longer.blue

To make a Victorian novel as if magic exists in our world (or existed long ago) sounds like an impossible feat. But Susanna Clarke decided otherwise and gifted us a novel about faeries, magicians, and the very quintessence of "Englishness" and England. The genre of this story is difficult to pin down. It isn't classic fantasy, nor is it a historical novel or magical realism. Rather, it is all of them fused together. I would call it a kind of literary experiment. The author stylizes the language, fills her book with satirical scenes, and adds historical footnotes (with real historical figures appearing among the characters), as if using every available means to mask something else — something "real". Naturally, this might deter the average reader. But if you allow the text to carry you away... The "Dickensian" slow pace is tempered by Susanna Clarke’s subtle wit. Gradually, the novel reveals another side: it becomes funnier, more dynamic, and more frightening. The novel is as polar as its two main protagonists. Stuffy and somewhat tedious, like Mr. Norrell, it suddenly becomes charming, sarcastic, and a bit wild and terrifying, like Jonathan Strange. In short, the eleven-year journey alongside these insufferable gentlemen-pirates-magicians will not be easy. But the revival of magic in Mery "good" Old England is certainly worth it!