![]() ![]() Had the 500 pages of bloat been cut out of this kitten-squisher, it could have been pretty great. You can’t get out even if you’re not a fan of the experience. It must be what getting stuck in a bog feel like. If not for sheer stubbornness and terminal ability to DNF I would have not cared to keep picking it up. ![]() The heavy reliance on period-appropriate tell-not-show, the distasteful and often dull characters that built up my irritation (Norrell has a special place in boring hell), and the general slow monotony of the narrative - all that kept me at a distance, never allowing me to engage with the story. Once I got past all the “chuse” (!), “shewed”(!!!) and “sopha” (!!!) iterations, I still had to try to process the glacial pace and meandering nature of the story - and although I’m very partial to meanderings of Stephen King, here I just wanted so badly to get to any kind of a point, hoping for an editor’s red pen to trim some of the vignettes and descriptions. It’s a period piece with magic, I suppose.īut you see, I enjoy some 19th century novels *despite* them being such, not *because* of it. ![]() In Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell Susanna Clarke decided to emulate the style, the pace and the vocabulary/orthography of that time in a way that would have made Charles Dickens proud. I suppose whether you love this book or hate it will depend on how you feel about 19th century novels. ![]()
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