This book (a doorstop really)took me a little while to become really attached to it, but once I put the effort in, it really came alive. Clarke has created an alternate Victorian England where magic is a still practiced and is even a part of the very country itself. I love the subtle humor and all the footnotes that Clarke includes to give you insight in to the world of Magic. What a great book! ( )

Set in an alternative version of 19th century England- a period in which the art of magic has languished for decades until Mr. Norrell, a quiet, scholarly gentleman, determines that he alone can restore English magic to its former glory. He tries influencing government and high society, while at the same time squelching other magicians' aspirations. Then along comes Jonathan Strange, a daring adventuresome man quite unlike Norrell, who seems to have a natural talent for magic and makes himself Norrell's pupil, later becoming his worst rival. When one of them raises a woman from the dead, a malevolent fairy fixes his attention on them, and it quickly becomes apparent how little these esteemed men actually know about magic. I loved how the fairy world was depicted, as existing side-by-side with England, accessible through mirrors and pools, shifting just under the surface of things. The plot is complex, introducing scores of characters and numerous little stories on the side that add flavor and flair to the main narrative. All these just as interesting as the main events. This book feels as much a historical fiction novel as it does an epic fantasy. An amazing read! It kept me intrigued and reading day after day, almost reluctant to finish the last chapters because I didn't want it to end.

from the DogEar Diary ( )

What a remarkable book! I began listening to this as an audiobook - the reader for it is excellent, but it's just such a looooong book I really couldn't stand the amount of time I was putting into reading it. So I picked up the paper copy halfway through and plowed through it, loving every page. Clarke writes with the wit and attention to small interpersonal details of Austen. The book is about magicians, but I was struck by the ordinariness of her characters - fallible, sometimes petty men and women with agendas of their own that have little to do with the casting of spells. Absolutely charming, without ever feeling twee. ( )

At almost 900 pages in length, this book is quite a feat to read, but I think it's well worth the effort. I'm not usually fond of fairytale fiction with magic as the main theme, but the style of writing drew me in, and the plot had enough action to keep my interest. I look forward to reading other works by this author (though at present there is only one other book, a collection of short stories). ( )

I love this book, it is so thoroughly written. A great concept and a must read! ( )

Neil Gaiman declared the book, "unquestionably the finest English novel of the fantastic written in the last 70 years." Considering Tolkien published Lord of the Rings less than seventy years ago, that statement is way over the top. Still Clarke's novel is undoubtedly one of the greatest examples of fantasy English or otherwise. It is an amazing journey, and though it has been months since I've read it, I'm still digesting how exactly I feel about it. Ultimately, I think it will be regarded as a defining book in the fantasy genre. ( )

The first time I read it I couldn’t make sense of it. The plot wanders around between different places and groups of characters and the whole thing is over-peopled (like the real world) with persons who seemingly don’t have much to do with the main action.You can tell it’s set in the past, in what appears to be Regency England; but it isn’t our Regency England. It’s one existing in some alternative universe where history took a very different turn. In this universe magic is real, and so are its most gifted practitioners, fairies. So this England was successfully invaded shortly after the Norman Conquest by a fairy army led by a magician, John Uskglass, who declared himself king and proceeded to rule successfully for 300 years. Then, mysteriously, he withdrew; and when he left the magic and the fairies went with him. The book starts centuries later when nobody in England even believes in doing magic anymore and it’s up to Norrell and Strange to reinvent it. They’re an ill-assorted pair. Norrell is scholarly and hyper-cautious : he wants to make magic modern, predictable and safe. Strange is whimsical, impulsive and reckless: he wants to push the boundaries. But neither man is anything like a match for the great magician-king who retreated long ago, somewhere behind the rain and the dark; and who may still be there.

Though she convincingly creates a world in which magic is real and sometimes chilling, Clarke doesn’t do raw-head-and-bloody-bones horror. There’s plenty of droll humour though and she is good at imitating the prose of the period. So, if you know Austen-speak puts you off maybe this is not one for you. Once you get your head round the plot though it is absolutely ingenious. If there’s a hole in it anywhere I haven’t found it yet. ( )

Despite the incredibly large page count, this book was incredibly intriguing throughout and never seemed to drag as so many novels of this size do.

Mr. Norrell is an old crotchety magician who wants magic in England to once again be respected and widespread, but doesn't think there's a single other person in England that could do magic as wonderfully as him. He spends a great deal of time buying up old magic books and putting magical scholars out of work while forcing "magical societies" to disband because they aren't real magicians.

