Drej's review
The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories
by Susanna Clarke
Drej's review
The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories by Susanna Clarke
Drej's review
rating:
This is a collection of stories set in the world of her novel, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Mostly fairy stories, 'tis true, but they are decidedly not nice fairies. You get the sense of a truly different race, alien to us, and not friendly.
Some of the stories feel more like nice imitations of form rather than great in themselves. Mostly, I got this impression from the last story, "John Uskglass and the Caumbrian Charcoal Burner." Clarke puts as an editorial disclaimer that the story likely has no basis in fact, being an example of typical powerful-ruler-outwitted-by-lowly-underling stories. The story is indeed quite unbelievable. All the while, I was wondering why she had bothered to include it. The point may be to show what might have happened had England had a magician-king; the masses surely would have conjured up such a story. But why go out of your way to both say the story's unbelievable and then make no effort to convince us?
On the whol...more
Some of the stories feel more like nice imitations of form rather than great in themselves. Mostly, I got this impression from the last story, "John Uskglass and the Caumbrian Charcoal Burner." Clarke puts as an editorial disclaimer that the story likely has no basis in fact, being an example of typical powerful-ruler-outwitted-by-lowly-underling stories. The story is indeed quite unbelievable. All the while, I was wondering why she had bothered to include it. The point may be to show what might have happened had England had a magician-king; the masses surely would have conjured up such a story. But why go out of your way to both say the story's unbelievable and then make no effort to convince us?
On the whol...more
