Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

By: Susanna Clarke

Narrated by: Simon Prebble

Length: 32 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

English magicians were once the wonder of the known world, with fairy servants at their beck and call; they could command winds, mountains, and woods. But by the early 1800s they have long since lost the ability to perform magic. They can only write long, dull papers about it, while fairy servants are nothing but a fading memory.

But at Hurtfew Abbey in Yorkshire, the rich, reclusive Mr. Norrell has assembled a wonderful library of lost and forgotten books from England's magical past and regained some of the powers of England's magicians. He goes to London and raises a beautiful young woman from the dead. Soon he is lending his help to the government in the war against Napoleon Bonaparte, creating ghostly fleets of rain-ships to confuse and alarm the French.

All goes well until a rival magician appears. Jonathan Strange is handsome, charming, and talkative, the very opposite of Mr. Norrell. Strange thinks nothing of enduring the rigors of campaigning with Wellington's army and doing magic on battlefields. Astonished to find another practicing magician, Mr. Norrell accepts Strange as a pupil. But it soon becomes clear that their ideas of what English magic ought to be are very different. For Mr. Norrell, their power is something to be cautiously controlled, while Jonathan Strange will always be attracted to the wildest, most perilous forms of magic. He becomes fascinated by the ancient, shadowy figure of the Raven King, a child taken by fairies who became king of both England and Faerie, and the most legendary magician of all. Eventually Strange's heedless pursuit of long-forgotten magic threatens to destroy not only his partnership with Norrell, but everything that he holds dear.

Sophisticated, witty, and ingeniously convincing, Susanna Clarke's magisterial novel weaves magic into a flawlessly detailed vision of historical England. She has created a world so thoroughly enchanting that 32 hours leave readers longing for more.

©2004 Susanna Clarke (P)2004 Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers, LLC, and Bloomsbury Publishing

Critic reviews

• Hugo Award Winner, Best Novel, 2005

• World Fantasy Award Winner, 2005

• Audie Award Finalist, Literary Fiction, 2005

"A smashing success....An exceptionally compelling, brilliantly creative, and historically fine-tuned piece of work." (Booklist)
"Extraordinary....Immersion in the mesmerizing story reveals its intimacy, humor, and insight, and will enchant readers of fantasy and literary fiction alike." (Publishers Weekly)
"Ravishing...superb...combines the dark mythology of fantasy with the delicious social comedy of Jane Austen into a masterpiece of the genre that rivals Tolkien." (Time)
"Clarke welcomes herself into an exalted company of British writers - not only, some might argue, Dickens and Austen, but also the fantasy legends Kenneth Grahame and George MacDonald - as well as contemporary writers like Susan Cooper and Philip Pullman." (The New York Times Book Review)

I still think about this book.

All I can tell you is months after listening to this book, I still think about it, and remember the beautiful passages. This book sticks with you, like "Middlesex", or "The Time Travelers Wife" it becomes a part of you. That is great story-telling.

Beautiful writing and a bewitching story.

This novel came together so elegantly that every unexpected twist felt as if one should have seen it coming, and Clarke's prose was a delight to the ear. I especially enjoyed the digressions into the history of magic.

Extraordinary Book!!

This was a random choice for me, but it's one of the happiest reading accidents I've ever had. This has become one of my favorite books of all time. The brilliance, intricacy, creativity, and detail are as breathtaking as the story is compelling. The manner in which folklore and history are cleverly woven into sheer fantasy is astounding. I was hooked by the time I'd reached the end of the first chapter.

I highly recommend the recording as well; perfectly and tastefully performed in a manner that keeps the listener engaged. This is one I come back to again and again. :)

Favorite Book This Year

There are not words to do justice to how much I loved this book. Charming and quaint and humorous and eerie by turns, it is a slow burn that is well worth the wait. In many ways, the wait is every bit as enjoyable as what for that which you are waiting. Clarke has a captivating style that reminds me of a contemporary P.G. Wodehouse. I truly can't sing the praises of this book enough.

Good the First Time, Better the Second Time Around

I read this novel when it was initially published over 10 years ago and liked it well enough to keep a copy in the house. In connection with the recent dramatization of the novel, I took the trouble to re-read it and found to my surprise a far better book than I had remembered. It is not a short, easily absorbed work, but if you pay attention and let it work its spell, you will find yourself finishing it with regret that you have come to the end.

This is an alternate worlds tale - a tale of an England well into the Industrial Revolution and the modern age, yet one, unlike our own, in which magic once flourished and in which a magician king, John Uskglass, conquered and ruled Northern England for centuries before mysteriously disappearing.

