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Now I will happily admit that I’m not always first to ride waves of publishing hype. The more I’m told something is a ‘must read’, to be honest, the less likely I am to give it my immediate attention. Consequently, it sometimes takes me a while to get round to books that a lot of people felt they had to read because ‘everyone’ was talking about them. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was just such a book, and three years after it took the UK publishing world by storm, I’ve only just read it. Oh well, better late than never.

 

Set in the early nineteenth century, this fascinating novel describes an England where ‘theoretical magicians’ study learned texts but nobody actually practices magic. So when a group of scholars in York discover someone capable of actually performing spells, it’s a major event. After proving his credentials by making the statues of York Minster come to life, Mr Norrell leaves behind a reclusive scholarly life and moves to London, where he quickly becomes the toast of high society. Unfortunately his jealous and guarded personality doesn’t make him the easiest person to get along with, and when he agrees – at first reluctantly – to tutor a pupil, everyone gets along with his protégé much better. Jonathan Strange comes to magic quite by chance but finds he has rather a gift for it, and together the two magicians make an astonishing impact on the worlds of politics, war and society with their very English brand of magic. Strange becomes magician to the Duke of Wellington, assisting in his military campaigns in Europe. But Norrell is closely guarded by insidious hangers-on, and eventually a rift develops between master and pupil, and the two go their separate ways – inevitably becoming rivals. Neither magician seems to have taken very seriously an ancient prophecy concerning their roles in the resurrection of magic in England, and eventually, in order to save his own wife, Strange is forced to join forces again with Norrell in a cataclysmic finale.

 

Despite being well over 800 pages, this is an engrossing read. Full of great historical detail and brilliantly drawn character, it manages to create the convincing illusion that Norrell and Strange are indeed resurrecting a long and noble tradition of English magic. There is humour and intelligence in equal measure, and Susanna Clarke seems to have found her inspiration as much in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novels of high society as she has in the world of myth and fantasy. If you’d told me at the start that I would have thoroughly enjoyed an enormously long book about magicians and fairies – yes, fairies – I would have laughed. But I did. And I'm sure you will too.

 

Susan Tranter