Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (2004)

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel by Susanna Clarke (2004)

Me he debatido seriamente entre las 3 y las 4 estrellas y me he decidido a ser benevolente porque la última tercera parte del libro me ha parecido soberbia y ha compensado, en cierta manera, la inacción de las otras 600 páginas. No termino de explicarme cuál es la intención de la autora cuando no presenta a uno de los personajes principales hasta que estamos 300 páginas dentro de la trama y, si a esta forma de narración algunos podrían llamarla genialidad, a mí me parece excentricidad pura y dura.

Las dos primeras partes del libro son una novela costumbrista sobre magos ingleses en una época determinada; bueno, pasan algunas cosas, pero la sensación de que son poco importantes permanece latente y casi te da ganas de tirar el libro a la hoguera: no es que esté mal escrito, es que no es lo que parecía prometer. Por suerte el carisma de algunos de los personajes evita que lo hagas y te permite llegar hasta esa última parte del libro que casi te hace pensar en las escenas más épicas de Raistlin y... Mejor no sigo, que no quiero desvelar nada a los que no lo hayan leído.

Es un libro que mola bastante, pero todo ocurre muy despacio y le sobran la mitad de las páginas, especialmente las dichosas notas al pie con las que podría haber construido otro libro de acompañamiento y haber duplicado sus ventas. Escasa visión de negocio. ( )

The (softback) edition I have comes in at just over 1000 pages, and this is one of the reasons that it has been sitting on my bookshelf for a number of years now, occasionally glaring at me and daring me to pick it up and read it.[return][return]I am glad that I have read it, and it is not like any book I have read before. Excellent for a first book, there is humour, romance, history (some of which I hope is made up!), and most importantly of all magic, and lots of it. The footnotes are as important as the main text, and all shows an attention to detail that I dont know if the author will ever achieve again, purely for the amount of time this book must have already taken from her.[return][return]The only book I can realistically compare it to (in terms of length, scope etc) is "The Crimson Petal and the White", which I think is another debut novel. Have to admit that whilst I thought "Crimson" finished too soon, in a way I was glad that "Jonathan" did, although I was satisfied with the openness of the ending and the potential of more. ( )

I'm honestly not sure I would've enjoyed this nearly as much if I hadn't experienced it via the audiobook. I have a lot of patience for long, meandering histories and classics, but a long, meandering alternate history? With its fabricated facts and magical history woven into actual historical events and a plot that doesn't go anywhere for two-thirds of the book? Reading it myself, I believe I would've decided that the whole project was self-indulgent and twee, and if I finished it at all, my sense of the author's successes would've been greatly overshadowed by my annoyance at her approach and style.

That approach and style works incredibly well as an audiobook, however. Narrator Simon Prebble creates a unique voice for each character and manages to capture something ineffable about their personalities and perspectives on the world. His performance turns what might read as a long, needlessly ornate slog into a charming world peopled with neighbors, Society ladies and gentlemen, servants, faeries, and magicians whose lives and dramas are a matter of deep interest and concern.

In other words, Prebble makes Clarke's fictional world seem entirely real. In listening to him weave the tale of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, I forgot that the world he described was a concoction of its author. I forgot that the Raven King never existed in my medieval England and that Wellington couldn't have rivers moved in my Napoleonic Wars. I forgot everything to do with how Susanna Clarke pieced her alternate history together and simply enjoyed that it existed at all.

And because I could settle in for a long yarn, the story of Jonathan Strange, Mr Norrell, and their contemporaries fascinated me, made me laugh, and moved me. To anyone struggling with the book, itself, I highly recommend giving the audiobook a try...even if Prebble never does quite manage to pronounce "Daoine Sidhe" correctly. :) ( )

Reread after listening to the audiobook some time ago. Either I forgot a great deal about this or it took reading it in print to fully understand its intricate plot and fantastical world building. While the audiobook was amazing (how can anything read by Simon Prebble be anything but?) it didn’t have a search function that I could use to revisit key scenes and reacquaint myself with some of the minor characters. Also, I usually listen while walking or driving and this is a book that deserves its readers’ full attention. Even on a second time through it wasn’t easy to get into but at the end it was hard to let it go. I only wish the old rumor about a sequel had come true - Stephen Black’s story or one about Childermass and Vinculus would be wonderful to pick up right now. ( )