Book Review: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Reviewer: Romie J. Stott

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell has been widely touted as "Harry Potter for adults." This is good bookselling - it associates the book with a successful franchise but suggests that it is more sophisticated than its predecessor. It is, however, a misleading advertisement; Jonathan Strange is something entirely different.

What we think of as "fantasy" descends almost directly from the work of one writer - J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and a few other authors like A.A. Milne wrote books which presented an idealized pastoral England. These books glorify innocence and nature while castigating technology; at the same time, characters indulge in the comfortable middle-class lifestyles of industrialized London.

Essentially, these books were written as escapes for city-bred intellectuals. They take the reader away from his or her cares and into a highly Romanticized world where God, Nature, and Economics always serve the same positive end, and shining white good will always win. It is little wonder that fantasy has become an extremely popular genre - especially in a world of smog and global warming, where religion and government operate in often-contradictory gray areas. We are happy to retreat from economic uncertainty into a realm where the villains are clearly evil, and always get their just desserts.

However, there is a second, less well known fantasy tradition which is epitomized in Gormenghast, by Mervyn Peake. Peake's books are like a hypercolor reinterpretation of Charles Dickens; conniving characters climb up and down the social ladder, decaying or backstabbing as they go. Peake's post-industrial world is not cleaned up, but sensationalized - all of the characters are to some degree monsters, like a world full of Miss Havishams.

Although Jonathan Strange does not go as far as Gormenghast, it is the progeny of a Peake instead of a Tolkien tradition. Its characters could have walked off the pages of Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde, or Mary Shelley; its London is a city mobilized in the fight against Napoleon. As a result, it may be a disappointment to those who pick it up looking for another grand Romance.

Most of the book is occupied not with battles, but with dinner parties. Until the last third of the book, magic might as well not exist in the world - its role in the text could as easily be filled with new naval developments, or new mathematical theories. The characters are less concerned with saving the world than with getting published in reputable journals.

At the same time, the book lacks Peake's, Dickens', Austen's, Wilde's, or Shelley's social incisiveness. Because the story is set in a world so removed from the present day, it is incapable of satire. It is a story that is clearly adult, simply because its dry academic discussions would bore children; however, it does not deal with any particularly adult concerns. With two exceptions, no character is presented with a challenge to his morals or ethics. Even social positions are never much jeopardized.

And all the characters are "him"s - only five women ever feature in the book (one for little more than a chapter) and their roles are to be gently supportive of the male characters. Although they walk and talk like strong women, they are strangely passive and constrained to the home (the importance of which is treated as negligible). Perhaps the author intends to be historically faithful to the separate spheres doctrine - whatever the reason, it's disappointing to see a female author so thoroughly ignore women. If the decision was intended as satire, it is far too subtle.

Nevertheless, the book's characters are interesting. Each is simply constructed around a few main drives, which makes them easy to remember distinctly - a boon in any book with a large cast list. Within this limit, each is pleasantly complex, and manages to make surprising (but reasonable) decisions. Moreover, each of them has desires which go beyond the scope of the book. And it was a particular pleasure to watch fictional characters interact with historical ones, such as Lord Wellington. None of the characters is likely to develop a cult following, but it's satisfying to spend a few hours in their company.

Similarly, the dialogues and authorial asides are remarkably engaging. These are aided by intelligent use of footnotes which provide background information without interrupting the flow of a conversation. Unfortunately, these are not the only footnotes - a few serve to remind us of the events in earlier chapters, the implication being that we can't be trusted to remember on our own.

Other footnotes provide bibliographies for sources which do not, strictly speaking, exist. This increasingly popular trend (House of Leaves, Infinite Jest ) reads like a reaction to post-modernism - since post-modernism broke down the fourth wall and forced text to acknowledge its reader, this post-post-modernism compensates by requiring a suspension of disbelief in the real world instead of just the fictional one. This will charm some readers, but will feel like an imposition to others.

In another attempt to treat the book as if it were historic, the author often uses archaic spellings such as "shewed" (showed), "chuse" (choose), and "headach" (headache). Similarly, she sometimes separates words which are now commonly compounded (any thing, every body). This can be maddening to a reader who does a lot of proofreading, and it feels overly precious; if signs like "ye olde shoppe" make you cringe, consider yourself warned.

Jonathan Strange's main weakness is that it is wholly uninventive. While it does a decent job of bringing together bits of history and folklore, it adds nothing of its own into the mix. Many of the characters could have walked off the pages of other books, and all the magic feels familiar and well-trod. Even the more fantastic elements, like the Raven King, are drawn from pre-existing myths with little innovation.

Though this familiarity is clearly intended - and supports many of the themes of the book - it eventually prevents the book from being memorable. After all, it's nothing we haven't seen before. At the same time, this very quality may delight a reader who enjoys imagining what would happen if, say, Nicholas Nickleby had magical powers.

In the end, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a good beach book; it unfolds slowly but steadily, with a nice mix of humor and drama. It should make for pleasant reading during the holidays, and its thickness may be particularly attractive to a rapid reader who faces a long flight. However, anyone searching for a new and enduring mythos (or fandom) would be better off looking elsewhere.

If you liked this book, you may also enjoy:

Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens

Gormenghast, by Mervyn Peake

The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, by John Berendt

Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley