Jonathan Strange anticipation thread

[lucysnowe]

Thought I would start one as have just watched the full trailer here. Am so very exciting now!! Anyone else??

[Igneococcus]

Yes, Alan Rickman I've never seen that actor before.
One of my favourite lines was in it "I suppose a magician might," he admitted, "but a gentleman never could."

[DandyDan]

Ronan Vibert is a great actor. He played a brilliant Robespierre in the Richard E Grant 'Scarlet Pimpernel' series, amongst other roles.

[Igneococcus]

I just checked him out on imdb. He was in lots of things, I wonder how I missed him so far.
Arggh, Robespierre, I just finished A Place of Greater Safety and Robespierre is one of my least favourite people ever at the moment.

[Thurlow]

What did you think of A Place of Greater Safety? I remember I liked it to start with and then it went on... and on... and on... Plus I really wanted to slap Camille

[Igneococcus]

It took me quite a long time to get into it but once I did I really enjoyed it. I did want to slap Camille at times as well but I actually cried when they all died, it was Lucile being arrested that set me off. I mean, I of course knew they would all die but it still hit me when it happened. What I never realized before is how long it took for the revolution to get started. In my mind they storm the Bastille, the Capets try to flee, then get executed and all hell breakes loose. In the book they storm the Bastille and then there is lots of talking and dinners and going to the theatre and having affairs and more talking and then slowly the terrors creeps up on you (and Camille grows a conscience). Very well done, I think.

[bigmouthstrikesagain]

I am rereading the book now while watching the series. I tried to read it last year and got lost in the footnotes and slow plotting. I love the atmosphere of the book but the dedication to a regency novel styling is a bit tiresome when you know the writer is 21st century. So I go from enjoying it to finding it irritating depending on the chapter.

The characters are so well drawn that I am not surprised that the casting has been pretty spot on. I particularly enjoyed Strange in yesterdays episode as he really comes into his own during the war in Portugal and they shewed his maturation as a magician really well considering the time constraints. The Neapolitans were very good. I liked the scenes with Stephen and the Gentleman very much. But his conversation with Arabella was a bit off - I fail to see how he develops such an obsession with her when their interaction is so cold. Perhaps it is more about the Gentleman's hatred of the magicians in any case.

I see the timeline is slightly altered as Lady Pole said she was 19 last night but in the book years pass between Lady Poles resurrection and her assassination attempt.

As far as the footnotes go - it would halt plot development too much to keep going backwards and forwards - the requirements of a TV script are very different and I think despite the slightly David Bowie/ 80's video look to the fairy scenes - they are creating an effective otherworldly atmosphere that can be built on in the next 4 episodes.

All good stuff.

[CoteDAzur]

"I get more and more convinced that Childermass is actually Clarke's hero."

Clarke is apparently writing a book focusing on Childermass & Vinculus

[Thurlow]

Excellent!

I like the way the show, like the book (promise these aren't spoilers!) doesn't make a song and dance of the fact that other people can do magic as well. Clarke sort of slipped it past you, and now the show is too, so you see it but you don't quite recognise what you've seen. That John Segundus could enter Strange's dream, that Childermass was doing magic to find Lady Pole. It's very clever.

[Igneococcus]

"Clarke is apparently writing a book focusing on Childermass & Vinculus"

dd is going to squeal in happiness when I tell her that, I think she might have a bit of a crush on Childermass.

[Thurlow]

That's understandable, Igneococcus, given how he looks on screen

[Igneococcus]

She is only 10, almost 11, Thurlow and she uses the claim that her friend supposedly fancies him as an excuse to talk about him all the time. She keeps watching the trailer on the BBC site.

[Thurlow]

That's quite cute really!

[lucysnowe]

I have a bit of a Norrell crush. I know that's weird :)

Loved last night's again, especially the awesome tapestry (whoever made it is very talented. I want to see it in the flesh fabric!). Poor old Jeremy Johns though. :(

It looks like from this adapt and from next week's clips that they are emphasising more Strange's descent into darkness which is probably a good thing but it was pretty dark already last night and it will only get gloomier. Stephen is soooo awesome and just like in the book but crikey that mirror scene was intense. I love the scene when he comes out of Lost-Hope room all perturbed by it, and notices Lady Pole's door ajar. Ariyon Bakare played it soooo well.

