A Winter's Tale
May. 15th, 2005 12:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtvessel28 April 2005
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke - Bloomsbury 2004
* * * *
I had been looking forward to reading this book ever since I heard about it at the start of last year. Susanna Clarke was responsible for a magnificent short story called "Stopp't Clock Yard" that was the stand-out of the collection in which it appeared. She has a precise, dryly humorous style which clearly owes much to Jane Austen while still being uniquely her own - the use of Austenesque spellings such as "surprize" and "chuse" is perhaps a little affected, but works well enough, particularly in this book, which is set at the start of an alternate nineteenth century. I was interested to see if she could combine it with strong plots and good characterisation. As the score above indicates, in my view she didn't quite pull it off, but this is still a thoroughly worthwhile book.
Its subject is the rediscovery of "English Magic", which has all but died out as the novel opens. In the Middle Ages the north of the England was ruled by a powerful magician called the Raven King, but since his time the practice of magic has declined until only a few theoretical "gentleman-magicians" are left. One such company meets in York "upon the third Wednesday of every month and read each other long, dull papers upon the history of English magic". Two of their number, wishing to locate someone who can actually do magic, call upon a pinched, fussy, middle-aged and reclusive academic called Gilbert Norrell, and persuade him to perform a conjuration for them at York Minster, which he does with spectacular results. When word of his abilities spreads, Norrell moves to London and starts to assist the Government in affairs of state. He meets up with the arrogant, charming Jonathan Strange who becomes his apprentice. Sadly their relationship soon goes sour, for Norrell is as keen to prevent anyone else learning magic as he is to study it himself. This is unfortunate, as an early spell of Norrell's has caused a fairy known only as the "gentleman with the thistle-down hair" to take an interest in the doings of mortals. And meanwhile, the fairy roads are re-appearing and the magic is returning to England...
As this synopsis indicates, English magic is the magic of fairies and turns out to be just as dangerous and amoral as you might expect. But herein lies a weakness. Despite the mass of Terry Pratchett-style footnotes detailing Clarke's impressive pseudo-scholarship (not an entirely successful way of communicating background information - enjoyable though they are, having to interrupt the main story to go and read one is an annoyance), one never gets a strong insight into magical theory or how magicians actually discover new spells. The effects that can be achieved by magic are, it seems, somewhat arbitrary. For example, Strange joins the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsular War against Napoleon, where he uses his powers to reorganise the geography of Spain to the considerable (and hilarious) confusion of the French army. He can't, however, heal the injured or block up the French guns or any of a hundred and one other things that one would think magic might be capable of and which generations of magicians would certainly have attempted to do. Basically Clarke can decide arbitrarily which spells will work and which won't, and as a result her book teeters on the brink of picaresque whimsy.
Now it can be argued that fairy magic cannot and should not have rules or logic, as Mistress![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ingaborg has done in the past. And that of course is a perfectly valid view. But such an approach is not in my view appropriate for a novelistic treatment. Good novels have themes and characters which are introduced early on and which are developed as the novel progresses, hopefully in a manner that the reader finds surprising and entertaining. In the case of fantasy novels, one of the themes is the rules by which magic operates in the world. It's possible to write a novel with magic that has no rules, but if so it cannot be about magic because there is nothing to develop.
And this, I think, is the trap into which Clarke has fallen. Her magical theme cannot develop as the novel progresses because there is no system. As a result, neither can the main characters, whose chief obsession is magic. Norrell is an eccentric, crabby academic at the start and remains so to the end. The only shift is a change in the reader's perceptions as his initially unreasonable-seeming demands turn out to be for good reasons. Strange likewise alters very little in the course of the novel apart from growing in self-confidence. Both Norrell and Strange are obsessed with the acquisition of magical knowledge, but because the magical system is basically just a collection of arbitrary spells, the reader cannot share in this intellectual journey with them. Because of this, neither comes across as particularly sympathetic or likeable. The characters with whom the reader does identify, Strange's wife Arabella and the footman Stephen Black, are soon caught in the clutches of the bad guy and spend most of the book as passive observers.
This, I think, explains the curiously frozen nature of the book. It is telling that the majority of the scenes, which take place over a number of years, are set in the depths of winter. Clarke's crystalline prose, with its Austen-style ironic detachment, contributes to the effect. Even when describing extremely dramatic events, the prose glides smoothly on, giving the reader the impression that they are watching the characters through a sheet of clear ice.
