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A review by smithmick14
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
this book is such a refreshing split from the usual depiction of magic that we get in fiction. so often we're subjected to wands-as-guns or magic-as-technology. i don't want "magic systems". i want wizened old academics realizing they're like children in the face of the arcana into which they've delved. i want pleasant banter over whose implementation of a given charm is better for a situation based on several different texts and schools of thought. things that feel more real (as far as magic can be real) than just a simple video game program.
if you also want these weird and arbitrary elements of magic and fantasy then Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is one place to start. the magic of this novel is historical in a way that feels very much like reading an old book you find in the back of the library. there are references to Western Esotericism that are absolutely surgically inserted into the footnotes gilding the periphery of this book. in the middle of a conversation between two diplomats in a coffeehouse a reference to Hermes Trismegistus will bubble to the surface like swamp gas formed in a previous geological era.
this book provides these things all couched within a world that feels fantastic and impossible but also somehow more like our own than almost any other fantasy novel that i've read. by that i mean that the people in this novel behave like real people instead of just pawns of some magical plot. the dialogue is dense and real. the characters have motivations and flaws that eschew archetypes or traditional plot clichés. this book feels like a perfect artifact from another universe where English magic ruled in the physical world as much as it did in the psychosocial world. magic is discussed as an academic pursuit in a manner that feels so deeply.....correct. so true. ironically it depicts magic as a sort of scientific discipline akin to physics or math in a way that is more true to the historiography of those fields than pulpier fantasy books.
it's also such a deep celebration of the (some (not me) would say banal) magic of reading and literature. people become the books that they read and the books that they hoard and the books that they protect. the only difference from our world is a slightly more literal penchant within this book.
this book is also a celebration of teachers and the process of teachers becoming friends and colleagues. so much of this book revolves around the split between theory and practice and how what was once revolutionary practice can become dusty fearful theory with just a little bit of perspective shift. all the while it nods its head at the fact that most people couldn't advance and call out their predecessor's work without standing on their shoulders to do so. but at the end of everything we still have that communion with the written word connecting the teacher to the pupil. no amount of genre-busting or enactment of new methods can get in the way of the love of the pursuit of knowledge that every generation has for what they study.
“And how shall I think of you?' He considered a moment and then laughed. 'Think of me with my nose in a book!”
i liked this one.
if you also want these weird and arbitrary elements of magic and fantasy then Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is one place to start. the magic of this novel is historical in a way that feels very much like reading an old book you find in the back of the library. there are references to Western Esotericism that are absolutely surgically inserted into the footnotes gilding the periphery of this book. in the middle of a conversation between two diplomats in a coffeehouse a reference to Hermes Trismegistus will bubble to the surface like swamp gas formed in a previous geological era.
this book provides these things all couched within a world that feels fantastic and impossible but also somehow more like our own than almost any other fantasy novel that i've read. by that i mean that the people in this novel behave like real people instead of just pawns of some magical plot. the dialogue is dense and real. the characters have motivations and flaws that eschew archetypes or traditional plot clichés. this book feels like a perfect artifact from another universe where English magic ruled in the physical world as much as it did in the psychosocial world. magic is discussed as an academic pursuit in a manner that feels so deeply.....correct. so true. ironically it depicts magic as a sort of scientific discipline akin to physics or math in a way that is more true to the historiography of those fields than pulpier fantasy books.
it's also such a deep celebration of the (some (not me) would say banal) magic of reading and literature. people become the books that they read and the books that they hoard and the books that they protect. the only difference from our world is a slightly more literal penchant within this book.
this book is also a celebration of teachers and the process of teachers becoming friends and colleagues. so much of this book revolves around the split between theory and practice and how what was once revolutionary practice can become dusty fearful theory with just a little bit of perspective shift. all the while it nods its head at the fact that most people couldn't advance and call out their predecessor's work without standing on their shoulders to do so. but at the end of everything we still have that communion with the written word connecting the teacher to the pupil. no amount of genre-busting or enactment of new methods can get in the way of the love of the pursuit of knowledge that every generation has for what they study.
“And how shall I think of you?' He considered a moment and then laughed. 'Think of me with my nose in a book!”
i liked this one.