strange and random happenstance

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Published by: Bloomsbury USA
Publication Date: September 30th, 2004
Format: Paperback, 1012 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Mr. Norrell is the only practical magician in England and he intends to keep it that way. He has devoted his life to finding, owning, and studying every book on magic and every book of magic he could beg, borrow, or steal, allowing no one else near his collection. In Yorkshire, the heart of Northern England and The Raven King's domain, Mr. Norrell finds ingenious ways to eliminate all his competition from the theoretical magicians. One would think eliminating magicians would be contrary to his goal, but Mr. Norrell disagrees. He and he alone will bring magic back to England. His destruction of the Learned Society of York Magicians provides an opportunity to get the press he needs through a John Segundus to herald his arrival in London. Norrell dreams that just removing himself from the confines of his home, Hurtfew Abbey, and installing himself in the capital will have the government clamoring at this door begging for help with everything from the disgraceful street magicians who are nothing but swindlers to magically aiding the war with France.

But Norrell's views on fairy magic, he is strongly opposed, and his fusty nature, make his entrance into society tricky. He eventually gets the ear of cabinet minister Sir Walter Pole, who quickly dismisses him. Yet a tragedy is about to change everything. Sir Walter's fiance dies and Norrell is encouraged to bring her back from the dead. Despite deploring fairy emissaries and assistants, he knows this is his chance to make a difference and get the government on his side. He summons a fairy who is indeed able to bring the future Lady Pole back from the dead, but not without exacting a terrible toll to all those Norrell knows. Norrell's new found popularity brings new opportunities, and despite all previous thinking that should another magician arise he'd hate them on sight, he instead decides to take the young Jonathan Strange as his pupil. The two quarrel and fight, but no one can deny that they have brought magic back to England; but at what cost to England? And more worryingly, at what cost to themselves?

You know that feeling you get when you find the perfect book? It's like finding a friend you'd never knew you'd missed or coming home after a long absence. It was always a part of you even before you found it, a soul mate. That's what it was like when I first cracked open the pages of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Billed as Harry Potter for adults it's so much more. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell has the sensibilities of Austen with the scope of Dickens with a readability for modern audiences. Yes, it is divisive, you either love it, as seen by it's numerous awards, our you hate it, I'm glaring at a few members of my book club. But as for myself, I don't know if there's a way I can too strongly state my love for this book besides purchasing a plethora of copies from my first sacred edition to later paperback reissues and recommending it to everyone I meet. Yet does such a discourse on fairy and magic without much plot stand up over time? Yes. Each reading I find more magic and more nuance. This book is, in my opinion, perfection.

Now let's get down to brass tacks. The staging of the book in it's three "volumes" is wonderful in how each section builds off the previous and becomes more complicated and creates a deeper understanding of the world Clarke has built. We begin with Mr. Norrell, a rather typical and bookish grump who introduces us to his ideas on magic and we get a feeling for the world. Then we progress to Jonathan Strange, where the world is expanded and we start to question what we have already learned. We end, appropriately, with The Raven King, John Uskglass, who teaches us that all we think we knew is wrong. This mimics how we, as humans, learn. We study hard, we learn the lessons in our books, we start to question and we realize, like Jon Snow, we know nothing; and that in ignorance we are starting on the path of true knowledge. That magic can be attained, but it's nothing like what we thought it would be at the start. This is the journey of man, and that is our history. And more then anything Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is a history book.

Yes, this is a drastically altered history, but it's a believable one. Complex worldbuilding in a world we already know, grafted on in a magical and fascinating way. What makes it such a rich tapestry is that Clarke is willing to take the time to tell us all the mythology and academic ephemera of past magician's and their work in order to round out her England. While I have read my fair share of history books, they aren't necessarily the most scintillating reads. Yet an aspect of history books, and the books of Terry Pratchett, that is a useful tool is the footnote. Never underestimate the joy of a good footnote. Yes the use of footnotes in fiction might be considered a trope nowadays, but I don't think it's a coincidence that my favorite authors all use footnotes to expand on their work and to do humorous asides. Terry Pratchett, Lisa Lutz, and Susanna Clarke all use footnotes to the betterment of their story, expanding the world at a slight angle to the rest of their narrative but embuing it with more reality because of the use of this academic staple.

Though all the clever worldbuilding and writing techniques don't in the end make a book perfect. An author can be deft with these and still come up short when it comes to telling a good story. Where Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell really shines is in the dichotomy of England and the "safe" magic the magicians have practiced and the Otherworld, the realms of fairy, and the wild and dangerous magic that can rewrite the world. Fairy Tales originally were dark and scary. Morality stories to keep women and children in line and to warn of dangers in the deep dark woods. There's a reason why witches were burned and magic was feared. Clarke is here to remind us that the nature of fairies is wild and mad, quite literally. The Gentleman with the thistle-down hair, or a more sadistic version of David Bowie's Goblin King as I like to think, embodies this evil madness. In deed, desire, and any and every way imaginable, this evil fairy shows that Norrell was right to fear them and that the true enemy of magic and man is vindictive fairies that are crazy beyond measure. They are the creatures to fear, they are the nightmare in the dark.

In fact, Fairy Tales are the original horror stories and Clarke does an amazing job in tapping into this. I have read horror stories and been left wanting by those considered the pinnacle of scary and strange. But in simple, straightforward yet elegant prose, Clarke is able to conjure up more horror than I experienced reading all of Danielewski's House of Leaves, whose house has no architectural style yet a banister, please. The realm of fairy and the King's Road is a thousand times scarier then the aforementioned house, with bridges spanning an eternity and rivers and moors of black desolation, all accessible through a mere reflection. That is the true horror. That this evil "other" world isn't fixed but can find it's way into your very house. You can be sitting in a chair and feel doors opening around you and long corridors stretching and a breeze where no breeze should be and the tingle of magic, and all while you felt safe in your snug little house. You are safe no more. Gives you a little chill just to think of it doesn't it?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Charles Dickens, Harry Potter, House of Leaves, Jane Austen, John Uskglass, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Lisa Lutz, Magic, Regency, Regency Magic, Susanna Clarke, Ten Years, Terry Pratchett, The Raven King

Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho
Published by: Ace
Publication Date: September 1st, 2015
Format: Hardcover, 385 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Zacharias Wythe has succeeded to the post of Sorcerer Royal. A post he doesn't particularly want, which is about the only thing him and his fellow magicians agree on; they want Zacharias out. There was only one person in the world who thought Zacharias was capable of this lofty post, and Sir Stephen, his guardian and surrogate father, is dead but not quite gone. Sir Stephen was everything a Sorcerer Royal should be, in other words, not the wrong skin color, not a freed slave, and not without the aid of a familiar. But just because Zacharias doesn't want the position doesn't mean he won't do it to the best of his abilities, if just for Sir Stephen. Yet London is politically dangerous at the moment with the crown attempting to coerce the Sorcerer Royal into untenable positions and the magicians trying to hide the fact that magic is waning. Zacharias knows full well that his unwillingness to help the government is quite possibly the last straw before his fellow Unnatural Philosophers oust him under the pretext that it is his fault that magic is dying. But he can not in good conscience use magic against the witches of Janda Baik, a small island in Malaysia. By using magic militarily he would break the treaty with the French magicians and if there's one thing England doesn't want it's Napoleon being allowed to use magic. So taking the advice of a dear friend he agrees to get out of town for a few days to give a talk at Mrs. Daubeney's School for Gentlewitches as well as to go to the border of fairy and see why England's magic is waning.

