Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

"Can a magician kill a man by magic?" Lord Wellington asked Strange. Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. "I suppose a magician might," he admitted, "but a gentleman never could."

I think that this quote sums up a lot of Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.  This book takes place in an alternate history of Europe and the world where magic is real.  The book takes place in the early 1800's and covers a long period of time.  However, unlike Michael Stackpole's Crown Colonies, real historical events like Waterloo take place throughout the course of the story and all of the geography is real. 

 

The way that magic works in this book is interesting because it appears to happen basically without cost. Magicians never seem to suffer any sort of consequences for doing even powerful magic.  This makes the magic in this book, in a way more subtle, while also making it more powerful.

This book is Ms. Clarke's debut novel and it is, especially for a debut, quite good.  The book is very long but it uses that length to fully immerse the reader in the world.  The world of the upper class in the early 1800's is very different than the modern world but after a book this long it seems very natural.

The book is also very silly.  At no point is it outright funny, but the author makes a lot of little side comments that make it sillier.  Also, she has built up an entire world of stories and literature that are referenced in her extensive footnotes throughout the book.

While the first third of the book barely has Jonathan Strange in it, he dominates the latter two thirds.  At the end of the book it talks about how some people support Norrell's views and others, Strange's.  However, with Strange taking up so much of the book, it was hard for me to see how people would take Norrell's side of view.  I would say the situation would be analogous to someone who only read Al Franken thinking about Republicans.

I tend to avoid talking about the format that the books I read are in.  However, this book was the first book I read with the new Kindle firmware that estimates the amount of time that the reader has left in chapters and in the book.  I felt like the estimates were a little off but, on the Kindle, it was a nice compromise for the lack of physical pages.

Overall, I would give this book a 94%.