After moving to London at the behest of his man servant/business manager, Mr. Norrell starts to assist the English parliament with their fight against the French. Everything seems to be going wonderfully until Jonathan Strange shows up, a charming young magician that seems to have a great aptitude for magic as well. Mr. Norrell hesitantly takes on Strange as a pupil, but refuses to allow Strange to actually work magic, only read about it.

There's a fight, their partnership breaks up, and Jonathan Strange goes to Spain to fight hands-on for the British. All the while there's a faerie king kidnapping pretty people at to dance for the rest of time in his magical kingdom. Despite the many different plot lines involved, everything weaves together quite nicely in the end. ( )

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell are two English magicians. Both aim to bring magic back to England and both have very different ideas about how that should be brought about. Though filled with magic and with adventures big and small, this massive book reads as more of a comedy of manners with fantasy mixed in. Those who dislike Jane Austen and other such classic writers of this vein may be put off by the style of writing. It did take me a little while to for me get completely into the story, but once I got there I loved it.

P.S. There are footnotes. I love footnotes in fiction. They amuse me, so that was a bonus. ( )

For centuries, the study of English magic has been entirely theoretical. Spells have not actually worked in three hundred years or more. Enter Mr. Norrell and later his apprentice Jonathan Strange, who work toward the return of practical English magic at the turn of the 19th century, with somewhat unexpected consequences. I loved this book, but I will be the first to admit it's not for everyone. You've got to be in it for the long haul. And I do mean long: almost 800 pages (though there are a fair number of poorly drawn illustrations thrown in for no discernable reason other than to add heft). It's also not the sort of story where you can grasp the gist of the plot from the first couple chapters. Rather, you have to simply enjoy what you are presently reading and trust the basic arc of the story will become clear in time. It does, but there are a lot of seemingly spurious asides that don't appear to have much to do with anything for quite a long time. It's written more like a history, complete with footnotes, with the author writing with the voice of a contemporary of most of the events described. I found this angle charming and quite convincing, to the point where I almost forgot that people like Martin Pale and John Uskglass never really existed. I will definitely be on the look-out for Clarke's future novels. ( )

This book truly got under my skin to the point where I would find myself reflecting on it during the day, anxiously awaiting the time I'd immerse myself in it. Truly a great read, touching, funny, insightful, and actually quite believable. Nearing the end of the book, I found myself intentionally reading slower because I didn't want it to end. Teared up quite a bit!

Nous nous retrouvons dans une Europe en pleine guerre napoléonienne, où réapparait la magie.
Des personnalités intéressantes dans un univers uchronique passionnant.

La narration est un peu trop lourde, le style pas assez concis. C'est peut être ce qui donne à ce bouquin son atmosphère désuète, assez agréable in fine. ( )

Yes this is a chunkster! But it isn't a book to speed-read. I loved the imaginativeness of this historical novel-of-sorts which traces the restoration of magic in England. Fascinating characters in the mousy Mr Norrell, the passionate Jonathan Strange, and my favorite servant Mr Childermass.I enjoyed the sub-stories of Lady Pole and Stephan Black's enchantment by a Faerie, of cause-and-consequence in the world of magic. ( )

Originally I heard this book called "Harry Potter for Grown-ups." I think that is a fair assessment, but it is much, much more. There is indeed magic, and it is much more adult than anything Harry faces, but there is more to it than that. We see all aspects of human life: love, war, fear, jealousy. This book can seem overwhelming because of its length, but give it a try. Save it for a good snowstorm. ( )

I finished this and was angry that it ended. Then two friends finished it and told me they were angry when it ended. A weird, but consistent, response to a good book. ( )

I tried the book & then the audio book. I just couldn't work up any interest in the story or the characters. All of the main characters were worthless & the story was just LONG. After reading over 100 pages in the book, I tried the audio book & my thoughts kept wandering until I wasn't sure how much of it I had missed, but most of it.The footnotes were the most interesting parts, but they were very long, some taking several pages. Possibly the book could have been salvaged for me if they'd been more a part of the story. There's obviously a detailed world hidden behind all the wasted words & I hoped I'd come across it eventually. I have far too many other books that are more interesting & entertaining to continue this one, though. ( )

