I first read about Susanna Clarke's fictional masterpiece Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell in a review at Salon.com. They named it one of the best reads of 2004. So when I received a gift certificate to Barnes & Noble on Friday, I decided to give it a try. (I have not read fiction for many years, feeling that I am wasting time when I could be learning about the world, people, and/or history.)
But before the last words of chapter 1 presented themselves, Clarke's story of magicians in England posturing how and why magic had ceased being performed in England in 1806 had cast its spell on me and I can't stop reading it nor stop thinking about it when I'm away from it.
If I may be more specific, Clarke's style of writing is highly readable. But it is the details of the time period and of the situations she describes her characters having (even as early as chapter 1) that are engrossing and fascinating. She won me over with this paragraph:
Mr Norrell led the other two gentlemen along a passage -- a very ordinary passage thought Mr Segundus, panelled and floored with well-polished oak, and smelling of beeswax; then there was a staircase, or perhaps only three or four steps; and then another passage where the air was somewhat colder and the ffloor was good York stone: all entirely unremarkable....Mr Segundus was one of those happy gentlemen who can always say whether they face north or south, east or west. It was not a talent he took any particular pride in -- it was as natural to him as knowing that his head still stood upon his shoulders -- but in Mr Norrell's house his gift deserted him. He could never afterwards picture the sequence of passageway and rooms through which they had passed, nor quite decide how long they had taken to reach the library. And he could not tell the direction; it seemed to him as if Mr Norrell had discovered some fifth point of the compass -- not east, nor south, nor west, nor north, but somewhere quite different and this was the direction in which he led them. Mr Honeyfoot, on the other hand, did not appear to notice any thing odd.
Not only is her descriptions of what the characters are experiencing detailed but I love how she reinforces the development of each of her characters--i.e., her last sentence, which might seem to some readers as a basic throw away sentence, actually enhances what she has already described of Mr Honeyfoot. She has a style reminiscent of Jane Austin--her detail to: conversation, people's characteristics, and landscapes and buildings.
(For example, when Norrell leads Segundus and Honeyfoot into the library, they not only look at books but Clarke has devised titles, descriptions, and historical background for the ones mentioned. My favorite title, thus far, is the old book titled How to Putte Questiones to the Dark and Understand its Answeres.)
This is going to be a great Christmas!
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