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A review by rovingsoul
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
slow-paced
3.0
TEDIOUS. I love a big tome, but the pacing of this is glacial. I’m shocked that this is the same author who wrote Piranesi, which I loved. The world building is impressive, but I never felt like I cared enough about the characters (except Stephen) to be invested in the various sidequests / details in the footnotes.
I have never hated a book that I gave 3/5 so much, but I have to applaud Clarke for the labour put into this. I made it about 500 pages deep (as the sunk-cost fallacy nearly ate me alive) but after chapter 46 I finally had to accept that this wasn’t getting better and life is too short not to DNF.
I also don’t understand why “shewed” and “chused” were used (in lieu of showed or chose) as often as they were. I understand that Clarke was going for 19th century style, but I found it odd that these were the only major words that were changed. It took me right out of it and I found it more annoying / distracting the farther along I was. Regarding language, I think that you should to the bit fully or not at all.
I have never hated a book that I gave 3/5 so much, but I have to applaud Clarke for the labour put into this. I made it about 500 pages deep (as the sunk-cost fallacy nearly ate me alive) but after chapter 46 I finally had to accept that this wasn’t getting better and life is too short not to DNF.
I also don’t understand why “shewed” and “chused” were used (in lieu of showed or chose) as often as they were. I understand that Clarke was going for 19th century style, but I found it odd that these were the only major words that were changed. It took me right out of it and I found it more annoying / distracting the farther along I was. Regarding language, I think that you should to the bit fully or not at all.