Miss Prunella Gentleman came to Mrs. Daubeney with her father as a young girl. In fact it was Mr. Gentleman's passing and Prunella's inherent magical abilities that led Mrs. Daubeney to form her school with the purpose of helping young gentlewitches to suppress their powers. Though Prunella has never been one of the "gentlewitches." The color of her skin and her debt to Mrs. Daubeney has made her a servant if not in name than in deed as she's taken care of the students and the school. Everything changes the day the Sorcerer Royal visits. It's not just the hurt inflicted by Mrs. Daubeney when she demotes Prunella, it's the secret she finds in the attic in an old valise that belonged to her father. A secret that could change Prunella's fortune and the course of English magic. Zacharias is beside himself at the school. England is languishing for lack of magic and yet here these young girls are brimming with more magic than they can handle; and then there's Prunella. Prunella does magic as easily as she breaths. Perhaps the Royal Society is wrong about banning women to work magic. Perhaps Zacharias's legacy as Sorcerer Royal will be a complete overhaul of magical education. Prunella wastes no time worming her way into Zacharias's life, which she repeatedly saves, and when the two of them arrive in London, it is time for a reckoning. They will shake up the staid Royal Society of Unnatural Philosophers and bring about change, whether they mean to or not.

The reason I became in thrall to Regency books with a magical bent is all down to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I can not nor will not be able to ever completely verbalize my love of that book. Yet my love for it isn't a blind love. I know the book is flawed. The characters aren't that likable, there isn't that much of a plot, and it reads more as a history text written in gorgeous prose than a story about flesh and blood people. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell lacks emotion. Not just in the staid way the story is told but in the way you connect to the characters. There is no emotional connection to Strange or Norrell. You feel sympathy for Stephen and Lady Pole, but there's no tugging of heartstrings. That is where Sorcerer to the Crown comes in and fills that void you didn't know you had. It's almost as if this book took the character we could connect to the most in Clarke's writing, Stephen, and gave him a new adventure. Stephen Black, the man who would be king, instead becomes Sorcerer Royal. Though while the first few chapters definitely owe a great debt to Susanna Clarke, as soon as Prunella shows up on the scene the book explodes into a life of it's own. One wonders if it was the lack of a strong female presence in Clarke's book, aside from the narrator, that might have hindered the emotional connection. Because there's something about Prunella that is so alive, so complex, that you can't help but connect to her on a deep emotional level, even if at times you totally disagree with some of her mercenary tactics. This in turn helps you to connect to Zacharias and every other character. You feel the love and hate and frustration of all these characters and you will not admit to yourself that it's going to be a very long wait for the next installment.

For as many authors as have tackled the idea of magic in the 19th century there have been as many different magic systems to govern them. Clarke went with a more male based "masculine" skill set, while Mary Robinette Kowal's "Glamourist Histories" embraced the "home" arts and focused more on magic as an art form mainly practiced by women. Here we get a lovely melding of the two. There are the Unnatural Philosophers who think they are doing great works while there are the more hedge witch like servant women who use magic to light fires and cure ills. So while we still have the societal separation of abilities based on gender we get to see how each gender handles that magic. Plus with Zacharias having his eyes opened by Prunella we see that going forward these two separate spheres of magic could merge. With Prunella we have a force of nature whose magic, while until now has been forced to be subservient to the domestic sphere, is now unfettered and out in the world where she doesn't see anything wrong with using her copious abilities to do what she pleases when she pleases. By being forced to abide by the rules for so long she sees that the rules, the boundaries, are irrelevant. Just throw the rule book out the window and see what you are capable of. Who cares if magic has personal gain? Who cares if a woman is seen doing unsanctioned magic? You shouldn't have to deny who you are and what you are capable of. If you are a woman you shouldn't have to curse yourself to be what men expect you to be.

This is what I love about the book, that it's the outsiders that are the ones that see that magic is being unnecessarily restrained. The stuffy men in even stuffier rooms have been saying for centuries this is how it has always been done and will continue to be so. There can be no advancement of technique, no discoveries with an attitude like this. Therefore it isn't shocking that magic has been dwindling. Even taking out the fairy angle with regard to the bottling, look to the lack of familiars! There hasn't been a new familiar in so long that this fact is able to undermine Zacharias as Sorcerer Royal though it has nothing to do with him. Why would magic want to come to those who use it in the same boring ways since time immemorial? Magic comes to those who understand it and want to use it right. Look to Mak Grenggang from Janda Baik in Malaysia who is at the heart of Zacharias's problems with the British government. She is not only an unaccepted gender, but an unaccepted race as viewed by the Society's members, yet her magic can let her walk through fairy unmolested, give her wings, gain her access anywhere. Her magic is unrivaled. Because she is an outsider, she is "other," and therefore the only way forward. The three agents of change with regard to British magic are of different skin tone and two of them are women, something that is rarely seen in writing concerning the Regency period. Zacharias, Prunella, and Mak Grenggang are there to break the chains of magic and make it great once again.

What is most interesting about this book is that it gives us a different view then the traditional Jane Austen magical pastiche. In almost every single one of these books we are given a very Anglocentric view of the world. We see it through the eyes of Britain, and the political and magical challenges are all to do with the British Government and the war with France. To an extent this is to be expected because the key feature of the Regency period was England's ongoing war with Napoleon. But despite this fact there are other places and other people that aren't all white and from the upper classes. This was one of the angles I loved in Mary Robinette Kowal's series, which was explored even further in her final book in the series, Of Noble Family. In her writing we saw people that were different, we saw people representing different classes, different races, different genders. We saw that despite what the British upper classes would like you to believe, that the world is teaming with this other. I loved how Of Noble Family brought in how other magic systems worked and how learning magic from one culture is so confining. In Sorcerer to the Crown we not only see these different races, but we go further. With Mak Grenggang we have a link to the other side of the world, a link that plays into Prunella's past. We get a glimpse that not only is the magic different, but the myths and realities and monsters are not what those in the Western world would even like to dwell on. We are given a hint as to how big the world really is. A tiny little island might have controlled the world, but this shows that despite how England tried, it couldn't control the magic; and I for one can't wait to learn more about this magic.

Yet magic can not exist without a vessel in which to channel it. Therefore our human characters are so very important and I just love that within a book that struggles to balance the different forms of magic and the powers of male versus female that everything is embodied in the differences exemplified by Zacharias and Prunella. They are complete opposites that over the course of the narrative come to a middle ground where they meet and fall in love. This is the most Austen of all the Regency tropes in Sorcerer to the Crown. Though I wouldn't say it's a situation of pride versus prejudice, it's more Zacharias's sense versus Prubella's sensibility. Zacharias is beyond selfless. He has literally given up any dreams he had for his life to live the life that Sir Stephen had envisioned for him, even though Sir Stephen is dead, technically. Zacharias is in constant pain threading the political needle his life has become and the burden the office has placed on his shoulders. He is quiet, circumspect, willing to bear the weight of the world while trying to not rock the boat. Whereas Prunella is a veritable hurricane. She is nothing like Zacharias who thinks first and contemplates a long time before swinging into action. She will do whatever it takes to survive and deal with the consequences later, be it two ladies of the ton seeing her zoom by on a cloud, or conjuring a monster and almost destroying Lyme Regis. Prunella will survive and thrive and she will leverage Zacharias to do so. Yet her magic over time becomes less wild and more about protecting Zacharias, while Zacharias himself unbuttons a little and starts to be active in his own life. They need each other and that love is perhaps the greatest magic in this book.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Familiars, Glamourist Histories, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Malaysia, Mary Robinette Kowal, Prunella, Regency Magic, Sorcerer Royal, Sorcerer to the Crown, Susanna Clarke, Zacharias, Zen Cho

Stardust was the second book by Neil Gaiman that I read. It's probably not his most well known piece, people tending to favor his more popular works from American Gods to The Sandman. Stardust is kind of somewhere inbetween with fairies and stars fallen to earth. And the truth is, I can see why people just aren't as engaged with it because I spent the entire afternoon one dark and dreary December 31st trying to finish it so that I could start the new year with a fresh new book, something miles away from Stardust. I couldn't bear the thought of having this book hanging over me at the start of another year. Yet I'm not here to talk about my dissatisfaction with the book, I'm here to talk about the movie that came out over two years later in the summer of 2007. Because I had disliked the book so thoroughly I oddly had no expectations of the movie. I literally was just excited to see so many British actors I loved from television on the big screen, from Henry Cavill to Nathaniel Parker, Jason Flemyng to Mark Heap, and especially Julian Rhind-Tutt to Mark Williams! Also, never forget Ricky Gervais is in this movie fresh off the success of Extras.

