out your kindle and read a book that you are not really interested to pass the... Read more
Published 1 month ago by satroan
1.0 out of 5 stars Really boring
I read almost a third of the book before I decided that this was a big waste of time. There was a lot of color but the author didn't really have much to say that was interesting.
Published 1 month ago by Jester
5.0 out of 5 stars clever and entrancing
You need patience and an appreciation of the style which is similar to Jane Austen to truly enjoy this book. If those are met-its just a great book!
Published 1 month ago by Rooney Kelley
5.0 out of 5 stars Loved this book
Awesome strangeness with tons of little details and history that really create an very contextually deep story. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Hippy
5.0 out of 5 stars "I gave magic to England, a valuable inheritance"
Before I read this book, I kept hearing about how long it was, but once I started, it flew by. I loved the mixture of fantasy and history, including the characters of the book... Read more
Published 2 months ago by keegan
5.0 out of 5 stars Adult Potter
No kid topics here. This is 100% adult oriented. The question being pondered is what happened to magic in England. I couldn't put this one down. Excellent adult fiction!
Published 2 months ago by Yona R. Owens
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This Book IS BAD
I couldn't disagree more with Vincent's "Assessment". This is one of the best books I've read in many years. In fact I've just re-read the novel and enjoyed it just as much. This is quality writing, not a dumb beach read!
Jul 15, 2006 by Susan Taylor |  See all 40 posts
Who is Strange's Enemy?
it is supposed to be Mr. Norrell, and I believe this is proven by later events. Mr. Strange's lack of comment upon meeting him in the flesh seems to be either an oversight on the part of the author or perhaps distraction on Mr. Strange's part (perhaps he was thinking about a book he was reading?)
Oct 28, 2012 by Micah L. Key |  See all 2 posts
SPOILER: Why didn't the eternal darkness disappear?
The eternal darkness remained because it was the only way that Strange and Norrell would remain together to work magic. Maybe they perpetuate the darkness. Maybe John Usklass perpetuates the darkness. Yes, the darkness was initiated by the gentleman with the thistle-down hair, but Strange and... Read more
Jul 31, 2011 by DogTribe |  See all 5 posts
Introduction missing?
I would like to know about this as well as I'd love to read the introduction which is currently missing in the Kindle version.
Mar 3, 2012 by Mikhail Popov |  See all 2 posts
Can You Skip the Footnotes?
If you skip the footnotes, you will be missing an extraordinary part of the book...
Dec 18, 2010 by NuevoMexico |  See all 7 posts
Restricted Kindle Daily Deals in Australia
Too bad, once again a good daily deal that interests me, and again it is not available in Europe. It seems indeed that only mediocre books are available worldwide. It's becoming a very big disappointment the daily deal.
Nov 13, 2011 by Stephen Gale |  See all 2 posts
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