Enjoy For Free Jonathan Strange Ve Bay Norrell Fashioned By Susanna Clarke Accessible Via Ebook

nope, nope. DNF at. The act of reading has become a chore, a sensation that cannot be condoned or perpetuated,

It's been six hundred and eighty pages, and this book has yet to enthrall or surprise, The character motives baffle, the fantasy elements are uneven, the tone is dry and the story uneventful, Writing a tome of this magnitude is no small feat, but it's achieved to greater effect by Jonathan Stroud in his marvelous book, sitelinkThe Amulet of Samarkand, which I would leap to recommend while warning bookworms to steer clear of this cumbersome book.
Lifeless
After finishing, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, the overwhelming feeling was a sense of relief and then puzzlement that I committed so much time to read this.
I found the book a great disappointment on various levels, and for once, I have to say that the TV production was so much better than the novel.


The characters were generally uninteresting, including the two main protagonists, The story's timing occurred when magic again surfaced in England, and magicians were unsure of their power, Mr Norell is an academic rather drab character intent on learning his craft from books and manuscripts, His arrogance wants him to be considered England's only legitimate magician, Jonathan Strange is more a practical magician and lends a hand in fighting Napolean, His magic seems almost whimsical, and the English soldiers still die in huge numbers, The plot is so weak that the involvement with the Napoleonic Wars didn't generate much interest, It was all very flat, What can be said is that the detail of the

surroundings and story are considerable even with footnotes to describe minutiae, The setting was okay, and I did feel that the atmosphere of earlyth century England came through well,

I am surprised this book received its praises, and I can only assume that the story's context was a big draw, We all want to believe that magic exists and that somewhere a magician is just waiting to develop the skills handed down from Merlin, If that was to happen, I can only hope that it's NOT to someone like Strange or Norrell and that there would be a superb plot of twists and surprises, with captivating characters to bring it all to life.


I might have been tempted to consider a higher rating if it had not been so long, The length is a problem in a story that drifts at such a slow pace, with details I couldn't care less about, If stories can affect the heart rate from high intensity to resting, then this will set the heart rate to coma, I finally finished! My paperback was more than,pages long, so this is a triumph,

Jonathan Strange amp Mr, Norrell is a book that I started out loving, but the middle part dragged so much that I grew impatient for the story to end, I feel so differently about the two halves of the book that I wish I could issue two Goodreads ratings,

Let's start with what I liked about this novel, Susanna Clarke has a great imagination and a good sense of humor, The story is set in the earlys in England and follows the adventures of two magicians, Mr, Strange and Mr. Norrell. They have different opinions about magic, and while they start out as collaborators, they later become enemies, At different times, both magicians are enlisted to help the British Army and Navy in the Napoleonic Wars, The extensive battle scenes are what started to drag down the book, The story also involves a spiteful fairy, who likes to steal people away to his kingdom, The story builds until there is a fateful showdown between the mean fairy and the magicians, There's a lot else going on, but to try and summarize it all would drive me mad,

Parts of this book were charming and amusing, and I sometimes smiled while reading, more so in the first half, Clarke's wit has been compared to Jane Austen's, but let's not get carried away, people, I'll grant that it's amusing, and Clarke captured some foibles of human nature, But this wouldn't make my list of things I regularly recommend to fans of Miss Austen,

My complaints about the book revolve mostly around its epic, meandering story, which did not have to be,pages, This book was desperately in need of a tougher editor, Clarke also included lots of footnotes, most of which were too clever by half, I listened to this on audio, and the footnotes were read at the indicated place in the text, but if I had just read the print book I would have quickly grown irritated and skimmed all of them.


My other frustration with this book was how dimwitted Strange and Norrell were, They were ridiculously slow to catch on to what the evil fairy was doing, despite the fact that they were supposed to be clever, powerful magicians, It seemed like the author was dragging out their ignorance in order to lengthen the story, which really didn't need any lengthening,

While I do have complaints about this book, I did enjoy a good part of it, These epic novels are so difficult to rate, I think I'll give the first half aand the last half a, I'll be generous and rate this a,rounded up to.

Recommended, with caution, to those who like magical stories and British humor,

Favorite Quotes
"Can a magician kill a man by magic" Lord Wellington asked Strange, Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question, "I suppose a magician might," he admitted, "but a gentleman never would, "

"Well, I suppose one ought not to employ a magician and then complain that he does not behave like other people, "

"I have a scholar's love of silence and solitude, To sit and pass hour after hour in idle chatter with a roomful of strangers is to me the worst sort of torment, "

"Houses, like people, are apt to become rather eccentric if left too much on their own this house was the architectural equivalent of an old gentleman in a worn dressinggown and torn slippers, who got up and went to bed at odd times of day, and who kept up a continual conversation with friends no one else could see.
"

"Oh! And they read English novels! David! Did you ever look into an English novel Well, do not trouble yourself, It is nothing but a lot of nonsense about girls with fanciful names getting married, "

"The argument he was conducting with his neighbor as to whether the English magician had gone mad because he was a magician, or because he was English.
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