Nancy Holzner read and liked Katie's review of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell : A Novel. 26 Cds:

"I place Susanna Clarke squarely in the company of Tolkien and Frank Herbert; that is, writers with the ability to imagine absolutely astounding fictional worlds - with incredibly rich and complete histories, cultures and people - but who don't have t...more I place Susanna Clarke squarely in the company of Tolkien and Frank Herbert; that is, writers with the ability to imagine absolutely astounding fictional worlds - with incredibly rich and complete histories, cultures and people - but who don't have the skill to write down a compelling story. That's why enjoyed the movie versions of Dune and LOTR, but hated being forced to read them in written form. What Clarke has written here is a history book, a book that shows off the incredible world she has created. For that achievement, I applaud her. Unfortunately, she was so busy being proud of the world she created that she allowed it to get in the way of a story that could grip and keep a reader's attention.

There are many minor problems, but the major one, in my opinion, is that I don't care one iota for any of the characters. Mr. Norrell is a one-dimensional character with no depth or background whatsoever. He's a whiny, selfish, naive pill, and that's the whole length and breadth of his character. He's a placeholder for Clarke - a convenient anthropomorphic figurehead for the collection of books Strange needs to consult. Other than that, he's totally unnecessary to the plot or the story in general. Strange's character vascillates back and forth from a heroic nice guy to a self-amusing cad, such that the reader can never get to know his character comfortably. It's as if Clarke was writing him differently on different days, and then shuffled her papers. Plus, Strange goes inexplicably from being a feckless gentleman to a powerful magician - something Clarke doesn't explain (unless there was a CD missing from my audiobook, which there was not).

Clarke does that a lot- making sudden character changes that move the character/plot forward or tie up a thread without bothering to explain how or why this change occurs. The fate of Lascelles is another example. It's as if Clarke suddenly went, "Uh oh, the ending's coming and I have to do something with this guy. I'll just do...this." And poof, his thread is removed from the story, without really resolving anything.

Then there are the footnotes. If we're trying to show off the incredible world and history that Clarke has invented, bravo. If we're trying to totally interupt the flow and momentum of the story every other word so that we can never just settle in and enjoy a compelling tale, bravo again. And it isn't just the footnotes that do this. A huge complaint of mine is that every character talks like the footnotes, regardless of class, gender or situation. Even servants give long drawn-out explanations of things, using words and grammar that real people of their class in real situations just wouldn't use. I could sum up Clarke's use of dialogue in six words: REAL PEOPLE DON'T TALK LIKE THAT. I know she was trying to imitate the 19th century style of Jane Austin and the like, but even Austin knew that servants talked differently than gentlepeople. And Austin's characters didn't sound like they narrating a book. They sounded like people talking. Clarke's did not. They sounded like Clarke trying to tell us more about her great world that she thought up. (And I'm not referring to the accent or inflection conferred by the audiobook voice actor. I'm talking about the actual words put into the characters' mouths.)

Other readers must be seeing something I'm not, since this book won the Hugo and other such awards, and was named The Best of This, and The Best of That all over the place. Perhaps I gave it an unintended handicap by listening to the audiobook, so that I received it through the interpretation of the voice actor (with whom I was less than pleased). I will keep the printed book on my shelf and give it another shot sometime, since it certainly must have earned the acclaim it has received, which means that I'm the one who's wrong. :)(less) "

Nancy Holzner read and liked Eric's review of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell:

"I so wanted to like this book. The idea is just wonderful. I was so pleased for a while to be in that world, a historical England. I love the dialogue and descriptions. And I love the idea of magic in an otherwise real setting, as though it were a n...more I so wanted to like this book. The idea is just wonderful. I was so pleased for a while to be in that world, a historical England. I love the dialogue and descriptions. And I love the idea of magic in an otherwise real setting, as though it were a normal part of our actual world. But it was so frustrating to read after a while. The footnotes, auuuugh, the footnotes. They were cute at first, because the book is written sort of like a history book from that period. But after a while they were just so long and so unrelated to the main story that they became seriously cumbersome. And just when the story would be getting involved, she'd fast forward 2 years or 10 years and the last part of the story, though unresolved, would be pretty much forgotten. Boooo!

The end was annoying, or rather the way the main characters reacted to it. It's fiction, it's fantasy, but when you're writing about basic human beings who have otherwise behaved consistently throughout the book, and then they react to something in a way you know isn't consistent and isn't how people would act, it pops the bubble of your suspended disbelief and sort of ruins the story. Another annoying thing is that we keep waiting to learn more about why Mr. Norrell acts the way he does, but we never do learn. He's just a pill and that's it. That's poor writing, No motivations for him, no insight into his character. So really he just serves a function in the book that could have been served by an inanimate object.

Overall the book is just filled with too many things that seem to have no point. It's not that they aren't interesting by themselves or couldn't have been made into something wonderful, it's just that they are tossed out there randomly and not connected to anything. In that way, the cold, dispassionate history book style disappoints, because what we really want is a story. We want to care about the characters and see resolution of some kind. Booo!

There will apparently be more books set in this world, but I won't be reading them. It's just too much of a time investment in a seemingly great idea that doesn't pay off.(less) "