My friends thought I might have been a little too excited, I got lots of the "yes yes of course we'll see it" responses with the underlying message being "will you be quiet about it if we agree to go?" It came out the weekend before my birthday and it really was an early gift, despite the grumbling company.  

Stardust is literally one of my favorite movies. A stellar cast, a wonderful love story, magic, humor, a flying ship, oh, and the realization that I actually like Mark Strong. The movie captures that same ephemeral quality that is in The Princess Bride that you can't quite capture if you set out to replicate it. Just look to Neil's own flop MirrorMask which was deliberately meant to be Labyrinth for a new generation. MirrorMask is best forgotten, unlike Stardust. Stardust showed me that you really never can tell about books and their adaptations. They just might surprise you. Just as a great book can make a horrible movie, so can a mediocre book make a fabulous movie. Preconceptions get us nowhere and if we leave them at the door we might be surprised. Though I do think it's time for me to give the book another chance. I've only journeyed back to Wall in the delightful short story that Susanna Clarke set in Gaiman's universe, but you never know, Stardust might end up like The Princess Bride for me, the book and the movie being equally good for entirely different reasons.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: American Gods, Birthday, Gaiman Gala, Gaiman Reminiscence, Labyrinth, MirrorMask, Nathaniel Parker, Neil Gaiman, Ricky Gervais, Sandman, Stardust, Susanna Clarke, The Ladies of Grace Adieu, The Princess Bride, Wall

Sorcerer to the Crown (Sorcerer Royal Book 1) by Zen Cho
Published by: Ace
Publication Date: September 1st, 2015
Format: Hardcover, 385 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Zacharias Wythe has succeeded to the post of Sorcerer Royal. A post he doesn't particularly want, which is about the only thing him and his fellow magicians agree on; they want Zacharias out. There was only one person in the world who thought Zacharias was capable of this lofty post, and Sir Stephen, his guardian and surrogate father, is dead but not quite gone. Sir Stephen was everything a Sorcerer Royal should be, in other words, not the wrong skin color, not a freed slave, and not without the aid of a familiar. But just because Zacharias doesn't want the position doesn't mean he won't do it to the best of his abilities, if just for Sir Stephen. Yet London is politically dangerous at the moment with the crown attempting to coerce the Sorcerer Royal into an untenable position and the magicians trying to hide the fact that magic is waning. Zacharias knows full well that his unwillingness to help the government is quite possibly the last straw before his fellow Unnatural Philosophers oust him under the pretext that it is his fault that magic is dying. So taking the advice of a dear friend he agrees to get out of town for a few days to give a talk at Mrs. Daubeney's School for Gentlewitches as well as to go to the border of fairy and see why England's magic is waning.

Miss Prunella Gentleman came to Mrs. Daubeney with her father as a young girl. In fact it was Mr. Gentleman's passing and Prunella's inherent magical abilities that led Mrs. Daubeney to form her school with the purpose of helping young gentlewitches to suppress their powers. Though Prunella has never been one of the "gentlewitches." The color of her skin and her debt to Mrs. Daubeney has made her a servant if not in name then in deed as she's taken care of the students and the school. Everything changes the day the Sorcerer Royal visits. It's not just the hurt inflicted by Mrs. Daubeney when she demotes Prunella, it's the secret she finds in the attic in an old valise that belonged to her father. A secret that could change Prunella's fortune and the course of English magic. Zacharias is beside himself at the school. England is languishing for lack of magic and yet here these young girls are brimming with more magic then they can handle; and then there's Prunella. Prunella does magic as easily as she breaths. Perhaps the Royal Society is wrong about banning women to work magic. Perhaps Zacharias's legacy as Sorcerer Royal will be a complete overhaul of magical education. Prunella wastes no time worming her way into Zacharias's life and when the two of them arrive in London, it is time for a reckoning. They will shake up the staid Regency and bring about change, whether they meant to or not.

The reason I became in thrall to Regency books with a magical bent is all down to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I can not nor will not be able to ever completely verbalize my love of that book. Yet my love for it isn't a blind love. I know the book is flawed. The characters aren't that likable, there isn't that much of a plot, and it reads more as a history text written in gorgeous prose than a story about flesh and blood people. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell lacks emotion. Not just in the staid way the story is told but in the way you connect to the characters. There is no emotional connection to Strange or Norrell. You feel sympathy for Stephen and Lady Pole, but there's no tugging of heartstrings. That is where Sorcerer to the Crown comes in a fills that void you didn't know you had. It's almost as if this book took the character we could connect to the most in Clarke's writing, Stephen, and gave him a new adventure. Stephen Black, the man who would be king, instead becomes Sorcerer Royal. Though while the first few chapters definitely owe a great debt to Susanna Clarke, as soon as Prunella shows up on the scene the book explodes into a life of it's own. One wonders if it was the lack of a strong female presence in Clarke's book, aside from the narrator, that might have hindered the emotional connection. Because there's something about Prunella that is so alive, so complex, that you can't help but connect to her on a deep emotional level, even if at times you totally disagree with some of her mercenary tactics. This in turn helps you to connect to Zacharias and every other character. You feel the love and hate and frustration of all these characters and you can not admit to yourself that it's going to be a very long wait for the next installment.

For as many authors as have tackled the idea of magic in the 19th century there have been as many different magic systems to govern them. Clarke went with a more male based "masculine" skill set, while Mary Robinette Kowal's Glamourist Histories embraced the "home" arts and focused more on magic as an art form. Here we get a lovely melding of the two. There are the Unnatural Philosophers who think they are doing great works while there are the more hedge witch like servant women who use magic to light fires and cure ills. So while we still have the societal separation of abilities based on gender we get to see how each gender handles that magic. Plus with Zacharias having his eyes opened by Prunella we see that going forward these two separate spheres of magic could merge. With Prunella we have a force of nature whose magic, while until now has been forced to be subservient to the domestic sphere, is now unfettered and out in the world where she doesn't see anything wrong with using her copious abilities to do what she pleases when she pleases. By being forced to abide by the rules for so long she sees that the rules, the boundaries, are irrelevant. Just throw the rule book out the window and see what you are capable of.

This is what I love about the book, that it's the outsiders that are the ones that see that magic is being unnecessarily restrained. The stuffy men in even stuffier rooms have been saying for centuries this is how it has always been done and will continue to be so. There can be no advancement of technique, no discoveries with an attitude like this. Therefore it isn't shocking that magic has been dwindling. Even taking out the fairy angle with regard to the bottling, look to the lack of familiars. There hasn't been a new familiar in so long that this fact is able to undermine Zacharias as Sorcerer Royal though it has nothing to do with him. Why would magic want to come to those who use it in the same boring ways since time immemorial? Magic comes to those who understand it and want to use it right. Look to Mak Grenggang from Janda Baik in Malaysia who is at the heart of Zacharias's problems with the British government. She is not only an unaccepted gender, but an unaccepted race as viewed by the Society's members, yet her magic can let her walk through fairy unmolested, give her wings, gain her access anywhere. Her magic is unrivaled. Because she is an outsider, she is "other" and therefore the only way forward. The three agents of change with regard to British magic are of different skin tone and two of them are women. Zacharias, Prunella, and Mak Grenggang are there to break the chains of magic and make it great once again.

