I want to start off this blogg by saying that I will not continue with a plot summary. Clarke suddenly introduces so many different sub-plots deeper into the book that it would be near impossible for me to give a good, simple plot overview with the amount of time given for these assignments. Anyway, the point of these bloggs is to give commentary about the book, and not concrete details.

I’m now 58% through Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. There are only 421 pages to go. Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m enjoying the book immensely. It’s just that there was a large chunk of the book where everything seemed to just slow down to what was almost a grinding halt.

At one point, Strange travels to Spain to aid the British in their fight against the French. During this expedition, I was kept interested by Strange’s many feats of magic. Once the British win the battle, however, Jonathan returns home and I was confronted by a change in the book. Suddenly I learn that Stephen, one of Strange’s servants, has somehow been teleported to an alternate dimension where a strange man with wild hair wants to make him a king. I found this to be very confusing, and haven’t read abut this situation since it popped up a couple hundred pages ago.

The man who is only referred to as “the gentleman with the thistle-down hair” is left not discussed up to this point as well. I am dying to know who he is and why he is mentioned any time Strange or his wife, Arabella, visit the house of Sir Walter Pole. Another forgotten character is Childermass, Norrell’s butler. I realize that now it looks like I am contradicting myself, because in my previous blog I talked about my dislike for him. However, I realize now that I am still curious as to what he is to become. Even though Childermass is obviously not a major character, I find myself constantly thinking that he is to be of some importance later in the book. There’s something about the fact that he isn’t like other servants (he doesn’t just carry out the usual tasks, but can also stand in with noblemen and demand respect) that makes me want him to do something more, like maybe turn against Norrell, perhaps.

As I get deeper and deeper into Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, I keep on getting this feeling that Clarke is somehow messing with my mind. She only gives away description and information about the plot in slight bits, and often jumps around. Childermass is a perfect example of how I keep changing my mind about things, and yearn for more detail about some things. I guess that this is a good strategy of the author, since she has in this way indirectly coerced me into finishing the book to find the answers.

There is also the bit of the story about Lady Pole, the young woman who Norrell brought back from the dead. She becomes dejected and sullen, contrasting her earlier happy and lively attitude. Clarke hasn’t explained why this change took place, but instead refers to in pages at a time, sprinkling the passages about the book. I get the feeling that the author is teasing me with the question as to what is going to happen to Lady Pole, and I don’t like it. I expect, however, that all of these loose ends will be tied up by the end of the book.

Strange finally decides that he and Norrell must divide, because their views on magic are too different and conflicting. He and Arabella move to the countryside in Shropshire. Here he is met with a period of inactivity until he hears of news that Napoleon is planning to invade Belgium. Jonathan finds himself thrust into another short military adventure in which he must aid the British in their fight against the French. His most impressive feat of magic during this event is, in my opinion, when he puts out the fire of a religious building burned by cannon. Strange first makes the giant portraits of people on the walls come to life, step out of their paintings, and then collect water with buckets to douse the flames. However, the giant figures catch fire, since they are made solely of paint, which is very flammable. Strange then conjures up a giant well from which he makes water-men. He commands the large beings to run to the building and cast themselves upon it. Finally, Strange succeeds in saving the building.

My favorite event of humor in my section of reading is actually a combination of two short ones that are related and happen in the same chapter. The Duke of Wellington is describing to Strange the great men that he has in his army:

‘“But the Prussian Army has promised to fight with us. And Blücher is an excellent old fellow. Loves a fight.” (This was the Prussian General.) “Unfortunately, he is also mad. He believes he is pregnant.”

“Ah!”

“With a baby elephant.”

“Ah!”’

Then, later on, Strange meets the general himself:

‘Prince Blücher shook his hand warmly and said a great many things in German (none of which Strange understood). Then the old gentleman pointed to his stomach wherein lay the illusory elephant and made a wry face as if to say, “What can one do?”’

The great thing about this is that Clarke makes it funny (“He is pregnant.”), and then makes it even more so (“With a baby elephant.”). Then she adds yet even more to the humor by addressing it again a chapter later, after the battle has ended. I find that my favorite type of humor in this book is the subtle type, as seen the previous excerpt. It isn’t outrageous or ridiculous, and yet it still manages to make me laugh (hopefully in my head and not out loud, or even I myself would admit that I am much too easily amused).

This is part two of an I-don’t-know-how-many-total-entries-there-will-be blogg concerning Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, a novel by Susanna Clarke. At 439 pages, I now find myself 44% through the book. One may think that this would make discussing the book worlds easier, but in reality it is almost as difficult as before. This is because I already discussed everything that happened in the first two hundred pages, so I can’t really go back too many times.

