I had a really hard time with Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Everyone told me about it and so I stuck it out, but honestly it was a multi-month long process. Keep reading this book review of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell for my full thoughts.
Summary
The year is 1806. England is beleaguered by the long war with Napoleon, and centuries have passed since practical magicians faded into the nation’s past. But scholars of this glorious history discover that one remains: the reclusive Mr Norrell, whose displays of magic send a thrill through the country.
Proceeding to London, he raises a beautiful woman from the dead and summons an army of ghostly ships to terrify the French. Yet the cautious, fussy Norrell is challenged by the emergence of another magician: the brilliant novice Jonathan Strange.
Young, handsome and daring, Strange is the very antithesis of Norrell. So begins a dangerous battle between these two great men which overwhelms that between England and France. And their own obsessions and secret dabblings with the dark arts are going to cause more trouble than they can imagine.
Review
Okay, so I could write a whole essay about my thoughts on Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. The first is that I would not recommend the audiobook. The narration was good, but it makes the footnotes really confusing. It meant that every time we got to a footnote, I was pulled out of the reading experience. I think you’d experience the almost meta book within a book feeling more if you read it in physical or electronic form. So that’s on me folks. While on the topic of footnotes, I didn’t love these ones. In other ones I feel like you get a bit of snark or personality, these were just straight up more info.
Which wasn’t bad, it just felt a tad unnecessary for me. Now an element I really liked was the capital F ruthless Fae. I liked that we see the cruelty and indifference of the Fae. We also see the obsession and the temperament as well. Do I wish we got to see more interactions with the Fae and others? Yes, but I did genuinely like that aspect. Now my biggest complaints. One is the length. In terms of waiting for the plot to happen, you wait a long time and for a book of this length, it tends to feel like forever. Most of the beginning 2/3 of the book is spent setting up the world. And, no offense meant, the world isn’t that strange or complicated.
It’s largely based on British history except with a dash of there’s magic and magicians, but wait only like a few can do it because of this bargain made. And that’s basically it for a while except with some wars and a bit of shallow theme development on what we should use magic for and who should use it. I say shallowly, because thematically I didn’t find any real one to hold on to. And I’m a theme girlie so I needed more to hang on to. Secondly, I kind of felt like most people weren’t that great as characters and Jonathan Strange is kind of the worst husband ever?? Like that is my main takeaway.
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He’s very much magician first and husband second, which Arabella understands, but girl like you deserve way better. Because her life and her relationships were intriguing and then also such a shallow side show? It was really frustrating because I obviously didn’t like Mr. Norrell, and then Strange lets me down in the most basic way possible. Justice for Arabella. My final thoughts are about the hype of this book. I know this book was first published in 2004 and has so much love surrounding it, but I don’t get it?
Overall,
My one thought was that for the time period of 2004 maybe this made a bigger splash than it does now. It hits different now with the unique worlds, diversity of voices and experiences, and the general fantasy landscape. I feel very much like maybe this book was best experienced in this pocket of time and that we may have passed the window here? And that’s okay. It’s valid to have this nostalgic allure, but nowadays I think we, and Arabella, deserve a bit better of a reading experience. Do I still recommend to read it to find out what everything is about? I’d say try the first few chapters if you really want to, but if it doesn’t work for you, let it go. I wish I had.
Find Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop. org, Blackwells, & Libro. fm.