Ex Libris: Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is a motherfucking big book.

Clocking in at 800-pages, Clarke's first novel is ponderously heavy: it weighs on your hands and wrists as you leaf through the first few pages, startlingly white against the book's black cover (barring the etched white raven, of course). To describe the book as a tome would not be too far-fetched.

Likewise, the book is considered a real heavy-weight with the publicity onslaught delived by Bloomsbury, the publishing house that hit the multi-million-pound jackpot with J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books, and publishing rights sold to 12 countries for simultaneous worldwide publication last October.

And did someone say Harry Potter? Clarke's book had that magic word tagged to it also, being billed as "Harry Potter for adults" (despite the number of adults who adore reading about the child-wizard). Then there was writer-wunderkind Neil Gaiman who described Clarke's work as "the finest English novel of the fantastic written in the last seventy years."

If one were of lesser nerve, one could probably collapse from all the weight of praise and expectations heaped on this book. But after finally finished reading the damned thing, I thought that it delivered and quite nicely too.

Everyone has heard or read the summary for the book: an alternate history wherein Mr. Norrell, a reclusive and the last real magician in early 19th century, decides to bring about the Revival of Magic by helping the English Government against Napoleon Buonaparte. However, Norrell's act of opportunity unwittingly brings about a real Revival of Magic and he suddenly comes face-to-face with his first--and only-- apprentice, the arrogant-yet-brilliant Jonathan Strange.

As with all fiction, the two magicians become antagonists on how magic should be used in this New Age. Yet how they become enemies and why becomes important as well as England (and Europe) suddenly find themselves in an uncertain world now filled with magic once more.

It is this round-about element of Clarke's story that will make (or break) readers. For the book, it is-- as the saying goes-- the journey that matters and not the destination. (Not surprising then that it took 10-years to make!) Yet what is perceived as a weakness in editing is actually one of the strengths of the book. Primarily, Clarke delivers not only a story but a virtual experience. As Michael Dirda wrote, "Many books are to be read, some are to be studied, and a few are meant to be lived in for weeks. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is of this last kind."

For example, ladened with an astonishing array of explanatory footnotes, Clarke gives her early 19th-century England depth comparable to J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth. However, footnotes is a such a dry term to describe the elaborate mini-essays on folktales, 7th-century gossip, and prissy corrections of popular misconceptions about the history of English magic and magicians.

Plot-wise, the best and only way to describe it as 'meandering' as the book chronicles not only the lives of its main characters, Norrell and Strange, but the travails of other characters like the toady Drawlight, the caddish Lascelles, the courtly Stephen Black and the secretive John Childermass. Fortunately, this adds to the appeal of the book as it shows not only how magic has affected (and effected) the two protagonists but the rest of the people around them.

Clarke further ups the ante on the experience by relating the story as if voiced by a mid-Victorian narrator, using tone and words straight from Jane Austen and Charles Dicken. For such an effect, even the fastest reading speed slows down in order to appreciate such ambience:

"Can a magician kill a man by magic?" Lord Wellington asked Strange.

Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. "I suppose a magician might," he admitted, "but a gentleman never could."

There is also Clarke's use of Victorian-style words like 'chuze' and 'surprize' with offhand charm, adding a bit of authenticity to the reading experience. In the light of such prose, a reader can either musingly chew on Clarke's love of language or blithely swallow it whole without the proper appreciation.

In totality, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell demands a lot from its readers though not in the same vein as a book by James Joyce or M. John Harrison. Rather, Clarke's opus calls on the reader to find time to kick back and relax to savour the work: no shortcuts, no fast read allowed here. Anything else and the reader will not get the full effect of travelling through the world created by Clarke.

All in all, an interesting reading experience.