Review: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna ClarkeMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Finally. Rtc.
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4.5⭐️
This is not your usual fantasy book with racy fights and flamboyant displays of magic. But it’s not your drab historical novel either with lengthy discourses on so and so age.
I would call this an alternate world soft fantasy narrated in relation to prominent historical events of that time. Unlike usual fantasy this is best approached as a piece of literary fiction to be savoured for the experience of reading it and not the action in its contents. The prose is gorgeous and immerses you into a sort of reading reverie to escape into. The book is greatly enriched by the usage of many colourful archaic phrases and epithets. The dry English humour is always a pleasure to read.
While the magicians themselves are always doing the mundane and not greatly entertaining the spectators- fictional or otherwise, the book maintains a kind of silent curiosity as to what is going to happen next.
The book itself is peppered with a multitude of footnotes -some utterly delightful and others relatively dull, that add a sense of formality to the entire reading venture. The size of the book itself would impose a great obstacle to any reader but I chose rather to ignore it and enjoyed the ride as long as it lasted anyway.
This is not your usual fantasy book with racy fights and flamboyant displays of magic. But it’s not your drab historical novel either with lengthy discourses on so and so age.
I would call this an alternate world soft fantasy narrated in relation to prominent historical events of that time. Unlike usual fantasy this is best approached as a piece of literary fiction to be savoured for the experience of reading it and not the action in its contents. The prose is gorgeous and immerses you into a sort of reading reverie to escape into. The book is greatly enriched by the usage of many colourful archaic phrases and epithets. The dry English humour is always a pleasure to read.
While the magicians themselves are always doing the mundane and not greatly entertaining the spectators- fictional or otherwise, the book maintains a kind of silent curiosity as to what is going to happen next.
The book itself is peppered with a multitude of footnotes -some utterly delightful and others relatively dull, that add a sense of formality to the entire reading venture. The size of the book itself would impose a great obstacle to any reader but I chose rather to ignore it and enjoyed the ride as long as it lasted anyway.
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