If you are looking for a cohesive plot summary, I suggest you look elsewhere. The purpose of this blogg is to develop commentary, not concrete details. I will, however, give a brief overview. If you are looking for a plotline, then I suggest you visit this site:

<http://www.imtoolazytoreadtheentirebook.com/>. Or maybe check out this one: <http://www.sparknotesismygod.com/>. My personal favorite is <http://www.couldyousurviveifwikipediaceasedtoexist.com/>.

Anyway, the next section of the book introduces Jonathan Strange. Unfortunately, it also comes back to Segundus and Honeyfoot, two characters who I find a bit dull. They just don’t have the sparkle and charm that characters like Mr. Norrell and other people do. Segundus and Honeyfoot discover Strange in the garden of an ivy-covered house in Wiltshire. He is in the middle of trying to delve into someone else’s dreams when Segundus accidentally interrupts the dream by entering it and scaring away the person Strange is about to talk to. In this way, Honeyfoot and Segundus become acquainted with Mr Strange, who already knows about Mr. Norrell. This is because whenever Strange goes to bookstores asking about magical texts, the clerks always say that a man has already bought them all. This man is Mr. Norrell, the owner of two very, very large libraries. Eventually Mr. Norrell takes Strange in as his apprentice, and is delighted to have someone to talk to about magic. Both Norrell and Strange help out many times in the war against the French. With the magicians’ help, Napoleon abdicates and England wins the battle.

My favorite parts of the book are definitely the ones that describe the magic performed by Strange and Norrell. For instance, at one point Mr. Strange is called because a ship has been turned on its side by the tides. He first suggests using wind to just turn the boat right again, but the townspeople begin to panic and yell, telling him that this would surely snap the boat in two. Then Strange gets the idea of conjuring many horse-like creatures to help push the boat up. They glisten and sparkle in the sunlight because they are made of the sand from the sandbanks. Strange forgets to make the horses obedient, and the sailors end up capturing only twenty of the hundred. The creatures are successful in righting the boat, but then there is the issue of what to do with them. Strange has no notion of how to get rid of the sand-horses, and they swim across the seas for a day-and-a-half before settling down again on the banks. Unfortunately, this ends up changing around any previously measured depths for this area of the sea, because the creatures don’t lie down where they sprang up from. I enjoy the scenes that show the magic because Susana describes it in ways that I’ve never read before. Often, magic is done with wands or orbs or other such objects. In Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, all magicians need only to know the spells to recite, and the materials around them. For instance, to be able to see things happening in other parts of the world, one would need to find a basin of water to make the visions appear in.

The two characters that I really don’t like are Vinculus and Childermass. The first is a filthy street magician who hates people like Mr. Norrell who can actually do magic. Vinculus is in reality a fluke. He can’t actually do any real magic, and this paired with his raggedy hair and drunken attitude is what makes me dislike him so much. I also loathe Childermass, Mr. Norrell’s servant. He always has a sort of mysterious air about him, but it’s more of a sly, I’m-up-to-no-good kind of air than a cunning, clever one. He has the ability to not only act as a normal servant should and carry out the usual tasks, but can also stand in with noblemen and demand respect. Childermass is often out on mysterious trips, many of which are not ever talked about. This and the fact that he is also not very kind prevent him from being on my likeable characters list.

In my previous blogg about this book, I found that some of the footnotes were very long, the most lengthy being two pages. An updated measurement shows the longest footnote is a staggering four pages long. Remember that the writing on these is very small, so Clarke and really pack it in. I still, however, find the footnotes to be just as entertaining.

By far the best instance of humor for this section was the excerpt about Napoleon’s magician. Napoleon was jealous of England’s magicians, and the only one he could find was a Dutchman named Witloof who had a magic wardrobe.

“Every time Witloof entered the wardrobe there was the most hideous noise as if half the demons in Hell were screaming inside it, clouds of little stars issued from the cracks and hinges and the wardrobe rocked slightly on its ball-and-claw-feet. After the three questions had been answered, Buonaparte (that’s the way it’s spelled, Mr. Bailey) regarded the wardrobe silently for some moments, and then he strode over and pulled open the doors. Inside he found a goose (to make the noises) and some saltpetre (to produce the silver stars) and a dwarf (to ignite the saltpetre and prod the goose).”

The idea behind the wardrobe is pure genius. The fact that Witloof thought he could get away with such a ridiculous trick is funny, and that paired with how the wardrobe works makes it hilarious.

