Just Finished Reading Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

A while back, I read a series of books by British author Jonathan Stroud titled The Bartimaeus Trilogy, which was generally considered to be in the "junior readers" category of fiction. In it, an alternative history of the world was presented, one in which magicians steered the course of events with their magic.  Susanna Clarke seems to have picked up this theme with her 2003 novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell...did she mean to pay a tribute to Stroud with that first name?  In Clarke's book, an alternative  history is also in place with magic playing a predominant role...but there are some notable differences.   Set in the early nineteenth century in the middle of England's long war against Napoleon's France, magic has all but disappeared from England as the only magicians left are either illusionists, con artists, or "theoretical" magicians who only analyze the history of the magic that had been lost to them.  To these theoretical magicians, the idea of a "practical" magician who purports to practice the art elicits derision as they believe any such claimant to be a con artist.  In northern England, where magic is supposed to have been the strongest, even to the point where a magician king ruled the that part of the country for centuries, there is, in Yorkshire, a club of theoretical magicians who find themselves in a confrontation with a practical magician, a Mr. Norrell.  After soundly proving the worth of his magic in a wager...and forcing the York magicians to stop their claim to be magicians in the process...Norrell moves to London where he lobbies to resurrect the role of real magic and help England in its ongoing war against France's Napoleon.  Down the line, another magician, Jonathan Strange, emerges and the two go through a tortuous love/hate friendship/enmity throughout the remainder of the story.  But Mr. Norrell has kept a dark secret from Strange: he has reintroduced a magical fairy into England, and that sinister entity is causing all sorts of trouble behind the scenes.

Susanna Clarke's story in this novel is quite interesting enough, but the characters she introduces make it memorable.  Besides Strange, Norrell, and the obnoxious fairy, there is Norrell's wise and able assistant Childermass, his cynical London promoters Drawlight and Lascelles, the sad, trapped Lady Pole, the noble butler Stephen Black, Strange's spunky and compelling wife Arabelle, and the mysterious street magician Vinculus.  And there are plenty more characters besides these, including some historical ones...in particular the Duke of Wellington, for whom Strange works magic against Napoleon.  But Clarke never lets the number of characters get to the point where they weigh down the story.  One thing about this book, though, that did bug me a little was her extensive use of footnotes in order to establish the history of magic in England.  I felt that I had to read these, which interrupted the flow of the narrative, just to make sure I wouldn't miss out on anything.  That was a bit annoying.  But everything else in the tale, especially the clash of personalities between the open and courageous Jonathan Strange and the magically-miserly Mr. Norrell, was a big hit.  No wonder that this novel was a best-seller and award-winner...

I understand that BBC will air on its TV channel (Cox channel 228 in Gainesville) this summer a seven-part series adaptation of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.  I'm looking forward to seeing it, but I urge others to read the book first...