Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

Susanna Clarke's novel Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell breaks all the rules. It's over 800 pages long. One of the title characters isn't properly introduced until over 200 pages into the novel. Clarke develops the history of her world largely through incorporation of 185 footnotes. Generally any one of these things would cause me to gripe about a book, never mind all three. However, I'm not the first reviewer to say the novel, even at over 800 pages, seems too short—I wanted more. The late...