This blog will be a true test of my write-till-you-can’t-write-no-more abilities. Mr. Bailey, my wonderfully witty Essay Writing teacher, recommended that I try reading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, a novel by Susanna Clarke. This book is not your typical young adult fantasy story; it is definitely a higher level read. Unfortunately, I have been busy for the past week and only got a chance to read about two-hundred of its one-thousand pages. This means I will have to go into a bit more depth about what I think of the book so far, because not only have I read so little, but I also have to write twice as much because I only have one new book to discuss.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell takes place in nineteenth-century Britain during the Napoleonic wars. The story revolves around the idea that magic has declined and pretty much disappeared in England. There is a society of magicians in Yorkshire who meet once a month to discuss magical history, but they never actually do any magic. In autumn of 1806, a man experienced with the history of magic named John Segundus joins the society and asks “Why is the there no more magic done in England?” The other members grumble and don’t have an answer. One man, Mr. Honeyfoot, reminds the group of the previously heard rumors that there was another magician in Yorkshire who has a large amount of magical texts. Honeyfoot and Segundus finally visit the mysterious man, who turns out to be Mr. Norrell.

At this point in the story, we suddenly stop hearing about Mr. Segundus and Mr. Honeyfoot. I, however, was not disappointed in this change, because I found them to be a bit uninteresting compared to Mr. Norrell. Clarke uses just enough description for him, writing that he “was small, like his handwriting, and his voice was rather quiet as if he were not used to speaking his thoughts out loud,” and that “he had small blue eyes that seemed to peep out at them from some secret place inside himself.” He ends up leaving Yorkshire and moving to London, where he plans to revive magic and offer his abilities to the Government to help Britain against the French.

Mr. Norrell, with the help of Drawlight and Lascelles, manages to make his way into the classy London society. He becomes a celebrity after bringing Minister Walter Pole’s daughter back to life, who had previously died from a sickness of some sort. Mr. Norrell manages to help the British navy when he magically creates several hundred fake ships made entirely out of water, and the French become hesitant to attack. This delay allows the British to deposit spies and unload cargo.

One thing that stood out to me was the language. Clarke utilizes many alternate spellings for words like “show,” “choose,” “surprise,” and “connection,” instead spelling them “shew,” “chuse,” “surprize,” and “connexion.” I really don’t see any purpose in this, but my guess as to why she included these changed terms is that she wanted it to give the book a more unique, magical sort of feel. When I began reading the book, this stuck out as an annoyance. Every time I came across one I would snort and think to myself how ridiculous it was for Clarke to be able to get away with so many changes without criticism. However, as time went on, I grew accustomed to the special wordings and began to see them as kind of humorous. This has given me the idea to change one or two words in all of my blogg assignments from now on. I believe you can already see one of my choices, fellow blogger.

Another aspect of this Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell that I don’t see very often in what I usually read is the use of many, many footnotes. Wikipedia claims that Clarke includes hundreds of footnotes, and after flipping through the book, I wouldn’t doubt there being more than two-hundred. Some of them are even longer than the writing on the page. The longest one I’ve seen so far was two pages long, with two or three measly lines of text at the top. However, the footnotes never get boring or bothersome. Many of them are short stories that give humorous background information. My favorite one so far verifies that Drawlight, a man in London who spends his time going to dinner parties, “possessed not a single good quality”:

“He had once found himself in a room with Lady Bessborough’s long-haired white cat. He happened to be dressed in an immaculate black coat and trousers, and was therefore thoroughly alarmed by the cat’s stalking round and round and making motions as if it proposed to sit upon him. He waited until he believed himself to be unobserved, then he picked it up, opened a window and tossed it out. Despite falling three storeys (not a spelling mistake, Mr. Bailey) to the ground, the cat survived, but one of its legs was never quite right afterwards and it always evinced the greatest dislike to gentlemen in black clothes.”

The excerpts like this are what prevent me from being overwhelmed at the idea of trying to complete a thousand page novel of adult writing. They act as a sort of break from the storyline, and allow me to step back for a moment and soak in additional information about a character or place. It’s not the number of pages that’s an issue (Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide, anyone?), but the higher level of language is new for me. The transition was still easier than I thought it would be, however. It seems as though this book might be for young adult-adults, as opposed to young adults, which are widely considered tweens and teens. This would explain why an inexperienced choob (a n00b, or newbie, except a bit worse) like myself would find himself actually able to understand all of what he is reading.