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(B+) 77% | GoodNotes: Very slow paced and the ending doesn't justify its length, but characters are strong and it shows flashes of brilliance.
3.5 I FINALLY FINISHED
If a novel of nearly 900 pages can be summarised in one phrase then Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell may, I think, be described as a stately, sly, witty, intricate, comic retelling of Dracula, with digressions and very little blood. Count Dracula takes life from beautiful young ladies, enslaves them, enchants them, enraptures them, steals them away, into his own twilight (oops, sorry) vampire world – they become something other than what they were, undead, not alive yet not dead, creatures which do...
In the beginning was a preface, and then an introduction, followed by some exposition, and then an opening. Looking through the reviews, it appears many people either adore it or hate it. Frankly, I'm in neither camp, because I can't work up enough emotion to care. It took a long time to become interested, and I finally had to resort to a strategy of reading only a few chapters at a time, setting free any expectation that this was a book that would pull me in and never let me go. It became the p...
Sigh, just what we need, another revolutionary, unusual fantasy book by an author with a practiced mastery of tone. When will authors like Clarke realize that what the fantasy genre needs are more pseudo-medieval monomyths that sprawl out into fifteen volumes?Her magic didn't conveniently solve all of the characters' problems, instead, they wasted time thinking through conflicts and then had to solve them by taking action; how dull is that? The magic was weird, anyways. It didn't have a simplist...
Without a doubt the best book I have read this year. I write that without hesitation and with a beaming smile on my face. Incredible. Enthralling. Amazing. The book was over 800 pages long and it did not seem long enough. When I finished the book, I immediately turned out the light and tried to drift off to sleep, because I knew nothing else I did that night was going to top the feeling I got after blowing through the last 100 pages like a madwoman. I want to start it over again, immediately.The...
If a writer is going to publish a book this big (thousand plus pages) then it must be very good, or the readers will never know about the thousands plus pages beyond the heft as they toss it aside or by the thickness as it is put back on the shelf.This book is that good.Using language correct for the time period (Napoleonic Wards era, early 1800s) and richly complex characterizations reminiscent of Jane Austen or Charles Dickens, author Susanna Clarke has crafted a gem. It was the winner of and
In the early part of the nineteenth -century there arose in northern England ( well one by the border of Wales) two powerful magicians, old bookworm Gilbert Norrell of Hurtfew Abbey, always reading in his immense dark library, obscure ancient dusty books on the subject that he cares only about, magic and young tall Jonathan Strange, who inherited like his future short friend, tutor and rival Mr. Norrell, (not interested then, in wizardry) a vast amount of property and money. Around the city of Y...
After a hiatus of several centuries since it was actively practiced, magic is back in early 19th century England. Clarke has created an alternate, magical history, in which England had once been divided between north and south, and a temporal and a fairy kingdom. Stuffy intellectuals satisfy themselves with studying the writings of the past, forming debating societies. But in 1807 a person emerges who dares to actually practice magic. Eddie Marsden as Mr Norrell - from AMC networksMr Norrell is...
This book was a chore! While I liked the story, the writing style was not enjoyable at all for me. Also, I am not really sure why everything happened, what exactly happened, and why it took so many words and pages to tell this story.It started at 5 stars and, as I trudged through the book, there was a slow leak of stars as my interest started to wane. That leak stopped at 2 stars.