Paperback, 1024 pages
English language
Published Oct. 20, 2005 by Bloomsbury USA.
Published in 2004, it is an alternative history set in 19th-century England around the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Its premise is that magic once existed in England and has returned with two men: Gilbert Norrell and Jonathan Strange. Centred on the relationship between these two men, the novel investigates the nature of "Englishness" and the boundaries between reason and unreason, Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Dane, and Northern and Southern English cultural tropes/stereotypes. It has been described as a fantasy novel, an alternative history, and a historical novel. It inverts the Industrial Revolution conception of the North-South divide in England: in this book the North is romantic and magical, rather than rational and concrete.
I really wanted to like this, given all of the good reviews. I tried the written book, I tried the audio book. There was a review that said it got better about 8 hours in. I just couldn't make it - there were interesting moments, but it felt like a chore to keep trying to come back to this book.
Wonderful but too long.
Unbearable, boring, pretentious. When I have to force myself to read even a few pages from a book, it means I'm not enjoying it at all. That has been happening for the last months with this unswallowable brick.
The thing I regret the most, is having left aside so many other books I wanted to read, because I'm used to read only one book at a time.
I guess I'll just watch the TV series, just out of curiosity. I hope it's more enjoyable than this book.
Even better on rereading.
It's a gorgeously written book and the world-building and attention to detail is phenomenal, but the narrative is simply far too slow. I don't really need a five-page footnote to provide every bit of backstory that didn't fit into the main novel and - about half way through - gave up on these entirely just so I could slog through to the end of the book.