Poof! I'm finished with Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. At last! I kept waiting and waiting and waiting to care about any of the major or minor characters...but no one stepped through my looking glass. Well, maybe Viniculus, a minor sort of Dickensian grotesque...but not Jonathan Strange, Mr. Norrell, Arabella, Edward, Childermass, etc., etc. I was seduced and educed, like a greyhound chasing a mechanical rabbit, by the author's excellent prose, and by the suggestive and detailed scenario of an alternate Napoleonic Era - one wherein magic played a role in public events. Ultimately, I found the story of the tension between Norrell and Strange, no more sustaining than a documentary on the contrasting freeware vs. proprietary philosophies of Bill Gates and Linus Torvald - two real magicians of our own era. The book IS an impressive first novel in its scope and imagination. But I just didn't feel the magic. It reminded me of the Gormenghast trilogy in its scope and imagery, but in that work, the characters, though very odd, had a curious and compelling humanity. By contrast, Strange and Norrell just seemed obsessive workaholics surrounded by cardboard sycophants and one dimensional relations. Magic, itself, by association, seemed to devolve into a colorless feat...a sort of combination lock formula for opening reality, instead of, as I would have preferred, a semi-mystical act opening our eyes to reality's beauty,strangeness, and joyous possibilities. In short, hundreds of pages of snap and crackle, but the roads to Faery never popped open for me. ( )

Book about wizards...

Yes, I finally read it! ALL of it! It managed to pick up somewhere about page 300 – just about where most other books have already had the decency to end – but making one of her protagonists so very unpleasant, whilst no doubt a bold move, may not have been entirely wise. Also, I am left in much the same frame of mind as Woody Allen on finishing 'War and Peace': "It's about magic." ( )

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell by Susanna Clarke has to be one of my top-five favorite books of the last 10 years. Published in 2004, this novel presents an alternate history of the early 19th century, one in which two magicians restore magic to England. Strange and Norrell, the two magicians, use their magic to serve the English government, mostly in the Napoleonic Wars, and they are hailed as heroes. But their use of magic has led them to interact with faeries, and faeries have a moral code all their own, and it’s not clear that Strange and Norrell are ready to face down a faerie.

The story is much, much more complex than this simple outline reveals. Clarke has built a complete world whose borders expand beyond the covers of this book. She makes brilliant use of footnotes to build on the basic story. It’s incredibly well done and makes the novel feel authentic, almost convincing the reader that there really were once faeries in England and that scholars have been arguing about them for centuries.

The audiobook is well-done, with great narration by Simon Prebble, but it’s less effective than the print version, particularly, I think, for the first-time reader. The novel has so many twists that it’s hard to keep up with the story on audio. Also, the footnotes prove to be a problem in this format. Each footnote is inserted into the story where the footnote number appears in the text, and each has its own track. Although this is probably the best way to add these crucial supplements, it was hard to stay immersed in the story when the longer footnotes appeared. Often, when the narrator returned to the main text, I had forgotten where he had left off. Still, I’d rather have the footnotes than not, and I can’t think of a better way to add them to the audiobook.

Overall, I highly recommend Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell to anyone who loves books about magic, faeries, and England. It’s a treasure. But the audio version is perhaps best reserved for the most focused listeners, or for a second or third reading.

See my complete review at my blog. ( )

I greatly enjoyed listening to this book. The author did a lovely job creating many distinct characters, each of whom played important (though more or less prominent) roles in the story. The plot is a thing of beauty, all the threads woven together in a seamless (but entertaining) manner. Her prose (those long, rambling, tongue-in-cheek sentences) is lovely. In the end,everything made sense at the end--though not everything was "resolved"--there was a lovely resonance to it. ( )

Set in an alternative nineteeth century England where magic is real but forgotten. A long novel that sucks you in to its reality. Uses archaic word forms that I found a bit pretentious and irritating at times, but pretty decent overall ( )

Tried reading this 4 times and just could not get into it at all ( )

This is advertised as a cross between Harry Potter and Jane Austen, which isn't a bad description. I fell in love with it when I first read it over the Christmas-New Year's break in 2004 and I wanted to recreate that all consuming experience again this year. If anything the book was better the second time around. WARNING: This is a big book and your wrist will be sore. ( )

Clarke slowly lures you in to her world, a version of early 19th-century England where the art of magic is real but lost, and where the struggle to bring it back again has unexpected consequences. She has a wonderful way with descriptive words - the novel is a slow one, but if you are the kind of reader who can lose yourself in the world of a novel without needing a high-speed plot to keep you turning pages, this is definitely the book for you.

Perhaps what I liked most about Clarke's writing is that her characters are wonderfully human (at least, those that actually are human). The reader will feel moments of genuine pity even for the most despised characters, and many moments of profound irritation and disgust for the story's protagonists. This is a book where no one is entirely good or evil, and where Good and Evil themselves are slippery concepts.

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is often billed as "Harry Potter for grownups" and while it's absolutely possible to thoroughly enjoy both (as I did), this is a very different book. I suggest approaching it on its own terms; you will ultimately enjoy it more. ( )