The conceit of the novel is that of a learned work narrating the lives of the two magicians who bring magic back to England, Jonathan Strange and Gilbert Norrell, footnoted with the supposed sources from which it draws. This is of course all more than somewhat tongue in cheek. The irony of the details related and their absurdities, all presented in a dry, understated tone, is quite humorous and one of the many charms of this engaging work.

Clark is said to have taken 12 years to write Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, and the time which she took to write and polish the work shows. The sheer inventiveness of the author in peopling this alternate England and in describing the many fictitious volumes of magical lore and their odd stories is a source of constant amazement. Clark has immersed herself in the actual history of early 19th century England during the Napoleonic Wars to a degree which itself is stunning and far more correct in its details than many historical novels of the period. In addition, however, Clark has interwoven myriad details of magicians, fairies, lost spells and hidden realms, the cumulative effect of which is stunning. The itinerant magician, Vinculus, is a particularly rich and improbably invention, and is but one strand of many strands of invention and fantasy which enrich the book.

The book is of course quite long by contemporary standards, though probably shorter than most of the major works of such 19th century English authors as Dickens, Trollope or Eliot. It shares with such works, however, the quality of total immersion in another world created by the author. Though a recent work, Clark has managed to infuse Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell with more than a little of the flavor of the gothic novels of the late 18th c. with a touch of the comedies of manners of Jane Austen and even a bit of George Eliot and Anthony Trollope thrown in for good measure. It is much to the credit of this book that it is so well written, its dialogue so well crafted.

The plot of the novel concerns the awakening of English magic through the efforts of Messrs. Strange and Norrell and their nemesis, a fairy king, the 'Gentleman with Thistle-Down Hair' as he takes the magicians' measure and is ultimately defeated, though ironically, not by either Strange or Norrell. The twists and turns by which Strange becomes a powerful magician in his own right are full of interest as are the strange, unhappy lives of those to whom the Gentleman with Thistle-Down Hair takes a liking.

Clark followed up this novel with a series of equally charming and erie tales called the Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories. It is said that she is working on a new book. I hope that we'll see it soon.

Finally - kudos to Simon Prebble, the narrator of this audio version, for providing exactly the right tone to the book. Prebble really inhabits the characters and makes distinct the voices he uses for them, something which really cause the book to shine in this audio version.

Starts slow but gets better

This book starts off very slowly and takes a while to come together. I stopped reading for a couple months before finally restarting and finishing it. I think the world and mythology are really well done but you don't really get into the meat of it until the back half of the book. The last half/quarter of the book was very good and made the slow start worth the time invested. So, while the pace is a little out of whack I ended up enjoying it in the end.

Lose yourself in a great narration

I'm a voracious reader, always reading the book first in print. If I like/love it, I purchase the audible book and listen to it as I follow along in the print version again. Many times, and certainly in this case, the narration enhances my enjoyment and immersion in the story.

It has to be my favorite at this point

I know others struggled to finish this book, which made me hesitant at first, but I'm glad I didn't heed those warnings. It took practically all my willpower not to finish this in one sitting. The performance was astounding, the writing was charming and engaging, all over one of my favorite books and one of my favorite audio performances together. Could not recommend this more.

Slow so slow but narrator excellent

I read the reviews that said the first 8 hours were slow. For me the first 27 hours were slow mostly because I couldn't seem to care about the characters. I can't explain it but I felt only frustration through out most of the story. Frustration at missed information and opportunities. I usually enjoy slow paced books but usually the pace picks up and the emotions get stronger and I grow fond of characters. But this narrative style was more like a historical biography. A fictional account of certain events. May be this book requires more attention to details that would have tied up all the seemingly loose ends. Some were and others seemed like dead ends to me without purpose. Don't get me wrong, the story was well written and the narrator amazing (as always) but it lacked something for me. I was surprised at the end when I finally found myself emotional and actually cared about so many characters I had felt nothing for before. I nearly cried but it was too little too late. And don't get me started on the lack of strong female characters. Don't say to me that the weak women were a result of the time in history. This was fiction! And I can't believe that one strong female character couldn't have existed. Also, women silently enduring is not courageous to me. So try the book if it sounds interesting to you. Perhaps like the other reviewers you'll enjoy it more than me. I won't be watching the television series either. I can't imagine how they'll make it interesting if it's based on the book.

fabulous!

amazing! some of he best work around. the writing and narration are both equally exceptional.