What is most interesting about this book is that it gives us a different view then the traditional Jane Austen magical pastiche. In almost every single one of these books we are given a very Anglocentric view of the world. We see it through the eyes of Britain, and the political and magical challenges are all to do with the British Government and the war with France. To an extent this is to be expected because the key feature of the Regency period was England's ongoing war with Napoleon. But despite this fact there are other places and other people that aren't all white and from the upper classes. This was one of the angles I loved in Mary Robinette Kowal's series, which was explored even further in her final book in the series, Of Noble Family. In her writing we saw people that were different, we saw people representing different classes, different races, different genders. We saw that despite what the British upper classes would like you to believe, that the world is teaming with this other. I loved how Of Noble Family brought in how other magic systems worked and how learning magic from one culture is so confining. In Sorcerer to the Crown we not only see these different races, but we go further. With Mak Grenggang we have a link to the other side of the world, a link that plays into Prunella's past. We get a glimpse that not only is the magic different, but the myths and realities and monsters are not what those in the Western world would even like to dwell on. We are given a hint as to how big the world really is. A tiny little island might have controlled the world, but this shows that despite how England tried, it couldn't control the magic; and I for one can't wait to learn more about this magic.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Familiars, Glamourist Histories, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Malaysia, Mary Robinette Kowal, Prunella, Regency Magic, Sorcerer Royal, Sorcerer to the Crown, Susanna Clarke, Zacharias, Zen Cho

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Published by: Bloomsbury USA
Publication Date: September 30th, 2004
Format: Paperback, 1012 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Mr. Norrell is the only practical magician in England. He has devoted his life to finding, owning, and studying every book on magic and every book of magic he could beg, borrow, or steal. In Yorkshire, the heart of Northern England and The Raven King's domain, Mr. Norrell finds ways to eliminate all competition from theoretical magicians and plots how he will bring magic back to England. One would think eliminating magicians would be contrary to his goal, but Mr. Norrell disagrees. His destruction of the Learned Society of York Magicians provides an opportunity to get the press he needs through a John Segundus to herald his arrival in London. Norrell dreams that just removing himself from the confines of his home, Hurtfew Abbey, will have the government clamoring at this door begging for help with everything from the disgraceful street magicians who are nothing but swindlers to helping with the war with France.

But Norrell's views against fairy magic and his fusty nature make his entrance into society tricky. He eventually gets the ear of cabinet minister Sir Walter Pole, who quickly dismisses him. Yet a tragedy is about to change everything. Sir Walter's fiance dies and Norrell is encouraged to bring her back from the dead. Despite deploring fairy emissaries and assistants, he summons one who is indeed able to bring the future Lady Pole back from the dead, but not without exacting a terrible toll to all those Norrell knows. Norrell's new found popularity brings new opportunities, and despite all previous thinking that should another magician arise he'd hate them on sight, he instead decides to take the young Jonathan Strange as his pupil. The two quarrel and fight, but no one can deny that they have brought magic back to England, but at what cost to England, and more worryingly, at what cost to themselves?

You know that feeling you get when you find the perfect book? It's like finding a friend you'd never knew you'd missed or coming home, it was always a part of you even before you found it, a soul mate. That's what it was like when I first cracked open the pages of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Billed as Harry Potter for adults it's so much more. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell has the sensibilities of Austen with the scope of Dickens with a readability for modern audiences. Yes, it is divisive, you either love it, as seen by it's numerous awards, our you hate it. But as for myself, I don't know if there's a way I can too strongly state my love for it, nor perhaps write a coherent and focused review, but that remains to be seen.

I have a plethora of copies from my first edition to later paperback ones, but despite how many editions I have the truth was, until recently, I'd only read the book the one time. If I loved the book so much to invest in multiple copies why read it only once? Because I was scared that this magical memory of it wouldn't sustain my scrutiny over ten years later. As you can no doubt see, I was wrong. The book was even better the second time around. I found more magic and nuance due to my extensive reading in the intervening years, and if anything the only quibble I have is that I really don't know how the BBC is going to make this into a successful miniseries, but only time will tell there.

The staging of the book in it's three volumes is wonderful in how each section builds off the previous and becomes more complicated and creates a deeper understanding of the world Clarke has built. We begin with Mr. Norrell, a rather typical and bookish grump who introduces us to his ideas on magic and we get a feeling for the world. Then we progress to Jonathan Strange, where the world is expanded and we start to question what we have already learned. We end, appropriately, with The Raven King, John Uskglass, who teaches us that all we think we knew is wrong. This mimics how we, as humans, learn. We study hard, we learn the lessons in our books, we start to question and we realize, like Jon Snow, we know nothing; and that in ignorance we are starting on the path of true knowledge.

More then anything Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is a history book. Yes, it is a drastically altered history, but it's a believable one. What makes it such a rich tapestry is that Clarke is willing to take the time to tell us all the mythology and academic ephemera of past magician's and their work in order to round out her England. While I have read my fair share of history books, they aren't necessarily the most scintillating reads. Yet an aspect of history books that is a useful tool is the footnote. Never underestimate the joy of a good footnote. Yes the use of footnotes in fiction might be considered a trope nowadays, but I don't think it's a coincidence that my favorite authors all use footnotes to expand on their work and to do humorous asides. Terry Pratchett, Lisa Lutz, and Susanna Clarke all use footnotes to the betterment of their story, expanding the world at a slight angle to the rest of their narrative.

But everything I've mentioned so far just comes down to basic worldbuilding and writing techniques. Someone can be deft with these and still come up short when it comes to telling a good story. Where Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell really shines is in the dichotomy of England and the "safe" magic the magicians have practiced and the Otherworld, the realms of fairy, and the wild and dangerous magic that can rewrite the world. Fairy Tales, in their original non Happily Ever After origins, were dark and scary. Morality stories to keep women and children in line and to warn of dangers in the deep dark woods. There's a reason why witches were burned and magic was feared, something that Disney has helped us to forget.

Like Disney's whitewashing, The Raven King and other magicians have shown to people that perhaps fairies are good and there to help us. Clarke is here to show us once again that their nature is wild and mad, quite literally. The Gentleman with the thistle-down hair, or a more sadistic version of David Bowie's Goblin King as I like to think, embodies this evil madness. In deed, desire, and any and every way imaginable, this evil fairy shows that Norrell was right to fear them and that the true enemy of magic and man is vindictive fairies that are crazy beyond measure. They are the creatures to fear, they are the nightmare in the dark.

In fact, Fairy Tales are the original horror stories and Clarke does an amazing job in tapping into this. I have read horror stories and been left wanting by those considered the scariest and strangest. But in simple, straightforward yet elegant prose, Clarke is able to conjure up more horror then I experienced reading all of Danielewski's House of Leaves, whose house has no architectural style yet a banister, please. The King's Road is a thousand times scarier then the aforementioned house, with bridges spanning an eternity and rivers and moors of black desolation, all accessible through a mere reflection. That is the true horror. That this evil "other" world isn't fixed but can find it's way into your very house. You can be sitting in a chair and feel doors opening around you and long corridors stretching and a breeze where no breeze should be and the tingle of magic, and all while you felt safe in your snug little house. You are safe no more. Gives you a little chill just to think of it doesn't it?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Charles Dickens, Disney, Harry Potter, House of Leaves, Jane Austen, John Uskglass, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Lisa Lutz, Magic, Regency, Regency Magic, Susanna Clarke, Terry Pratchett, The Raven King

Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton
Published by: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: March, 1976
Format: Paperback, 181 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Ibn Fadlan has left Bagdad, City of Peace, as an ambassador to the King of Saqaliba who is interested in adapting the Muslim faith. Traveling up the Volga he and his party encounter many strange and unfamiliar people. Ibn meets a group of vikings who are encamped along the river awaiting the death of their chieftain. Ibn befriends the heir apparent, Buliwyf, which is awkward when another heir tries to assume the mantle of chieftain. Before the matter can be resolved a messenger arrives begging Buliwyf's help. The great King Rothgar is being besieged by monsters that come out of the mist and is in need of a great hero. Buliwyf is that hero. For this epic journey and the battle to come they need thirteen warriors to make up their company, and it is propitious that the thirteenth is a stranger, so they take Ibn with them, much against his will. While Ibn didn't count on this journey, he recounts the vulgar but heroic viking race he is stuck with for posterity. If they live he will have a story to tell about a brave race brought to their knees by mist; but first they must survive.

