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quietprofanity Mar. 15th, 2008 02:09 pm)
quietprofanity Mar. 15th, 2008 02:09 pm)If you hung out around the bargain books section at any time last year, you probably saw a copy of this book lying around. Big, single-colored (usually black) with just the name, author and a bird on the over. But most likely you didn't notice it unless you noticed how often it appeared. And if you did, you were like, "What is this book? Why have I never heard of it? And what right does it have to be so huge?"
The book has a pretty impenetrable description on its front flap, so I'm going to try to do a Yahtzee Croshaw-style summary.
It's the 1800s in England, but it's actually a fake England where a bunch of people used to be magicians but aren't anymore. Now anybody who calls themselves a magician just studies it. An old magician (Mr Norrell) who can actually do magic appears, and decides he should be the only magician because he's kind of a boring prick. He also establishes himself as working for the fake England government by selling out the wife of a minister to an evil faerie, but that's OK because nobody knows about it and he's helping fake England beat Napoleon.
Meanwhile, a young guy (Jonathan Strange) hears a prophecy saying he will become a magician and this will bring doom. Not even bothering to try to avoid sleeping with his mother (metaphorically), the young guy walks straight into the predestination paradox and decides he'll become a magician. He's inexplicably good at it, and Mr Norrell decides they should be BFF until they get into a tweedy scholarly pissing match about whether or not they should incorporate this one super-magician who had a Raven fetish into their work. This eventually leads to a break-up and they settle their differences by ushering on an apocalypse. Oh, and the evil faerie continues to do evil and the book has a lot of footnotes for every magical term the author made up.
[/lame imitation Yahtzee]
If all that doesn't sound like blockbuster book material, the publishing company didn't think so either. So they decided to release this book with the message that it was awesome but also tried to hide what the book was actually about. Of course, they were also hoping to sell it as literary fiction, because it's written in faux-Regency style, and not as fantasy, even though that's what it actually, y'know, is.
I've already wrote about how I think the critics pegging it as "Harry Potter for adults" and Neil Gaiman's recommendation also may have worked against the book, since people who actually bought were expecting something like Rowling or Gaiman's work and found it wasn't to their taste. So ... yeah.
But guys, ignore my sarcastic Yahtzee-style plot. Just know this. If you don't like classic novels, you probably won't like this book. Except for the war scenes (which are written less like mythic Tolkien-esque battles and more like how the media depicts actual war), there isn't any action until the last sixth of the book. So for many it might be 400 pages of set-up to 200 pages of happenings. Also, even before that, the first third of the book mostly concerns itself with Mr Norrell, who is surrounded by interesting characters (Goths might get such a kick out of his servant Childermass that they might get disappointed that he doesn't do so much. Heck, there's probably a woobievision Mary Sue fanfic out about him now.), but since he's a prick it's not so much fun. So ... this book requires a lot of patience to enjoy, which others may not like.
But I did! So I'll go into detail.
- I love the way this book is written. It's not exactly the flavor (flavour?) of old British literature novels but it's close and, in a Raymond Carver-minimalism inspired world, it's quite a refreshing imitation. The footnotes seem really annoying and pretentious when you hear about them, and sometimes they do break flow, but they were interesting enough that I didn't mind so much. And you know, I actually quite admired them because if nothing else, it did show Clarke's dedication to her magical world. Of course, if you take a decade to write something ...
- More on the world. I don't know if everyone is going to be totally convinced by the worldbuilding (of course, fandom_wank taught me that apparently J.R.R. Tolkien didn't work hard enough at being a worldbuilder -- frankly, he's done way too much for my taste, but I've discussed that). It's mostly "the real world with extra bits tacked on." And I'm still not sure I'm into the extended Lord Byron character. On the one hand, he was very funny. On the other hand ... er, not in real life anymore. Then again, a bunch of real people showed up; he's just the one I knew the best so maybe I should quit bitching.
- Jonathan Strange was a cool character. He had a fun sense of humor and it was hard not to be on his side. While I was at first upset at the women-in-refrigerators-style fall from grace plot, since it seemed so overdone, Clarke took a much different road with him not turning evil, even if he turned "dark" (although even that wasn't done traditionally). So I guess the whole "A magician could kill someone, but a gentleman never could" turned out to be a red herring in the end. Still, good stuff.
- I don't like Mr Norrell much, but I don't think you're supposed to. Still, in the end, he's ultimately human and I did relate to his sort of refuge in learning and book obsession. (Actually, some people might find that part of the book close to home.)
- Diversity Alert! Women don't have a huge amount of agency. Two of them have to be rescued. However, women are usually some of the smarter characters in the book. (A lot smarter than a lot of the men in the book -- although to "reverse sexism!" complainers -- most of them are clueless rather than actual idiots.) There's only one minority character and he spends most of the book in dire straits, but in the end he gets the happiest ending. (Actually, a movie from New Line Cinema is in the worst, and I'm looking forward to seeing his ending the most.) So, not the best, but not the worst either.
- Mr Segundus is the unsung hero of this novel and I liked him a lot. Please don't send me fanfic.
- I'm also sure there's some JS/N fic out there, considering that you could play the conduit-of-love-through-magic but frankly the thought of Mr Norrell naked is just gross. Still ...
[searches]
Eh, I'm not wading through the Harry Potter crossovers. Thanks.
- One of my favorite scenes was Childermass and Vinculus with the tarot cards. Vinculus ultimate origin was kind of weird, but I dug it.
- Good job with Clarke making me hate Drawlight and then REALLY HATE Drawlight but ultimately feel bad for him when he died. I wasn't so convinced on Lacelles' transformation to sarcastic snit to total and complete bastard though.
