I just finished Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and, contrary to most people who loved it, I am mostly just frustrated. I should’ve loved it – historical fiction, written in the long Victorian style, about academia and magic – but by the end it just felt like too much fluff and too little substance. While there were generally parts that I liked, and I agree that she creates an atmosphere quite well, there were just so so many loose ends that never get addressed again, and other issues that didn’t get resolved for me. For example –
* In the first half of the book, we learn that a woman named Helen (I think) is in love with Stephen Black – what is the point of this? What happens to her?
* Lascelles, we find out in the middle, has been pretending to be Strange in letters, charging random students across English for magic lessons. Once this is found out, nothing happens. Lascelles isn’t in the story again until the very end, when this entire history is irrelevant. Who are these students who wanted to learn magic? What happens to them? Do they ever contact Strange?
* She spends so much time writing a fictional history of John Uskglass and the surrounding lore, and almost no time actually building a world of magic. I wanted to know what the nature of this magic was – how is it performed? How did it come about? Who can perform magic? What are the implications? None of these questions are addressed in the book, or even passingly referenced.
* There is nearly no time spent on Strange and Arabella’s relationship. >!When Arabella is revived he hardly blinks, and waits months before he goes to see her. If this was one of the major threads running through the novel, with her ‘dying’ going to faerie world, and ultimately coming back!<, why wasn’t more time spent on the relationship between Strange and Arabella? The way it’s written there’s no stakes to anything that happens.
* The book spends so long chronicling the unconvincing disagreement between Norrell and Strange, and yet it is entirely unconvincing. There isn’t enough evidence for why they needed to feud or get so hostile, or why I should care when they ultimately meet again.
I am genuinely confused by the rave reviews I’ve seen for this novel. I can definitely see its stronger moments, but that was all overshadowed by a lot of weak construction, side tangents, and fluff. The characters, too, despite being very well drawn-out and realistic, are completely static, and very few of them have any real character growth.
Really hoping to hear why, in spite of all this (or maybe because of all this?) people loved this book!
by FewAcanthopterygii95