Of all Crichton's books Eaters of the Dead holds the unique distinction of the book I care least for. It creates neither love nor loathing in me. Eaters of the Dead is just there. A short book about vikings that I couldn't care less about. Yes, the cover of my edition does amuse me, because it has that distinction of being so very late eighties. Is the viking on a Tron esque battlefield? Is the viking trapped in a video game matrix? The skulls on sticks could almost double as palm trees. Other then that, I have rarely given this book a second thought. In fact when the book was being adapted into a movie, unlike every other Crichton adaptation, I didn't even bother to see it. In fact, as I write this, I haven't seen it to this day. Would I say this book was a misstep for Crichton? Not really. I think he needed to do it as an experiment to get it out of his system. He needed to show that he could write something different, even if I didn't care for that different. And this is very different, being first person, being all in the past, and apparently being the settlement of some argument he was having with one of his friends.

The apparent history of why Crichton felt a need to write Eaters of the Dead was that one of his friends labelled Beowulf as being boring. Crichton disagreed. To win this argument Crichton wrote a boring retelling of Beowulf. So I think his friend won the argument. I'm not saying Beowulf is boring, I'm saying that Crichton's attempts to prove that it is a riveting story resulted in a snore worthy book. One of the problems is Crichton is unable to move past his modern mindset. He has always been at the forefront of technology and research, with his books often predicting trends; and while writing about something that happened in the tenth century A.D. he couldn't help but anachronistically slip a few things in, mainly man's similarity to apes, otherwise called "research for Congo is seeping into this story." But the worst was a bizarre post narrative meditation on what exactly the "mist monsters" were. The "Grendel" or "Wendol" here isn't some mythic monster but some Neanderthals that have survived with concurrent evolution. Say what!?! REALLY!?! Um no. Beowulf is a myth and epic story that isn't mean to be explained by evolution. Crichton needed to think about what it looked like to people of the time NOT people of our time. This takes us out of the moment and changes how you look at the book, and not favorably.

Crichton has basically been spending the whole book in second guessing and invalidating his story with his "faux" history, hello Neanderthals. It is fairly obvious that Crichton was a fan of William Goldman and in particular his book The Princess Bride. After all, Ian Malcolm was only "mostly dead" and therefore able to be resurrected for his star turn in The Lost World. They probably even knew each other, being authors who had crossed over into film. When The Princess Bride came out three years prior to Eaters of the Dead I'm sure the interrupted style of the narrative with faux history and the "abridgment " of the "original text" was something fresh and new. In Eaters of the Dead Crichton tries something similar and fails miserably. It's almost as if Crichton missed the whole point of what Goldman was doing. The interruptions were to poke fun at the story, to add something more, and usually that something more was levity. With "faux" history you can never take yourself too seriously otherwise you end up sounding like a textbook. Look to authors who successfully use the footnotes, ie, Terry Pratchett, Susanna Clarke, and Lisa Lutz. They all add some fun with the facts. Crichton misses the boat and it feels like he's taking himself too seriously and with the Neanderthals previously mentioned he seems to almost have a need to make a myth real instead of an enjoyable read.     

The biggest misstep that Crichton made in structuring this book, aside from the "faux" historical framing device, was deciding that it should be a first person narrative. I believe it is the only book he wrote this way, though I have a slight inkling that maybe Disclosure might be first person, but I have no desire to dig up the book to find out. Yeah, I'm lazy at the moment, deal with it. The problem isn't so much in having it first person, but in having it first person with Ibn as the narrator. Ibn would be a prime example of an unreliable narrator and a complete ass. He's the king of the backhanded compliment and derides the vikings for their customs, which he then takes part in as he feels like it, all while saying how disgusting they are. Look how horrid and smelly they are and will fuck anything, oh, I can fuck the slaves too, yeah! Plus, I don't get why Crichton grafted on this true story to the Beowulf myth. I don't think it was to try to push the veracity he was so desperate to claim. The only reason I can think of is to have an outsider to relate to for us non-vikings. But there's no chance anyone is going to relate to Ibn the ass, so his purpose is therefore pointless. Unless Crichton really wanted us to hate the narrator...

Plus Ibn as narrator restricts the story so much. We don't get the grandeur and depth that is possible with this story by being forced into the confines of this bigoted ass's mind. Think how awesome vikings can be? Seriously, to make them boring Crichton should be awarded a special prize. Just look at what's popular on television right now! The History channel has a huge hit with a show just called Vikings! Also how about the whole How to Train Your Dragon book and movie series? This is a culture that we are fascinated with. Their achievements for the time where amazing and Crichton made them boring. Seriously boring. I mean, how did he do this? Maybe the people reading this when it came out in the mid-seventies saw something I didn't, but I seriously doubt it. If there's one Crichton book I would say to skip without compunction it would be Eaters of the Dead. Seriously, skip it. Move along now.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Beowulf, Congo, Eaters of the Dead, Ian Malcolm, Lisa Lutz, Michael Crichton, Neanderthal, Susanna Clarke, Terry Pratchett, The Lost World, The Princess Bride, The Thirteenth Warrior, Viking, William Goldman

Kat, Incorrigible by Stephanie Burgis
Published by: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: August 1st, 2010
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Kat isn't your typical girl. When her family is facing money problems due to her older brother's profligate ways, she decides to cut off her hair and run away to London to make her fortune and save her family. Never mind that the idea is more then a little ill conceived, her heart was in the right place. But her stepmother has a foolproof plan, and that's to marry off Kat's sister, and her eldest stepchild, Elissa, to the wealthy Sir Neville. This is something Kat and her other sister Angeline don't view as acceptable. Angeline has heard the rumors that he killed his first wife and despite what society thinks and how their stepmother would frown on her plan, Angeline decides to use magic to help them out of this hole.

The girl's real mother was a powerful magician, something that made her an eccentric outcast. Something that passed down to her children. Little does Angeline know as she's pouring over her mother's spellbooks, that it's Kat who has the real power. Kat is to inherit her mother's legacy and become a Guardian, under the tutelage of her mother's teacher, Mr. Gregson. Though once Kat learns all this she's having none of it. She's going to help her family and get on with her life, and that life isn't going to be complicated by a secret organization that she's uncertain of, even if that organization might help her with the Sir Neville problem.

For some reason I have found myself picking up a lot of middle grade books recently. Whether for my blog or my book club, I have read quite a few lately and been severely disappointed. Some people might say that I have high expectations seeing as these books where written with a younger audience in mind. But the truth is, as authors and readers, this is the age to hook kids. If I hadn't found Elizabeth Levy and her delightful "Something Queer Mysteries" series staring Jill, Gwen, and Fletcher, at this precise "middle grade" age, well, I highly doubt you'd be reading any book reviews written by me. So when reading middle grade books I try to read them not only as if current me is reading them, but as if that little ten year old me is too. I have to say, ten year old me would have loved the heck out of Kat, Incorrigible, and thirty something me really enjoyed it as well.

With re-reading, and also having previously read so many Regency books with a magical bent, I found it fascinating to find a book that tackled the idea of magic existing in that society in an entirely different way. From Susanna Clarke to Mary Robinette Kowal, magic is not only accepted, but viewed as an enhancement to life, used for the betterment of society from conflicts with the French to making your ballroom look spectacular for your yearly fete. Here Burgis has created a society that doesn't look kindly on magic, it is frowned upon. Magic is not something that anyone in polite society would deign to do. Therefore Angeline and later Kat doing magic is a societal no no.

