Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

The short review of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell - It's absolutely fabulous.

However, a 1008 page book deserves a little more than that, so I will start my review. I first came across Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell through limyaael, whose advice, as I have already noted, I find highly suited to my tastes. I was even more overjoyed to find this book in a local book shop, but it was a big book and an expensive one, and I dithered a lot before deciding on whether I wanted this book. Finally, after finding nothing else I wanted to buy in that entire bookstore, (except for Blyton's Naughtiest Girl in School, which I bought on the same trip, and my review of which can be read here) I finally decided to forget about waiting to read some more reviews and I just bought it.

My verdict? Jonathan Strange, as a character, is a more than sufficient reason to read this book. Mr. Norrell, the other principle character in this story, is another. Mix in some magic, mayhem, history, and a certain Raven King, along with a few creepy gentlemen with thistle-down hair, a certain nameless slave, Childermass and Arabella and you've got enough to make you want to re-read the book plenty of times. Clarke is a brilliant writer, and this clearly shines through her characters. She writes is many different perspectives - and whether she's writing through the eyes of cautious, fussy Mr. Norrell, or the crazy and daring Mr. Strange, or the confused but genuinely concerned Stephen Black, or even through the perspective of Childermass, Mr. Norrell's servant-cum-assistant, Clarke never fails to dazzle.

Set in 1806, this book covers the span of many years, and many important events - a war between france and england, the revival of english magic, and the biggest magical showdown for many years. Writing with skill and finesse, Clarke manages to build a startlingly beautiful world - mixing just enough of the real and the fantastical to create a setting that is amazingly fun to read. The setting manages to create a base for the story without actually proving to be too obtrusive to it, which I appreciate, because ultimately I believe this is a story about people rather than about the setting and I really felt that Clarke understands this delicate balance. Her setting is made even deeper and more real by the clever use of footnotes. These footnotes are a lot of fun to read, because they tell you stories and tales and add some spice to the world. (For another use of amazing footnotes, especially for humor unlike in this book, check out Stroud's Bartimaeus Trilogy - my review of which can be found here.)

Clarke is a great writer. She knows how to make a reader feel interested in the fate of even a character who might have been boring in any other hands. (Mr. Norrell, who has been described as the following by the author herself - "He hardly ever spoke of magic, and when he did it was like a history lesson and no one could bear to hear him." ) To convert this and the half-crazy, passionate, daring, charming guy Jonathan Strange is into a novel of this perfection is absolutely amazing. Her book is divided essentially into three parts - the first, of Mr. Norrell, the second devoted almost entirely to Mr. Strange, and the third being a combination of the two of them and a culmination of a large range of other plotlines into a dazzling finish. However, Mr. Strange is not entirely absent in Mr. Norrell's part of the story, and neither is it the other way around. Through footnotes, and introductory chapters, and small references, Clarke introduces us to Mr. Strange before he appears in the story proper, which is great because otherwise I might have lost interest in him long before the third part.

The plot is really well-crafted. It has a prophecy at the heart of it, and even though I do not generally like prophecies (too often in the hands of an inexperienced author you can tell what is going to happen long before the end, which is the worst way to have prophecies) but Clarke subverts this so cleverly and pulls such plot twists that it is a delight to read about this particular prophecy. In fact, in many ways this actually adds to the book, because by the time I reached the third part, I was actually getting goosebumps just reading the titles of the various chapters. (You can only understand this if you read the book till the second part, and then decide to ration the rest of the book by reading a hundred pages a day.)

Overall, this book is must-read for any serious fantasy enthusiast, and perhaps a must read for a lot of people. It's interesting, it's serious, it's funny, it's dark, and it's absolutely beautiful. It's a study into human nature. It's a well-researched book. It's a book to admire. It's a book to treasure. It's a book to fill your bookshelves and a book to read quickly, and slowly, to talk about and to spend some time with, a book to spend stormy afternoons with. It's a book to ration the pages off because despite its length you will feel it got over too soon.

In short, it's a book to love and a book to add to your bookshelves, like I added it to mine.

Final thoughts: Great writing, brilliant characterization, excellent plotting and great settings. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell will captivate you, it will make you think and it will make hours disappear before you know it. It's the kind of book you read till midnight - telling yourself you'll put it down after the end of the chapter but realizing only twenty pages into the next chapter that you forgot all about that. Need I say more?

