Book Review: If You Like Magic and Jane Austen, You Need to Read ‘Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell’

Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell follows a pair of magicians who wish to restore magic to a “respectable” place in the early 19th-century English society. This ingenious premise results in the mingling of fantasy with historical realism, and constrains the characters to use magic in ways that don’t involve outright killing people—a condition neatly summarized in one particularly memorable bit of dialogue:

“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 could.”

But even respectable magicians cannot resist the allure of Dark magic, only to find that it is not as compliant as they would wish. (Goes one line: “Magic, which had seemed so familiar just hours before, so English, had suddenly become inhuman, unearthly, otherlandish.”) This is such a relevant theme because it raises poignant questions about our modern relationship with the Otherworldly. We in the 21st century like the Otherworldly; the soaring success of fantasy books and films is evidence enough of that. But pine as we might for Middle Earth or the Seven Kingdoms, we would not, I think, like to live in such a place unless we could mold it to our modernist expectations. It would need to be a convenient, analyzable world, wholly subservient to our notions of scientific inquiry and control. (For an astute scholarly take on this idea, see Mr Norrell and the Modern Moral Order by Alan Jacobs.)

But the book’s premise alone is not all that makes the story. Clarke combines her portrayals of the fantastic with an ornamental style and a dry, brilliant wit that mirrors classics like Pride and Prejudice and The Importance of Being Earnest. This is one of the chief reasons why in my opinion the book is superior to the television series: the screenplay simply doesn’t do justice to the depth and subtlety of Clarke’s comedic tone.

To give you a taste of what I mean, here are a few passages collected from various parts of the book. I don’t know or recall how many of these lines actually made it to the screen; but neither do I recall the TV rendition capturing the same degree and consistency of humor, which in the book jumps out on almost every single page.

An Inconvenient Death

“Sir Walter’s bride, Miss Wintertowne, is dead. She died this very afternoon. They were to be married in two days’ time, but, poor thing, she is quite dead. A thousand pounds a year! – Imagine his despair! Had she only contrived to remain alive until the end of the week, what a difference it would have made!” ~Christopher Drawlight

Everyone Makes Excuses

“Upon my word, there is nothing in the world so easy to explain as failure — it is, after all, what everybody does all the time.” ~Christopher Drawlight

The Point of Beauty

“A man as talented and handsome as yourself ought not be a servant!” he said in a shocked tone. “He ought to be the ruler of a vast estate! What is beauty for, I should like to know, if not to stand as a visible sign of one’s superiority to everyone else?” ~The Gentleman with Thistledown Hair

We Could Always Kill Them

“What nobility of feeling!” he cried. “To sacrifice your own pleasure to preserve the comfort of others! Well, it is a thing, I confess, that would never occur to me. […] These guests of mine on whose account you are so scrupulous, they are all my vassals and subjects. There is not one of them who would dare to criticize me or any one I chose to call my friend. And if they did, why! we could always kill them!” ~The Gentleman with Thistledown Hair

On the Deficiency of Red Hair

Some people thought [Mr. Strange] handsome, but this was not by any means the universal opinion. His face had two faults: a long nose and an ironic expression. It is also true that his hair had a reddish tinge and, as everybody knows, no one with red hair can ever truly be said to be handsome. ~Narrator

Oh, Those Troublesome Clergy!

Now that the day had arrived when [Mr. Strange was to see his love interest, Arabella] again he began to have some doubts of his reception. He was glad to think she was with her brother […] But he had some doubts about the friends with whom she was staying. They were a clergyman and his wife. He knew nothing of them, but he had the natural distrust that a young, rich, self-indulgent man feels for members of the clergy. Who could say what notions of extraordinary virtue and unnecessary self-sacrifice they might be daily imparting to her? ~Narrator

A Most Tiresome Uncertainty

Of all the tiresome situations in the world, thought the Prince Regent, the most tiresome was to rise from one’s bed in a state of uncertainty as to whether or not one was the ruler of Great Britain. ~Narrator

Why, Make Them Sprout Wings

Merlin, could not you arrange for the Army to grow wings and fly over the French? Could you do that, do you think?” His lordship was perhaps half-joking, but only half. “It is only a matter of supplying each man with a little pair of wings. Take Captain Macpherson for example,” he said, eyeing an enormous Scotsman. “I have a great fancy to see Macpherson sprout wings and flutter about.”

Black Magic Is Fine So Long as It Is Expedient

“Dear God!” cried Fitzroy Somerset, “What language is that?” “I believe it is one of the dialects of Hell,” said Strange. “Is it indeed?” said Somerset. “Well, that is remarkable.” “They have learnt it very quickly,” said Lord Wellington, “They have only been dead three days.” He approved of people doing things promptly and in a businesslike fashion.

A Grave Matter, Punishable by… Something!

“Now,” said Strange, with a most determined look and another flourish of his letter, “will you let me see the King or will you defy the authority of two Archbishops? That is a very grave matter, punishable by … well, I do not exactly know what, but something rather severe, I should imagine.”

Another wonderful feature of Clarke’s novel is her intricate grasp of human nature. In the literary sense, her characters are flat: they do not undergo considerable personality changes. Yet they are not flat in the dull, wooden sense any more than Sherlock Holmes is dull despite the fact that his personality remains static (he is always the same lovable detective whose biting intellect we can count on to solve the mystery). Clarke has created a vivid cast of individuals who are competent, interesting, spontaneous, weak, insensitive, and manipulative. Which is to say, human.

One striking example of this is when Mr. Norrell’s friends try to convince him that Mr. Strange, his pupil in the study of magic, ought to be allowed to travel away to aid the British army in the war against the French. No matter how many respectable gentlemen appeal to Mr. Norrell’s sense of patriotism, Norrell selfishly refuses to let his pupil go, on the grounds that he is too valuable to put in harm’s way. It is only when Norrell’s more calculating acquaintances tap into his rapacious obsession with acquiring new books of magic—books which he might have to compete to obtain, were his pupil to remain behind—that he is finally given reason to relent.

In some ways, the presence of so many vain, selfish characters and the absence of any honorable ones comes off as bleak and cynical. (There are some characters you would call honorable, but the most prominent of these, the butler Stephen Black, is not quite at the center of the stage.) The protagonists seldom put the interests of others above their own, or repent of evil and reform their ways. But if this is cynicism, it is not the condescending kind. Clarke’s unrelentingly cheerful tone, combined with the fresh and unpredictable manner in which she causes events to unfold, counterbalances and satirizes the human corruption that is on full display. The book is long (almost 800 pages), and it is no action thriller; stay far away if that’s what you’re craving. But you absolutely must come to it if you’re looking for a story that succeeds perfectly at weaving so many disparate strands together: a fantasy, an alternate English history, a comedy of manners, a pastiche of the Romantic literary form. If those are qualities you enjoy, you will soon forget the size of Clarke’s masterpiece. Indeed it will hardly feel long enough.