The girls are reminded time and time again by their stepmother that their dearly departed mother was a freak for her magical abilities that she flaunted. Elissa, being a stickler for societal conventions, parrots the party line and her stepmother by adhering to this train of thought and lecturing her younger sisters on it as well. What this has done to society as a whole and is seen in the microcosm of the Stephenson household is that magic has moved underground. Magic is done in secret and is regulated by shadowy organizations but, despite the outward appearance of society, it is more widespread then you would think. Not only is there magic, but there is even distinctions in magic, from the lower witchcraft to the higher Guardian magic, which helps to secretly control all the magic.

At first I was wary of this "Guardian" magic. Yes, it's cool that, unlike witchcraft, it doesn't need spells and is more a force of will. The magic isn't what I was taking umbrage with, it was the fact that there was an Order, capital "O", that regulated everything. I don't know what it is that exactly raised my hackles, but I audibly sighed at yet another secret organization controlling a supernatural force. Seriously, how many secret organizations can one world hold? I know that this is more then a bit hypocritical of me seeing as I love shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Warehouse 13 and The Librarians that all revolve around this trope. In fact, Buffy could be a very good comparison with Mr. Gregson taking on the role of a Watcher... but for some reason I just wasn't willing to initially buy it and I'm not sure I'm sold on it yet, only time will tell. But I will say that as the book progressed it bothered me less and less, so that's something.

I think all the flaws started to fall away because of my love for Kat. She is seriously the most amazing, kick ass, witty heroine you could wish for. I don't joke when I say that literaryily speaking I think that her kindred spirit is Arya Stark from George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire. They both have this take no prisoners attitude towards life. They both love and care for their family and will protect them above all others. They are confined by the strictures of their society until they start to slowly subvert them. I just adore that Kat is a heroine young (or young at heart) girls can look up to as someone real and amazing that doesn't follow any damsel in distress tropes and is willing to take down titled nobility with a good right hook.

But Kat alone wouldn't work without being surrounded by her sisters. Her sisters bring the book it's believability. They fill the pages with sisterly love but also sisterly strife. While I didn't have a sister growing up this book captures perfectly what I think it must be like, I can only extrapolate from having a brother after all. Her sisters and their affairs of the heart bring a madcap feel that makes the book transcend the typical middle grade fare and made Kat, Incorrigible a fun romp that felt like old time comedies and farces. I dare you to not fall headfirst for this book once the ball starts and the masked bandit appears. It is a situation that a young Jane Austen would have devoured as she herself was known to deftly skewer the literary tropes of her day in her earliest writing. Personally I can't wait to devour the next installment of Kat's adventures. Allons-y!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: A Most Improper Magic, Arya, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Elizabeth Levy, GRRM, Kat Incorrigible, Magic, Mary Robinette Kowal, Middle Grade, Regency, Regency Magic, Stephanie Burgis, Susanna Clarke, Witchcraft

The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke
Published by: Bloomsbury USA
Publication Date: October 17th, 2006
Format: Hardcover, 1235 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Magic is more prevalent then Jonathan Strange cares to consider as he sees three women reveling in a spell successfully concluded. Mr. Norrell might think that it's only in the past that great magic was done and only in books that one might learn magic, but even the humblest tapestry might have a magical purpose. And love, well, love can make you do almost anything in it's pursuit, even destroy the most magical of enchantments. In these stories Susanna Clarke tells us a few tales of magic and imagination from the world of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. What happens when the Duke of Wellington's horse goes through a hole in a wall created by Neil Gaiman? What is the result when fairy magic finally brings a long delayed bridge to town? And what happens when the great Raven King, John Uskglass is felled by a simple charcoal burner? Anything might happen with just a touch of magic.

Sometimes we can be dazzled by an author and fail to see what should be apparent. We loved their previous work so this new work must be brilliant, it just must be, how could it be otherwise? We remember what is brilliant and forget the chaff. Never is this more apparent then in a collection of short stories where it's easy to forget the bad and only cling to the memorable. In the two years between reading Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and The Ladies of Grace Adieu Susanna Clarke had become my favorite author so I thought she could do no wrong. The stories I didn't like I assumed I just didn't understand. Plus, there could be no denying the gorgeous production value of the book with Charles Vess's illustrations, which add another level of distractive beauty. I have since come to realize the humanity and fallibility of authors more and realized just what a mixed bag The Ladies of Grace Adieu really is.

The problem is that sometimes these stories take themselves too seriously. Yet Clarke's work works when she doesn't take herself too seriously and seems to have an arched brow over even the most trifling of matters. In Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell anything that might be too serious is brought down a peg with a well placed wry footnote. Here her footnotes are few and far between. The subtle mockery of the academic is replaced at times with an earnestness that just doesn't work. Her stories become turgid and staid. Clarke needs to remember to not take herself too seriously.

If we compare the light and humorous "Antickes and Frets" with the abysmal "On Lickerish Hill" I think we can clearly see the two ends of the spectrum. "Antickes and Frets" dealing with Mary Queen of Scots and a new found obsession for embroidery is witty and droll in the many plots to bring down Queen Elizabeth, whereas "On Lickerish Hill" is a painful retelling of Rumpelstiltskin. Firstly, did we really need yet another retelling of this tale? Rumpelstiltskin, while important in fairy lore to point out the importance of names, is easily the most boring fairy tale I can think of. But more importantly did it really need to be written in faux olde tyme language with horrid spelling and vocabulary? No it did not!

What is interesting to the Clarke fanatic though is comparing the differing views of the same world as presented in The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. What one clearly sees is that, as one suspected all along, the two great magician's of the age are more ignorant then they would like us to believe. There is a lot more going on in the world then these two learned gentlemen know or would like to admit. Magic has always stayed around, it hasn't "disappeared" as they so ominously prophesied. Yes, they did bring it back into the more glaring public arena, but it has been subtly continuing all along in out of the way places and often by people who you would least expect, like women and the other "lower orders." It makes the aforementioned fanatic long for her next book that supposedly sees this world through the eyes of these lower orders. Ah, the stories they could tell and hopefully one day will.

As to these women... what is interesting about Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is that, while there is a strong male presence, the book to me is subversively feminine. The narrator is female, and the power the men grasp for seems to have, in the past, been easily mastered by females, and probably still is if they'd bother to ask a female. If her first book is subversively feminine, The Ladies of Grace Adieu is overtly feminine. In only two of the eight stories are men the protagonists. Every other story revels in women and their powers. The stories even take great glee in repressed and oppressed women getting the better of their male counterparts. Magic still is strong in this domestic sphere. "The Duke of Wellington Misplaces His Horse" and "Antickes and Frets" takes the magical power of women even further by showing a distinctly feminine art, that of embroidery, being used to magical purposes. So while it may be uneven, the message stays strong and provides a nice counterpoint to Clarke's previous work.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: Charles Vess, Duke Wellington, John Uskglass, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Mary Queen of Scots, Neil Gaiman, Queen Elizabeth, Regency Magic, Rumpelstiltskin, Susanna Clarke, The Ladies of Grace Adieu

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Published by: Bloomsbury USA
Publication Date: September 30th, 2004
Format: Paperback, 1012 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Mr. Norrell is the only practical magician in England. He has devoted his life to finding, owning, and studying every book on magic and every book of magic he could beg, borrow, or steal. In Yorkshire, the heart of Northern England and The Raven King's domain, Mr. Norrell finds ways to eliminate all competition from theoretical magicians and plots how he will bring magic back to England. One would think eliminating magicians would be contrary to his goal, but Mr. Norrell disagrees. His destruction of the Learned Society of York Magicians provides an opportunity to get the press he needs through a John Segundus to herald his arrival in London. Norrell dreams that just removing himself from the confines of his home, Hurtfew Abbey, will have the government clamoring at this door begging for help with everything from the disgraceful street magicians who are nothing but swindlers to helping with the war with France.

