'Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell' by Susanna Clarke (2004)

Thanks go to Steer for the loan.

This trilogy was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award and The Guardian First Book Award and quite rightly so. As the back of the box says:

"The year is 1806, and centuries have passed since practical magic faded into England's past. But scholars of its glorious history discover that one magician remains: the reclusive Mr Norrell, whose talent sends a thrill through the country. Yet the cautious, fussy Norrell is challenged by the emergence of another magician: the brilliant novice Jonathan Strange. Young, handsome and daring, Strange is the very antithesis of Norrell. And so begins a dangerous and dazzling battle between these two great men that will lead them into wars, personal battles, and places they should not have dared to enter."

There is a great deal about this trilogy that I enjoyed. The most fluidly written parts concerned Strange's exploits under Wellington in the Napoloenic Wars. This really captured my imagination! The central relationship, that between Strange and Norrell, was consistently realistic and well portrayed and was quite touching at times. Yet the other characters were fairly well rounded and had depth. I liked the idea of England's early history being different and that boundaries with Faery exist but have become overgrown and forgotten; as if what you know is somehow not quite right. I liked the 'cosiness' of the parts set in York and the sense of difference around the parts set in Venice. The story moves along, although some momentum was lost towards the end of Volume 2, although the whole of Volume 3 moves along rapidly. The ending was fitting and handled well. Overall I liked how the fantasy and the history were mixed together.

On the downside the writing style could be a little irritating. It is written in a faux-Georgian style, with odd spellings thrown in. At times I found this a little tiresome; too many words being used to describe something. Similarly the mode of speech seemed far too formal much of the time. The books are littered with fictional academic-style footnotes referencing works on magic and faery. Some of these are pages long and ramble on. However, they do help provide a stronger context and frame of reference for events within the story which would be hard to do otherwise. (I suspect the story wouldn't suffer much if the footnotes were ignored). For some reason the experience of this reminded me of spending a day reading an old Victorian monograph about the building of York Minster back in my student days; it was a pleasant recollection and made me feel well inclined to this book. As I susoect may have been the case in Georgian England, women do not fair very well. One in particular I felt was owed some sort of revenge for what she had endured...but it does not happen.

I would recommend this to someone who doesn't mind reading lengthy trilogies, who likes hitorical fiction but is not put off by the fantasy element. It would not surprise me if this appears as a movie one day....