Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

De: Susanna Clarke

Narrado por: Simon Prebble

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

Reseñas de la Crítica

• 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)

A bit long

4 hours too long. There were many of the footnotes were over done. Just likecthis review requiring a word count.

Most engaging

Expansive world building, familiar and new. Twists and turns kept me engaged from beginning to end

Way, way too long

If this was half the length, it would have been great. The concepts are intriguing, but there are long stretches where the story doesn’t advance much.

A delightful and unique book

What did you love best about Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell?

I am not a professional reviewer. I'm a writer. Beyond that, I appreciate works for what they are and what they're trying to be. If I review a book, I will probably give it a five-star review. This is because the books that I don’t enjoy enough to give five stars--or the books that I don’t finish--I won’t end up reviewing, simply out of professional courtesy to my colleagues in the business. Elitist Book Reviews will give more balanced reviews, whereas my reviews are not intended to be balanced. They are intended to talk about the book, what I like about it, and maybe some of the things that annoyed me. But at the end of the day, if I finished the book, then it deserves a good rating in my opinion.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell – I found this book delightful even though I didn’t really expect to. In fact, during the first third of the book, I was convinced that I was going to end up putting it down. It was just too slow, though the slowness wasn’t really as big an issue as it sounds because Susanna Clarke’s prose is wonderful.

It feels like the best mix of regency and modern with a slight sarcasm to it and a very keen sense of ambiance and world-building. The footnotes are great, and the whole thing just works together masterfully prose-wise, but the character--particularly Mr. Norrell at the beginning--was just so unengaging that despite the nice prose and world-building, I was having trouble getting through the book.

The fact that it was an audio book--and that the narrator is so fantastic--really pushed me through this. Once I arrived at Jonathan Strange's viewpoint, I found him more dynamic and more interesting. Though the pacing of the book only increased a little bit, the natural wonder and whimsy of the language was able to take center stage, and I found myself thoroughly enjoying the book.

By the ending, I was happy I had finished listening to the novel. I think it is somewhat unique as a piece, and is a wonderful read, particularly in audio book. The ending left me a little disappointed, but this is really relating to characterization, and I don’t want give any spoilers. The characters are very well-drawn; they're just not always the people that I wish they could be.

I make a special note of the side characters. To a person I found them very interesting and a highlight of the book. I thought that Childermass was particularly a fun, complicated, and interesting character. Overall, I really enjoyed this book, but I do have to reiterate what a lot of people said. It is slow. It is a book about the language and the setting, not a book about character and thought.

everything missing in modern fiction

Adventure, magic, occultism, war, fairies, history and all done wihtout treating me like a moron like so many of the suddenly popular "adventure mystery" art history stories. This is a great story period. I'm hardly ever this happy about a purchase- color me a tough customer.This was so great I just bought the hardcover. But now what?!