But Norrell's views against fairy magic and his fusty nature make his entrance into society tricky. He eventually gets the ear of cabinet minister Sir Walter Pole, who quickly dismisses him. Yet a tragedy is about to change everything. Sir Walter's fiance dies and Norrell is encouraged to bring her back from the dead. Despite deploring fairy emissaries and assistants, he summons one who is indeed able to bring the future Lady Pole back from the dead, but not without exacting a terrible toll to all those Norrell knows. Norrell's new found popularity brings new opportunities, and despite all previous thinking that should another magician arise he'd hate them on sight, he instead decides to take the young Jonathan Strange as his pupil. The two quarrel and fight, but no one can deny that they have brought magic back to England, but at what cost to England, and more worryingly, at what cost to themselves?

You know that feeling you get when you find the perfect book? It's like finding a friend you'd never knew you'd missed or coming home, it was always a part of you even before you found it, a soul mate. That's what it was like when I first cracked open the pages of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Billed as Harry Potter for adults it's so much more. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell has the sensibilities of Austen with the scope of Dickens with a readability for modern audiences. Yes, it is divisive, you either love it, as seen by it's numerous awards, our you hate it. But as for myself, I don't know if there's a way I can too strongly state my love for it, nor perhaps write a coherent and focused review, but that remains to be seen.

I have a plethora of copies from my first edition to later paperback ones, but despite how many editions I have the truth was, until recently, I'd only read the book the one time. If I loved the book so much to invest in multiple copies why read it only once? Because I was scared that this magical memory of it wouldn't sustain my scrutiny over ten years later. As you can no doubt see, I was wrong. The book was even better the second time around. I found more magic and nuance due to my extensive reading in the intervening years, and if anything the only quibble I have is that I really don't know how the BBC is going to make this into a successful miniseries, but only time will tell there.

The staging of the book in it's three volumes is wonderful in how each section builds off the previous and becomes more complicated and creates a deeper understanding of the world Clarke has built. We begin with Mr. Norrell, a rather typical and bookish grump who introduces us to his ideas on magic and we get a feeling for the world. Then we progress to Jonathan Strange, where the world is expanded and we start to question what we have already learned. We end, appropriately, with The Raven King, John Uskglass, who teaches us that all we think we knew is wrong. This mimics how we, as humans, learn. We study hard, we learn the lessons in our books, we start to question and we realize, like Jon Snow, we know nothing; and that in ignorance we are starting on the path of true knowledge.

More then anything Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is a history book. Yes, it is a drastically altered history, but it's a believable one. What makes it such a rich tapestry is that Clarke is willing to take the time to tell us all the mythology and academic ephemera of past magician's and their work in order to round out her England. While I have read my fair share of history books, they aren't necessarily the most scintillating reads. Yet an aspect of history books that is a useful tool is the footnote. Never underestimate the joy of a good footnote. Yes the use of footnotes in fiction might be considered a trope nowadays, but I don't think it's a coincidence that my favorite authors all use footnotes to expand on their work and to do humorous asides. Terry Pratchett, Lisa Lutz, and Susanna Clarke all use footnotes to the betterment of their story, expanding the world at a slight angle to the rest of their narrative.

But everything I've mentioned so far just comes down to basic worldbuilding and writing techniques. Someone can be deft with these and still come up short when it comes to telling a good story. Where Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell really shines is in the dichotomy of England and the "safe" magic the magicians have practiced and the Otherworld, the realms of fairy, and the wild and dangerous magic that can rewrite the world. Fairy Tales, in their original non Happily Ever After origins, were dark and scary. Morality stories to keep women and children in line and to warn of dangers in the deep dark woods. There's a reason why witches were burned and magic was feared, something that Disney has helped us to forget.

Like Disney's whitewashing, The Raven King and other magicians have shown to people that perhaps fairies are good and there to help us. Clarke is here to show us once again that their nature is wild and mad, quite literally. The Gentleman with the thistle-down hair, or a more sadistic version of David Bowie's Goblin King as I like to think, embodies this evil madness. In deed, desire, and any and every way imaginable, this evil fairy shows that Norrell was right to fear them and that the true enemy of magic and man is vindictive fairies that are crazy beyond measure. They are the creatures to fear, they are the nightmare in the dark.

In fact, Fairy Tales are the original horror stories and Clarke does an amazing job in tapping into this. I have read horror stories and been left wanting by those considered the scariest and strangest. But in simple, straightforward yet elegant prose, Clarke is able to conjure up more horror then I experienced reading all of Danielewski's House of Leaves, whose house has no architectural style yet a banister, please. The King's Road is a thousand times scarier then the aforementioned house, with bridges spanning an eternity and rivers and moors of black desolation, all accessible through a mere reflection. That is the true horror. That this evil "other" world isn't fixed but can find it's way into your very house. You can be sitting in a chair and feel doors opening around you and long corridors stretching and a breeze where no breeze should be and the tingle of magic, and all while you felt safe in your snug little house. You are safe no more. Gives you a little chill just to think of it doesn't it?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Charles Dickens, Disney, Harry Potter, House of Leaves, Jane Austen, John Uskglass, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Lisa Lutz, Magic, Regency, Regency Magic, Susanna Clarke, Terry Pratchett, The Raven King

Susanna Clarke is like the Harper Lee of fantastical alternative history, she hit it out of the park with her first and only novel. If we want to get technical, she's more J.D. Salinger, having done the aforementioned novel and a compilation of short stories, but I have issues with Salinger, so Lee it is. Clarke spent most of her childhood traveling around the north of England devouring the works of Austen, Dickens, and Conan Doyle. After graduating from Oxford she spent some time abroad teaching English during which she first got the idea for Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. "I had a kind of waking dream ... about a man in 18th century clothes in a place rather like Venice, talking to some English tourists. And I felt strongly that he had some sort of magical background – he'd been dabbling in magic, and something had gone badly wrong."

Returning to England she worked in publishing while seriously contemplating starting what would become her masterpiece. She took a fantasy and science-fiction writing workshop taught by her future partner, Colin Greenwood, to come to grips with her writing. Greenwood was so impressed by the quality of her first story, as well as the polish for a first time writer, that he sent her story, The Ladies of Grace Adieu, to his friend, Neil Gaiman, who was astounded by her assurance and said "It was like watching someone sit down to play the piano for the first time and she plays a sonata." The book was bought by Bloomsbury in 2003 and was published in 2004. My father read an early review of the book and said it sounded like it was right up my alley. I fell in love with it as soon as I started to read it. Two years later Bloomsbury published The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories, named after the story which had so wowed Greenwood and Gaiman. She spent ten years writing one of my favorite books ever and ten years on I await with baited breath hoping that her new book will one day manifest itself. If not, she will remain my Harper Lee (minus recent developments), and I do have that miniseries adaptation to look forward to...

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens, Harper Lee, J.D. Salinger, Jane Austen, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Neil Gaiman, Oxford, Regency Magic, Susanna Clarke, The Ladies of Grace Adieu

Jane Austen is perfection. I think the majority of us can agree on this. It's hard to beat perfection. In fact, I would say it's nigh on impossible, you can't get higher then the highest degree now can you? There's none more black. That is why I've never been a fan of retellings, reimaginings, or continuations of her works. It's not on. Her books are perfect in and of themselves, there doesn't need to be more. So stop. There are of course exceptions to this rule, but taken as a whole all they do is prove the rule. Jane Austen is magic, so how to write a book that is just as magical? Why not literally add magic? In fact there's more and more writers who are combining the Regency world of Austen with magic and I say yes! It's taking Austen to the next level and there's so many clever and unique ways all these different writers are taking to get there and I'm just along for the ride.

The first book I picked up with this unique fusion was Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and I was hooked. I am beyond excited that this wondrous book has finally been made into a miniseries by the BBC and that got me thinking... there are so many Regency books with a magical bent that perhaps now is the time to declare my love of them to the world. With the television adaptation of Susanna Clarke's book as well as the end of Mary Robinette Kowal's Glamourist Histories series what better time for a celebration? So March and April are being dedicated to "Regency Magic" with author profiles, a few of whom are stopping by to answer some questions, reviews, a giveaway, and hopefully a bewitchingly good time! Now how about that giveaway?

