Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Susanna Clarke
Bloomsbury
2004
In one of the major storylines of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Lady Pole is brought back to life by the Gentleman with the Thistledown Hair, on the condition that half of her life is to be spent with him. The Gentleman with the Thistledown Hair is a fairy, and fairies, we learn in this novel, are not to be trusted. So the half of the life she spends with the Gentleman with Thistledown Hair, dancing at his dolorous balls, is not the second half, as the deal’s broker, Mr Norrell, presumed. The half of her life she spends with the Gentleman is the night-time. She spends her days too exhausted to participate in her real life. When the magically gifted John Childermass meets her, he can see that she seems to occupy two worlds, existing simultaneously in her rooms at Starecross Hall and in the fairy mansion called Lost-hope. There’s something familiar in her unenviable condition. It was not until I first finished the book that I realised Lady Pole’s condition bore some resemblance to my own: half my life had been given over to this book, I was staying up later and later to read it more and more. No matter where I was or what I was doing, I never completely left the world of this novel. The analogy only goes so far, of course. Mine was not some dismal enchantment, sapping the life from me. Reading this book was invigorating.
Stripped down to its bare bones, the novel follows a recognisable story; a motley coalition rescue a pair of damsels from the clutches of a devious enchanter. And a well told version of a well-trodden story it is. But there is so much succulent meat on those strong bones, and the bones themselves are arranged in sometimes surprising configurations. Taking place over ten years, the story is set in a partially recognisable Recency England. Only partially, because while Lord Liverpool and Arthur Wellesley face Napoleon, and while George III succumbs to his malady, a revival of English Magic takes place. It is well known, you see, that for hundreds of years, North England and South England were two separate kingdoms. The south was ruled by the Plantagenets, the Tudors, the Stuarts, while the north was ruled, for centuries, by John Uskglass, the Raven King. It is with Uskglass that the tradition of English Magic began.
In the early 1800s, centuries after his departure, many northerners remain staunchly loyal to Uskglass. Though evidently not all. One northerner, the well-to-do recluse Mr Norrell, has spent his life collecting and studying the copious magical literature and feels ready to revive the art for the good of his country. Simultaneously, he also feels the need to disparage The Raven King at every opportunity, and to prevent anyone but himself from actually practicing magic. He is even committed to preventing the theoretical study of magic. This wonderfully flawed character is eventually persuaded to take on a talented apprentice, Jonathan Strange. Their relationship, as the title suggests, provides the backbone of the novel. Having amassed an enormous library of magical texts in his ancestral home of Hurtfew Abbey, he proceeds to deny his apprentice access to these books. He has made a point of sending his servant Childermass out to buy up all the books of magic he can find, not only so Mr Norrell can study them, but also to ensure that no one else can.
It soon becomes clear that his intended revival of English magic is less for England’s benefit and more for his own ambition. Though he has no love of the attention of others, he seems determined that the revival of English magic should begin and end with him. That his attempts to stifle the magic of others relentlessly backfires seems to be the animating force of the novel. Jonathan Strange discovers his knack for magic after encountering Vinculus, a street sorcerer chased out of London by Strange’s assistant Childermass. Childermass himself shows signs of being a talented magician, though the extent of his knowledge and abilities is never clear. He seems shrewd enough not to reveal all he knows, perhaps recognising that Norrell tolerates his applications of magic just as long as it is discreet and of use to Norrell himself.
The title consists of the name of two characters, yet this could be something close to an ensemble novel. Each supporting character is intriguing, the skill of Clarke makes us believe that each could be the protagonist of a long novel if the narrator so chose. Childermass and Segundus are both magicians, their natural talents perhaps inadvertently revealed by Mr Norrell’s attempts to stifle them. After following Jonathan Strange to the Iberian Peninsula to witness his years as the British Army’s magician under Wellington, we return to London and discover that Arabella has been having regular conversations with the Gentleman with the Thistledown Hair. It is through these conversations that the Gentleman decides to take Arabella for himself, convincing Jonathan Strange that she has died. Stephen Black continues to strive to be the model butler despite the overbearing admiration he receives from The Gentleman with the Thistledown Hair.
As compelling as these many characters are, as captivating as their various interweaving struggles are, it is above all else the book’s narrator that enchants me so much. It would be misleading to use words such as lampoon or pastiche to describe the Regency inflected prose. I would say instead that the narrator fits companionably within a tradition of charming yet slightly snide narrators we find both during and after the Regency period. Jane Austen’s narration is an obvious comparison, but so too is Thackeray’s narrator in Vanity Fair. Clarke’s is an equal, not a spoof to this tradition.
It is not hyperbole to say this is my favourite twenty-first century novel so far. It is one of the few novels of my adult life that I return to time and again, reading it cover to cover two or three times a year. Will I one day be free of it, like the Gentleman’s enchanted guests, or will it engulf me for life, like the Pillar of Darkness that eventually surrounds the two great English Magicians? I must say, I hope it is the latter.