- I'm kind of reaching now. I ran out of things to say. I guess I want to end with the book is really much better than the backlash that has given it credit for, but I do recognize it's not for everyone. If you pick it up on my recommendation, I hope you enjoy it.
The book has a pretty impenetrable description on its front flap, so I'm going to try to do a Yahtzee Croshaw-style summary.
It's the 1800s in England, but it's actually a fake England where a bunch of people used to be magicians but aren't anymore. Now anybody who calls themselves a magician just studies it. An old magician (Mr Norrell) who can actually do magic appears, and decides he should be the only magician because he's kind of a boring prick. He also establishes himself as working for the fake England government by selling out the wife of a minister to an evil faerie, but that's OK because nobody knows about it and he's helping fake England beat Napoleon.
Meanwhile, a young guy (Jonathan Strange) hears a prophecy saying he will become a magician and this will bring doom. Not even bothering to try to avoid sleeping with his mother (metaphorically), the young guy walks straight into the predestination paradox and decides he'll become a magician. He's inexplicably good at it, and Mr Norrell decides they should be BFF until they get into a tweedy scholarly pissing match about whether or not they should incorporate this one super-magician who had a Raven fetish into their work. This eventually leads to a break-up and they settle their differences by ushering on an apocalypse. Oh, and the evil faerie continues to do evil and the book has a lot of footnotes for every magical term the author made up.
[/lame imitation Yahtzee]
If all that doesn't sound like blockbuster book material, the publishing company didn't think so either. So they decided to release this book with the message that it was awesome but also tried to hide what the book was actually about. Of course, they were also hoping to sell it as literary fiction, because it's written in faux-Regency style, and not as fantasy, even though that's what it actually, y'know, is.
I've already wrote about how I think the critics pegging it as "Harry Potter for adults" and Neil Gaiman's recommendation also may have worked against the book, since people who actually bought were expecting something like Rowling or Gaiman's work and found it wasn't to their taste. So ... yeah.
But guys, ignore my sarcastic Yahtzee-style plot. Just know this. If you don't like classic novels, you probably won't like this book. Except for the war scenes (which are written less like mythic Tolkien-esque battles and more like how the media depicts actual war), there isn't any action until the last sixth of the book. So for many it might be 400 pages of set-up to 200 pages of happenings. Also, even before that, the first third of the book mostly concerns itself with Mr Norrell, who is surrounded by interesting characters (Goths might get such a kick out of his servant Childermass that they might get disappointed that he doesn't do so much. Heck, there's probably a woobievision Mary Sue fanfic out about him now.), but since he's a prick it's not so much fun. So ... this book requires a lot of patience to enjoy, which others may not like.
But I did! So I'll go into detail.
- I love the way this book is written. It's not exactly the flavor (flavour?) of old British literature novels but it's close and, in a Raymond Carver-minimalism inspired world, it's quite a refreshing imitation. The footnotes seem really annoying and pretentious when you hear about them, and sometimes they do break flow, but they were interesting enough that I didn't mind so much. And you know, I actually quite admired them because if nothing else, it did show Clarke's dedication to her magical world. Of course, if you take a decade to write something ...
- More on the world. I don't know if everyone is going to be totally convinced by the worldbuilding (of course, fandom_wank taught me that apparently J.R.R. Tolkien didn't work hard enough at being a worldbuilder -- frankly, he's done way too much for my taste, but I've discussed that). It's mostly "the real world with extra bits tacked on." And I'm still not sure I'm into the extended Lord Byron character. On the one hand, he was very funny. On the other hand ... er, not in real life anymore. Then again, a bunch of real people showed up; he's just the one I knew the best so maybe I should quit bitching.
- Jonathan Strange was a cool character. He had a fun sense of humor and it was hard not to be on his side. While I was at first upset at the women-in-refrigerators-style fall from grace plot, since it seemed so overdone, Clarke took a much different road with him not turning evil, even if he turned "dark" (although even that wasn't done traditionally). So I guess the whole "A magician could kill someone, but a gentleman never could" turned out to be a red herring in the end. Still, good stuff.
- I don't like Mr Norrell much, but I don't think you're supposed to. Still, in the end, he's ultimately human and I did relate to his sort of refuge in learning and book obsession. (Actually, some people might find that part of the book close to home.)
- Diversity Alert! Women don't have a huge amount of agency. Two of them have to be rescued. However, women are usually some of the smarter characters in the book. (A lot smarter than a lot of the men in the book -- although to "reverse sexism!" complainers -- most of them are clueless rather than actual idiots.) There's only one minority character and he spends most of the book in dire straits, but in the end he gets the happiest ending. (Actually, a movie from New Line Cinema is in the worst, and I'm looking forward to seeing his ending the most.) So, not the best, but not the worst either.
- Mr Segundus is the unsung hero of this novel and I liked him a lot. Please don't send me fanfic.
- I'm also sure there's some JS/N fic out there, considering that you could play the conduit-of-love-through-magic but frankly the thought of Mr Norrell naked is just gross. Still ...
[searches]
Eh, I'm not wading through the Harry Potter crossovers. Thanks.
- One of my favorite scenes was Childermass and Vinculus with the tarot cards. Vinculus ultimate origin was kind of weird, but I dug it.
- Good job with Clarke making me hate Drawlight and then REALLY HATE Drawlight but ultimately feel bad for him when he died. I wasn't so convinced on Lacelles' transformation to sarcastic snit to total and complete bastard though.
- I'm kind of reaching now. I ran out of things to say. I guess I want to end with the book is really much better than the backlash that has given it credit for, but I do recognize it's not for everyone. If you pick it up on my recommendation, I hope you enjoy it.
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And this sounds to be a book I might actually enjoy. I may pick up a copy.