The Prize:
A paperback copy of Susanna Clarke's The Ladies of Grace Adieu

The Rules:
1. Open to EVERYONE (for clarification, this means international too).

2. Please make sure I have a way to contact you if your name is drawn, either your blogger profile or a link to your website/blog or you could even include your email address with your comment(s) or email me.

3. Contest ends Thursday, April 30th at 11:59PM CST

4. How to enter: Just comment on this post for a chance to win!

5. And for those addicted to getting extra entries:

• +1 for answering the question: Would you choose to visit the magical version or non magical reality of Regency England?
• +2 for becoming a follower
• +10 if you are already a follower
• +10 for each time you advertise this contest - blog post, sidebar, twitter (please @eliza_lefebvre), etc. (but you only get credit for the first post in each platform, so tweet all you like, and I thank you for it, but you'll only get the +10 once from twitter). Also please leave a link! 
• +10 for each comment you leave on other Regency Magic posts with something other then "I hope I win!" 

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: Caroline Stevermer, Giveaway, Glamourist Histories, Jane Austen, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Magic, Mary Robinette Kowal, Regency, Regency Magic, Stephanie Burgis, Susanna Clarke, The Ladies of Grace Adieu

Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby
Published by: Riverhead
Publication Date: September 29th, 2009
Format: Hardcover, 416 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"In a dreary seaside town in England, Annie loves Duncan—or thinks she does, because she always has. Duncan loves Annie, but then, all of a sudden, he doesn’t anymore. So Annie stops loving Duncan, and starts getting her own life.

She sparks an e-mail correspondence with Tucker Crowe, a reclusive Dylanesque singer- songwriter who stopped making music twenty-two years ago, and who is also Duncan’s greatest obsession. A surprising connection is forged between two lonely people who are looking for more out of what they’ve got. Tucker’s been languishing (and he’s unnervingly aware of it), living in rural Pennsylvania with what he sees as his one hope for redemption amid a life of emotional, familial, and artistic ruin—his young son, Jackson. But then there’s also the material he’s about to release to the world, an acoustic, stripped-down version of his greatest album, Juliet, titled Juliet, Naked. And he’s just been summoned across the Atlantic with Jackson to face his multitude of ex-wives and children (both just discovered and formerly neglected), in the same country where his intriguing new Internet friend resides.

What happens when a washed-up musician looks for another chance? And miles away, a restless, childless woman looks for a change? Juliet, Naked is a powerfully engrossing, humblingly humorous novel about music, love, loneliness, and the struggle to live up to one’s promise."

Nick Hornby going back to what Nick Hornby does best, complex interpersonal relationships and music! After having spent the last few years doing his column for The Believer, which was awesome, and writing a Young Adult novel, Slam, again awesome, he's back on more familiar territory for his fans. Sure to be another modern classic you should definitely pick up his newest book for the author of High Fidelity.

Nick Hornby is also going to be touring the United States with this book and I strongly recommend you go. I got to see him speak when he was promoting Slam and it was a great experience, didn't hurt getting my books signed and talking about the cover design for Speaking with the Angel.

September 29th in New York
Barnes & Noble – Union Square, 7:00 PM

September 30th in Boston
Brookline Booksmith, 6:00 PM
Location: Coolidge Theater

October 1st in Washington, DC
Politics & Prose, 7:00 PM

October 6th in Los Angeles
Book Soup, 7:30 PM
Location: Skirball Cultural Center

October 7th in El Cerrito, CA
Barnes & Noble – El Cerrito, 7:00 PM

October 8th in San Francisco
City Arts & Lectures, 8:00 PM
Location: Herbst Theater

October 9th in Seattle
Elliott Bay Book Company, 7:00 PM
Location: Seattle Public Library

Soulless: The Parasol Protectorate Book 1 by Gail Carriger
Published by: Orbit
Publication Date: September 29th, 2009
Format: Paperback, 382 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Alexia Tarabotti is laboring under a great many social tribulations. First, she has no soul. Second, she's a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette.

Where to go from there? From bad to worse apparently, for Alexia accidentally kills the vampire -- and then the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate.

With unexpected vampires appearing and expected vampires disappearing, everyone seems to believe Alexia responsible. Can she figure out what is actually happening to London's high society? Will her soulless ability to negate supernatural powers prove useful or just plain embarrassing? Finally, who is the real enemy, and do they have treacle tart?

SOULLESS is a comedy of manners set in Victorian London: full of werewolves, vampires, dirigibles, and tea-drinking."

This book has everything, parasols, the supernatural, tea, parasols, werewolves, vampires, did I mention parasols? (After Amelia Peabody and Miss Gwen, parasols are something to look forward to!) The cover has that perfect blend of darkness with just a hint of Steampunk, love the goggles on her top hat, The Doctor would approve! If the authors website and bio are anything to go by, this will be a wonderful debut with wit and just the right level of self deprecation. Even more exciting, Gail Corriger will be doing a guest blog right here in the near future! How exciting is that!?! You don't have to go traipsing about the net, the author comes right to you! Although...her website IS cool, so perhaps you should check that out as well...BUT be sure to keep your eyes peeled, she'll be here shortly! Did a hear a cloak rustle? Perhaps a parasol is leaning against the stoop that wasn't there before...

Gail will also being appearing at Borderlands Books in San Fransisco on October 11th and 28th.

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

October 1st @ 6:00PM
Boston Public Library
Boston, Massachusetts

October 2nd @ 7:00PM
RJ Julia
Madison, Connecticut

October 5th @ 7:00PM
Barnes & Noble Union Square
New York, New York

October 29th @ 7:00PM
Location TBA
Washington, DC

November 2nd @ 7:30PM
Borders
Baileys Crossroads, Virginia

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Published by: Bloomsbury USA
Publication Date: September 29th, 2009
Format: Paperback, 864 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"English magicians were once the wonder of the known world, with fairy servants at their beck and call; they could command winds, mountains, and woods. But by the early 1800s they have long since lost the ability to perform magic. They can only write long, dull papers about it, while fairy servants are nothing but a fading memory.
But at Hurtfew Abbey in Yorkshire, the rich, reclusive Mr Norrell has assembled a wonderful library of lost and forgotten books from England's magical past and regained some of the powers of England's magicians. He goes to London and raises a beautiful young woman from the dead. Soon he is lending his help to the government in the war against Napoleon Bonaparte, creating ghostly fleets of rain-ships to confuse and alarm the French.

All goes well until a rival magician appears. Jonathan Strange is handsome, charming, and talkative-the very opposite of Mr Norrell. Strange thinks nothing of enduring the rigors of campaigning with Wellington's army and doing magic on battlefields. Astonished to find another practicing magician, Mr Norrell accepts Strange as a pupil. But it soon becomes clear that their ideas of what English magic ought to be are very different. For Mr Norrell, their power is something to be cautiously controlled, while Jonathan Strange will always be attracted to the wildest, most perilous forms of magic. He becomes fascinated by the ancient, shadowy figure of the Raven King, a child taken by fairies who became king of both England and Faerie, and the most legendary magician of all. Eventually Strange's heedless pursuit of long-forgotten magic threatens to destroy not only his partnership with Norrell, but everything that he holds dear.
Sophisticated, witty, and ingeniously convincing, Susanna Clarke's magisterial novel weaves magic into a flawlessly detailed vision of historical England. She has created a world so thoroughly enchanting that eight hundred pages leave readers longing for more. "

A new re-issue of the wondrous Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. No, back off, stop picking on me, I need this edition too, look shiny new introduction by Neil Gaiman. You can never have too many copies of this book...really you just can't, it's total impossibility. That is not my bookshelf groaning in the distance!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:02 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Audrey Niffenegger, Gail Carrier, Her Fearful Symmetry, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Juliet Naked, Neil Gaiman, Nick Hornby, Soulless, Susanna Clarke, The Parasol Protectorate, Tuesday Tomorrow