Ironically, the end result is that despite the 800 page length and the wealth of detail, the book feels lightweight and lacking in any deep resonance. Nonetheless, it's a highly impressive and entertaining first novel - I'd recommend reading it for the style, the wonderful aphorisms and the atmospheric evocation of the English countryside and the land of fairy. With luck, Clarke's next novel will build on the merits of this one while addressing its shortcomings. I just hope that she doesn't take another ten years to write it.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke - Bloomsbury 2004
* * * *
I had been looking forward to reading this book ever since I heard about it at the start of last year. Susanna Clarke was responsible for a magnificent short story called "Stopp't Clock Yard" that was the stand-out of the collection in which it appeared. She has a precise, dryly humorous style which clearly owes much to Jane Austen while still being uniquely her own - the use of Austenesque spellings such as "surprize" and "chuse" is perhaps a little affected, but works well enough, particularly in this book, which is set at the start of an alternate nineteenth century. I was interested to see if she could combine it with strong plots and good characterisation. As the score above indicates, in my view she didn't quite pull it off, but this is still a thoroughly worthwhile book.
Its subject is the rediscovery of "English Magic", which has all but died out as the novel opens. In the Middle Ages the north of the England was ruled by a powerful magician called the Raven King, but since his time the practice of magic has declined until only a few theoretical "gentleman-magicians" are left. One such company meets in York "upon the third Wednesday of every month and read each other long, dull papers upon the history of English magic". Two of their number, wishing to locate someone who can actually do magic, call upon a pinched, fussy, middle-aged and reclusive academic called Gilbert Norrell, and persuade him to perform a conjuration for them at York Minster, which he does with spectacular results. When word of his abilities spreads, Norrell moves to London and starts to assist the Government in affairs of state. He meets up with the arrogant, charming Jonathan Strange who becomes his apprentice. Sadly their relationship soon goes sour, for Norrell is as keen to prevent anyone else learning magic as he is to study it himself. This is unfortunate, as an early spell of Norrell's has caused a fairy known only as the "gentleman with the thistle-down hair" to take an interest in the doings of mortals. And meanwhile, the fairy roads are re-appearing and the magic is returning to England...
As this synopsis indicates, English magic is the magic of fairies and turns out to be just as dangerous and amoral as you might expect. But herein lies a weakness. Despite the mass of Terry Pratchett-style footnotes detailing Clarke's impressive pseudo-scholarship (not an entirely successful way of communicating background information - enjoyable though they are, having to interrupt the main story to go and read one is an annoyance), one never gets a strong insight into magical theory or how magicians actually discover new spells. The effects that can be achieved by magic are, it seems, somewhat arbitrary. For example, Strange joins the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsular War against Napoleon, where he uses his powers to reorganise the geography of Spain to the considerable (and hilarious) confusion of the French army. He can't, however, heal the injured or block up the French guns or any of a hundred and one other things that one would think magic might be capable of and which generations of magicians would certainly have attempted to do. Basically Clarke can decide arbitrarily which spells will work and which won't, and as a result her book teeters on the brink of picaresque whimsy.
Now it can be argued that fairy magic cannot and should not have rules or logic, as Mistress
ingaborg has done in the past. And that of course is a perfectly valid view. But such an approach is not in my view appropriate for a novelistic treatment. Good novels have themes and characters which are introduced early on and which are developed as the novel progresses, hopefully in a manner that the reader finds surprising and entertaining. In the case of fantasy novels, one of the themes is the rules by which magic operates in the world. It's possible to write a novel with magic that has no rules, but if so it cannot be about magic because there is nothing to develop. And this, I think, is the trap into which Clarke has fallen. Her magical theme cannot develop as the novel progresses because there is no system. As a result, neither can the main characters, whose chief obsession is magic. Norrell is an eccentric, crabby academic at the start and remains so to the end. The only shift is a change in the reader's perceptions as his initially unreasonable-seeming demands turn out to be for good reasons. Strange likewise alters very little in the course of the novel apart from growing in self-confidence. Both Norrell and Strange are obsessed with the acquisition of magical knowledge, but because the magical system is basically just a collection of arbitrary spells, the reader cannot share in this intellectual journey with them. Because of this, neither comes across as particularly sympathetic or likeable. The characters with whom the reader does identify, Strange's wife Arabella and the footman Stephen Black, are soon caught in the clutches of the bad guy and spend most of the book as passive observers.
This, I think, explains the curiously frozen nature of the book. It is telling that the majority of the scenes, which take place over a number of years, are set in the depths of winter. Clarke's crystalline prose, with its Austen-style ironic detachment, contributes to the effect. Even when describing extremely dramatic events, the prose glides smoothly on, giving the reader the impression that they are watching the characters through a sheet of clear ice.
Ironically, the end result is that despite the 800 page length and the wealth of detail, the book feels lightweight and lacking in any deep resonance. Nonetheless, it's a highly impressive and entertaining first novel - I'd recommend reading it for the style, the wonderful aphorisms and the atmospheric evocation of the English countryside and the land of fairy. With luck, Clarke's next novel will build on the merits of this one while addressing its shortcomings. I just hope that she doesn't take another ten years to write it.