I fear I will never be satisfied by a book about magicians.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell has some great ideas and pleasant prose, but the bones of the story don't hold together enough to make a satisfying book. Granted, it is Susanna's Clarke's first novel so some problems with the construction are to be expected, but what the book is sorely in need of is an aggressive editor. The book is simply too long: it's a rare thing that the book would be better if none of the main plot were changed but 200 pages of extraneous material were removed. It's inexcusable that the book does not begin to cohere until the third act after 600 odd pages of meandering. If the end came more quickly, then the unsatisfying mystique of it could be explained by a lack of development, but shoe horning in a half baked ending after a ream of pages is incredibly frustrating.

Part of the novel's problem is the attempt to fuse two novels in one: J&N attempts to be a story of magic and magicians, but also a period piece in the vein of Austen. And tonally, I think Clarke largely succeeds. The difficulty is the pacing - the presence of the very interesting magicians demands a certain velocity to the plot, some "action," that the comedy of manners dissuades. Every quibbling meeting with Norrell is time that could have been spent advancing the plot. This would almost be excused if the development of the characters were satisfying enough that the action of the plot was secondary, but after so many pages of conversation and development the characters go nowhere. Norrell becomes slightly less crotchety and that's about it. Secondary characters have major developments, but entirely in the last 50 pages of an 800+ page book. The mischievous fairy acting as the primary antagonist is never given any real power until the end of the novel, and is ultimately purposeless. While this illustrates the mischief of the fairy folk, it makes for a terrible antagonist. The magicians aren't even aware of him until nearly the end of the book! In the same vein, the entire subplot of the fairy and Stephen Black is given great significance but for no apparent reason. No apparent reason is the great takeaway of the ending: a lot happens, but for no apparent reason. Reference is made to ancient magicians and cryptic prophecies, but these threads winding through the book are never made explicit or developed enough to explain anything.

For long stretches of the book, Clarke doesn't even seem interested in advancing the plot. Norrell waves away concerns about Lady Pole (the source of later plot development), Arabella neglects to obviously magical problems with her husband (the magician!), and Strange forgets where he saw a lady without a finger. It requires an enormous suspension of disbelief to believe that these characters are simply that stupid as to ignore these signs, and the serial deflections kick the can of meaningful plot development back another 100 pages.

Focusing so much on the negative I don't want to give the impression that my experience with the book was bad - by no means. I liked the book, and would gladly pick up a sophomore effort, but J&N sorely needed an editor to rein in Clarke's excess. I'd say 1 star off for being way too long, and then another star for the poor plot development.


3.5 / 5