A review by keinbock
Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susannah Clark

4.0

Too much of a good thing.  I loved the whimsical narration and creative prose,  but there were too many characters and plotlines to keep straight.  In general the original concept of two rival magicians vs. a fairy that keeps  kidnapping their friends and servants, against a backdrop of the napoleonic wars, is intruiging and could have been much tighter,  with 50% fewer characters and storylines. The extra hundreds of pages were worthless anyway because I kept forgetting the last events or backstories of characters I hadn't seen in 100+ pages. Maybe it world have worked better as a trilogy