Review: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (original) (raw)

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
by Susanna Clarke
794pp, Bloomsbury, £17.99

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell may soon be inescapable. It's already a bestseller in the US, legions of grown-up Harry Potter fans are hungry for their next banquet, and Bloomsbury, delighted with this supersized tale of English wizardry, has prepared an immense marketing campaign. Plus, the book is rather good.

Susanna Clarke concocts a wickedly credible parallel history of Britain in which magicians were as active and prominent as anyone else we learned about at school. ("We" are assumed to be Victorians - a neat touch.) Clarke's punctilious scholarship - particularly in her copious footnotes - has such an authoritative air that we can scarcely resist believing she's filling gaps in our general knowledge. If I ever decide to practise magic, I'll be sure to use Ravilious's spells rather than Omskirk's.

All this faux-erudition underpins the book's central conceit: the revival of English magic during the Regency period, after several centuries of disuse. By 1806, English magicians have been reduced to ineffectual theoreticians and antiquarian book-collectors. Gilbert Norrell, Yorkshire scholar-supreme, astounds them all by performing feats of "practical" magic - an ungentlemanly pursuit that earns him instant renown. Desperate to impress the London government ministers whose class prejudice frustrates his goals, he enlists the aid of a terrifyingly amoral Faerie king to bring an influential politician's newly deceased fiancée back to life.

Clarke deadpans: "It has been remarked (by a lady infinitely cleverer than the present author) how kindly disposed the world in general feels to young people who either die or marry. Imagine then the interest that surrounded Miss Wintertowne! No young lady ever had such advantages before: for she died upon the Tuesday, was raised to life in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and was married upon the Thursday; which some people thought too much excitement for one week." Here we have all the defining features of Clarke's style simultaneously: the archly Austenesque tone, the somewhat overdone quaintness ("upon the Tuesday"), the winningly matter-of-fact use of the supernatural, and drollness to spare.

Suitably persuaded of Norrell's power, the British government employs him to help fight Napoleon; he obliges by breaking a naval blockade with a fleet of ships made entirely of rain. Further miracles follow, but Norrell's paymasters hint strongly that they could do with a team of magicians working full-time. Reluctantly, therefore, Norrell takes on a pupil - Jonathan Strange, a Darcy-like gallant with an innate gift for magic far beyond that of his bookworm teacher. The rest of the tale, aside from the ever-plentiful digressions, examines the uneasy friendship of the two magician-scholars, Strange's continental adventures, the mischief of the Faerie king, and the treachery of Norrell's parasitical entourage of fops and factotums.

Clarke is a sophisticated writer, crafting elegant metaphors such as: "It was a little surprizing that the moon with her clean white face and fingers should condescend to make an appearance in that dirty little room."

Oxford-educated and steeped in Literature, she'll probably be spared the sniffy reviews and snobbery that have dogged JK Rowling. Indeed, the combination of extravagant critical plaudits ("unquestionably the finest English novel of the fantastic written in the last 70 years" - Neil Gaiman) and an excited readership may postpone the realisation that Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is seriously flawed.

Yes, the Austen imitation is deftly maintained and the other obvious influences - Ursula le Guin, Mervyn Peake, Dickens, Chesterton - are well-synthesised. But overall this large, loquacious book has nothing much to say, the plot creaks frightfully in many places and the pace dawdles. New characters are constantly being added, even near the end, and most of them struggle to earn their narrative keep. Even Byron loiters in the story for a while, serving no purpose beyond a literary wink-wink.

The most worrying weakness, though, is the book's low emotional temperature. Norrell's pangs of scholarly rivalry are by far the most intense feelings in this eerily bloodless world; more basic loves and hates, yearnings, hopes and sufferings have apparently been magicked into an inaccessible realm. As for sexual attraction, forget it: Clarke's protagonists are chaste to the bone, and their flesh never intrudes.

There are many less crucial but annoying flaws and redundancies which sharper editing could have remedied. This is the sort of book where "Hmm" is said "thought fully", and "Perhaps" is said "doubtfully". Affectedly archaic spellings ("shewed", "chuse", "popt", and so on) hinder rather than help the reader's orientation in the historical period. Clarke's attention to her 19th-century setting is fitful; too often she's content to begin her episodes with "On a bright May morning..." and passes straight on to the dialogue. The prose occasionally lapses into florid waffle ("It was the most unremarkable of doorways") and there are some stock fantasy-calendar images, like the "lonely bridge that spanned some immense and misty void".

Despite her flair for the fabulous, Clarke is ultimately an arch-rationalist. Magic is seen as A Bad Thing: supernatural aid is a lethal trap, the search for mystical enlightenment mimics the degradations of drug addiction, a charmed life is a Kafkaesque nightmare, Faerie-land is dismal and angst-ridden. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is likely, in the months ahead, to be enveloped in a swirling haze of acclaim. Only when this initial enchantment wears off may Clarke's admirably inventive, frequently delightful novel open up to reveal its desolate spirit and its fear of the very forces it purports to celebrate.

· Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White is published by Canongate

· Jonathan Strange is longlisted for the Guardian first book award