Of course, if you don't believe me, check out reviews of this book by other great people, chief among which is Neil Gaiman, whom I also admire very much. It might also be great to check out what Mr. Strange and Mr. Norrell have to say about the story. Of course, it might also be great to get some information on the film being made on this particular book.

Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay

Tigana made me want to write this blog.

This probably sounds like an odd statement. How can an ordinary book want to make you write pages and pages of blog posts that I will probably devote days, weeks, and months to?

In a nutshell, the answer is: Tigana is not an ordinary book. It is a book so beautiful that I couldn't help but want to share with someone else.

A little background. I'm a hard-core fantasy fan, but its hard to find books like Tigana in the bookstores in the small Indian city I live in. Therefore, I have to order each book from Amazon, at about double the price you'd get a similar book here, and wait till April, when my parents usually go to America and are able to pick up the books. Therefore, each one of the books I order is carefully picked. I read many reviews. I wait for recommendations from people I trust. I think a hundred times on whether I'd rather have a new book from an author I've never read before or the latest addition to Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos books. These are hard choices.

For Tigana, it wasn't so hard. I had a recommendation from Limyaael, whose posts I read as often as I possibly can, and whose book recommendations (on her live journal) generally fit in to my tastes. Besides, I'd already read (also on the recommendation of Limyaael) "The Lions of Al-Rassan" by Guy Gavriel Kay, and liked it, though not nearly as much as I eventually came to love Tigana. I read many reviews about Tigana, good and bad, but eventually went with my gut feeling and just decided to buy it.

I think my life would have so much poorer if I had not.

Why can be summed up in just one brilliant line of the book, "Tigana, let my memory of you be a blade in my soul."

The basic premise of the book? A peninsula divided into seven states. Two foreign conquerors who have captured six of these states - Brandin and Alberico. One Prince of Tigana who dared to kill Brandin's beloved son. One spell that removed the existence of an entire culture from the face of the earth, not even leaving the name of the place. And a group of people who will do anything to bring back their beloved country.

On the outset, this seems like a pretty simple story. You root for the people who are fighting against the evil sorcerers. They win. You celebrate.

To a certain extent, this is what happened with me. I loved Alessan, I liked Devin, and even though I wasn't too fond of Catriana she still struck me as a fairly respectable character. I could believe in their cause (especially thanks to the breath-taking prologue, which reveals exactly what the cause means to them and why) What happens, though, when you fall in love with the characters on the opposite side too? I didn't want to like Dianora, the woman who begins as someone who wants to kill Brandin but ends up falling in love with him. But it was impossible to help. Kay lifts this story from the regular cliche of woman-falling-in-love-with-person-she-is-supposed-to-kill and puts you right there with Dianora and Brandin and whether you like it or not, you eventually end up loving them, or at least sympathizing with them. Till the end of the book, I was hoping for an ending that was happy for all of them, and there was even a point when I thought that was possible.

But characterization, even though it is a major part of why I like this book, is not the only reason I would recommend it to someone. Another is undoubtedly the world-building. The Palm is a real and beautiful place, with a history and a future. People don't act and think in a vacuum. You can almost see the two moons, hear Alessan playing on the pipes and taste the blue wine. The descriptions used by Kay are masterful. You get the feeling that this world is alive, that it exists somewhere, and doesn't end once the pages of the book end. The description in this book makes me want to spend a vacation in Tigana, and see the towers and the buildings and the beauty. I'm not a visual reader. I don't, unlike most readers, generally see images in my head of the characters and locations. But I see Tigana.

The language is another part of this book that makes it worth recommending. The book is beautifully written, in a number of different points of view. For someone who enjoys something other than the regular black-and-white fantasy, this is a beautiful book to read, because it tells you things from the perspective of many characters. Even Alberico, who I definitely wouldn't sympathize with normally and whom I only cautiously liked in this book, was a wonderful read. Besides, sentences of this book will set themselves in your sub-conscious memory and come back on lazy days, and the time before you go to sleep, or when you are looking out of the window in a drive, and make your heart twist in a way that is both beautiful and tragic.

Many people will tell you that the ending leaves you wanting more. In my opinion, this is one of the best, best parts of this book. The ending with tantalize you and grip you. I don't know if any other author could have made this ending work. It still makes gives me butterflies in my stomach when I think of it. The ending alone is a really good reason to love this book. Tigana is a book to love, to savor slowly on lonely afternoons, to re-read, and to write reviews about. Tigana is truly a book to treasure.

Last words: Read Tigana. Re-read it. And let your memory of this book forever be a blade in your soul.