Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

My goodness, what a novel. And a first novel at that! Huge and ambitious and excellently written, entertaining and with a lot of complexity and interesting themes. It’s a significant accomplishment of a book.

My favorite aspect of the book is how none of the protagonists are particularly likable. No one is a hero here, no one is an unambiguous good guy. The two titular characters are sympathetic, and well drawn, and have noble characteristics. But also insufferable attitudes and occasional terrible choices and actions. They aren’t anti-heros either, they’re just complicated.

I do wish the other characters had been written a bit better, particularly the women. The plot is oddly retro, a damsel in distress story. But I think Stephen Black is the character who could have been most expanded. He’s got a great back story and has a fascinating role in the plot but he’s entirely passive in the writing, more of his perspective would have made for a better book. Vinculus, too.

The Victorian setting was very well done. The author clearly enjoyed doing her research and one of my side pleasures was looking up various obscure English words she uses to paint a picture of Magical Victorian England which was transportive. Some bits here don’t quite work. The French army should absolutely have had their own magic. The parts with Lord Byron should have just been written out entirely (or alternately, embellished so they mattered). But it says a lot about the strength of her conception of a magical England that I could then point out some minor weaknesses in it.

Between this and Piranisi, Ms. Clarke has set a remarkably high bar for the genre.