jonathan strange & mr norrell

while in the process of reading jonathan strange & mr norrell, i desperately wanted to put it down and no longer persist through the long paragraphs and obnoxious footnotes. that was at around the 250 page mark. unfortunately it was not the interesting plot or the intriguing characters that kept me reading. it was guilt. but at very least i can now divulge my thoughts on the entire piece as a whole.

my biggest issue with this book is how slow and dragged out everything is. majority of it could have been cut out. we do not even meet strange until quite a ways in, and although i don’t particularly like him either, he is loads more interesting in comparison to norrell. i have no problem with long books, but this book felt long simply for the sake of being long.

what makes things worse is the ending is very anti climactic. the synopsis on the back cover, and the whole entire plot is working towards the conflict between strange and norrell, but there are only a few bouts of disagreement that involves petty sabotage. not only that, the ending that has taken about 600 pages worth of construction, is only concluded in around 150 pages. it makes me dizzy to think about. 

i also disliked the heavy amount of testosterone that made up the cast of this book. guaranteed, i would have been more engaged, even if by a sliver, had strange been a woman instead of a man. although i’m aware it’s intentional, the arrogance of the main characters often pestered me, especially norrell who annoyed me to no end. the only characters i found myself enjoying were probably childermass, segundus, and stephen.

regardless, there are still aspects i can appreciate in this book. i'm not sure if this was intentional but majority of the female characters in addition to the one single black character are all innocent victims to the arrogance of the rich white powerful male characters. it is often these individuals who are vulnerable in the hierarchy of society who suffer the consequence of the powerful, whether it is through magic or affluence. although, that is dependent on this being intentional. i strongly dislike women depicted as damsels in distress as a mere plot device. 

in addition, while i didn’t particularly enjoy this book, i can acknowledge the amazing work put into clarke’s first novel. it’s written to mimic the language of past times at an impressive level that incorporates lots of thorough, perhaps too much at certain times with those page long footnotes, world building of this alternate magical english history. 

i can confidently say that i will never read this book again, but at least i finished it. the agonizing journey that is jonathan strange & mr norrell was not worth the destination for me personally, but if you enjoy slow, and i mean really slow burn stories then perhaps it may be for you.