Paperback, 1024 pages
English language
Published Oct. 20, 2005 by Bloomsbury USA.
Published in 2004, it is an alternative history set in 19th-century England around the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Its premise is that magic once existed in England and has returned with two men: Gilbert Norrell and Jonathan Strange. Centred on the relationship between these two men, the novel investigates the nature of "Englishness" and the boundaries between reason and unreason, Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Dane, and Northern and Southern English cultural tropes/stereotypes. It has been described as a fantasy novel, an alternative history, and a historical novel. It inverts the Industrial Revolution conception of the North-South divide in England: in this book the North is romantic and magical, rather than rational and concrete.
Very enjoyable. This book moves at a slow pace, with a very long build. This allows the characters to be full bodied, and allows the world to be believable.
Unbearable, boring, pretentious. When I have to force myself to read even a few pages from a book, it means I'm not enjoying it at all. That has been happening for the last months with this unswallowable brick.
The thing I regret the most, is having left aside so many other books I wanted to read, because I'm used to read only one book at a time.
I guess I'll just watch the TV series, just out of curiosity. I hope it's more enjoyable than this book.
After months on the waiting list, the SFPL has loaned me a copy of this.
Extraordinary. A description of the re-discovery of practical English Magic that took place in the Napoleonic era. Full of historical and bibliographic detail. Witty. Funny. Striking.
