{"id":722,"date":"2011-08-16T23:05:55","date_gmt":"2011-08-16T23:05:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog-test\/?p=722"},"modified":"2024-01-21T11:39:53","modified_gmt":"2024-01-21T16:39:53","slug":"clarke_jsnm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/2011\/08\/clarke_jsnm\/","title":{"rendered":"Clarke, Susanna: (01) Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell<\/cite> (re-read)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am quite sure I did not love Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell<\/cite><\/strong> this much the first time I read it<\/a>, and I can’t imagine why. This time I basically wanted to roll around in it and never come out again, and indeed ended up immediately re-reading the last third to stave off withdrawal.<\/p>\n

The prose is amazing. When I was reading, I couldn’t help posting three characterization-focused quotes from just the first four chapters over at my journal<\/a>. Even the chapter titles are perfect (“The ashes, the pearls, the counterpane and the kiss”). And both the eerie numinous and the humor are finer than I recalled.<\/p>\n

I think I also appreciate more, this time, the argument it’s making about what it means to be English (via the nature of English magic). Granted, I am not English, so it is an argument that I can only look at from the outside, but at least with regard to race and gender, it strikes me as a position worth aspiring to.<\/p>\n

Really, I know it’s cliché to say so, but the experience it reminded me most of was the last time I read Pride and Prejudice<\/cite><\/a> and made comparisons to chiming crystal—not just regarding the book and its quality, but how it made me feel, like I was vibrating all over with delight. And now, writing it up months after the fact, I am fiercely tempted to go and re-read it all over again. Gosh, I love this book.<\/p>\n

(Two minor notes. First, the footnotes are not academic, that is, were not inserted by a present-day editor into a historical text. They were written by the same narrator as the main text, a narrator who is omniscient yet an individual (and female), in the same way that (again) Pride and Prejudice<\/cite>‘s narrator is. See chapter 5, note 4 for the same narrator (who says “why I<\/em> do not know” in describing Mr Tubbs’ actions (emphasis added); and see chapter 40, note 3 for the furthest specific chronological reference in the entire book, as far as I can tell (1836, the death date of the Duke of Wellington’s horse).<\/p>\n

(Second, a minor spoiler (ROT-13, see sidebar): fheryl gur snzvyl va gur ynfg puncgre, jvgu n pyretlzna sngure, guerr qnhtugref (vapyhqvat ng yrnfg bar cnffvbangryl svrepr bar), naq bar fba, ner n ersrerapr gb gur Oebagrf?)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am quite sure I did not love Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell this much the first time I read it, and I can’t imagine why. This time I basically wanted to roll around in it and never come out again, and indeed ended up immediately re-reading the last third to stave off … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Clarke, Susanna: (01) Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell<\/cite> (re-read)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,93,15],"tags":[170],"class_list":["post-722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-jonathan-strange-mr-norrell-universe","category-sf-and-fantasy","tag-clarke-susanna"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=722"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2500,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions\/2500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}