Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel
This is the first novel from Susanna Clarke, but I hope it won’t be her last.

The book is probably typically categorized as fantasy, but reads more as historical fiction. Clarke has done an amazing job of world-building here, in a distinct way. Unlike Rowling, who concocts a magical society that exists parallel to our own (and takes some pains to make those connections), Clarke instead rewrites English history and inserts an old tradition of magic and magical research that interweaves with historical events both large and small. She doesn’t try to connect this world with our own, and in an indirect way asserts that this world is our own. The result is enjoyable and engrossing.

The story, set in the early 19th centry, focuses on the two title characters: Mr. Norrell, a fussy older gentleman who comes out of obscurity to reclaim respectability for English magic, which has been out of fashion and practice for centuries. Norrell comes to London where he quickly establishes himself as the preeminent (perhaps only) actual (versus theoretical) magician in all of England, and goes about performing services for the English government, particularly in support of the war with Napoleon and France. Things go swimmingly until a new magician appears, Johnathan Strange, who quickly becomes Norrell’s pupil. The story revolves around their relationship and the conflict that appears between Norrell and Strange’s competing visions for what English magic should be all about.

Norrell’s vision is rationalistic and perhaps scientific, and Norrell rejects the wild fairy magic of the Raven King, a hugely important historical figure whose activities and history undergird the background of the novel. Strange is drawn to the Raven King and this wilder, uncontrolled approach to magic, and soon he and Norrell are drawn into a conflict that is exacerbated by the machinations of those in the drawing-room society around them.

The novel is frequently and often humorously footnoted with references to authors, books (both magical and mundane), and events that create the historical backdrop for the action in the book. The book is large and complex (800 pages), and sometimes the pacing is slowed by the meticulous attention to detail that Clarke has for her subjects and society. But the novel overall is quite successful, and an enjoyable and rewarding read.