[lucysnowe]

Nice defence of the book series re its comparison with Harry Potter here

[JeanneDeMontbaston]

Hmm. I quite liked that (especially the snark at the Mail), but I feel as if the author just assumes children's fiction has to carry derogatory connotations, and that gets on my nerves a bit. I've never understood why it should.

[Thurlow]

It probably is quite good for teenagers, actually. I hadn't thought of that, but I read something mentioning it a few weeks ago and have had it in mind while watching. Nothing adult really happens, does it? I mean it is dark - reanimated Neapolitan corpses and the like - but no darker than Harry Potter can be.

My 3yo is currently obsessed with the bit where Strange makes the sand horses (I didn't show her the whole show, just that scene), she kneels down and does all the actions. DP despairs of my love for this book!

[lucysnowe]

Thurlow the only really dark bit IIRC correctly is SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS what happens to Vinculus SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS.

But yes, the Mail review was utterly ridiculous.

[2rebecca]

I find it confusing, it's maybe better if you've read the book. The prophesies were all rapidly mumbled in the first episode where is you were reading the book you can read them slowly and remember them. Also I thought Lady Pole got to live half a life before the Raven king took her, she doesn't seem to have aged and he can't say he just has her at night as she talks gibberish during the day. What happened to the normal half of her life she was meant to get.
Who are all the hangers on and why don't they have jobs and families to get on with? Several posh men just seem to hang around in corridors and on staircases near Norrell for no obvious reason.

[Thurlow]

I have been wondering how people who haven't read the book have been doing because even I thought they'd rushed the prophecy a bit. There's just so much plot to fit in, and even though it is possible (as they are proving) to focus on t^he main story and ignore the footnotes, the footnotes add so much history and texture to the story.

The whole prophecy is very long but the important bits are:

^The nameless slave wore a silver crown
The nameless slave was a king in a strange country.^

and

^Two magicians shall appear in England.
The first shall fear me; the second shall long to behold me;
The first shall be governed by thieves and murderers; the second shall conspire at his own destruction;
The first shall bury his heart in a dark wood beneath the snow, yet still feel its ache;
The second shall see his dearest possession in his enemy’s hand.
The first shall pass his life alone; he shall be his own gaoler;
The second shall tread lonely roads, the storm above his head, seeking a dark tower upon a high hillside.^

For Lady Pole, the bargain was that the Gentleman got half her life. Norrell assumed that would mean she would die at 43, say, but actually the Gentleman took all her nights. She's going mad during the day as she's awake and dancing every night - it's sleep deprivation, really. The bargain never actually said "before" he takes her; he is just allowed half her life.

Drawlight and Lascelles (the two posh men hanging around) haven't been explained over well either, though they are fab. They were basically just aristocratic hangers on who followed fame and gossip. Lascelles is a rich playboy, Drawlight is a poor hanger on. They start to hang around with Norrell because they thought it would be amusing but soon see there is money to be made by becoming a sort of public face for him, and Norrell is so unworldly that he lets them.

[Trills]

There are a few people who I think could do with having name badges.

The two hangers-on.

The two blokes with the run-down cottage.

I feel a bit like people who watched Lord of the Rings and called Merry and Pippin "the other hobbits".

[lucysnowe]

Just think of Drawlight and Lascelles as Norrell's evil henchmen :) And Segundus and Honeyfoot are kind of superhero allies like the stretchy one and the ice one from Fantastic Four.

[CoogerAndDark]

I haven't read the book and I can tell from the plot there must be a wealth of explanation and backstory missing from the dramatisation. It doesn't stop me enjoying the tv adaptation but it has made me download the book to my Kindle.
I think I tried it when it was first published but for one reason or another I didn't get into it.

[Trills]

I can actually only see one of Drawlight and Lascelles in my head - the one who says NorrELL and who Arabella called an "odious little man" (as she rightly should)

[CoteDAzur]

" I can tell from the plot there must be a wealth of explanation and backstory missing from the dramatisation"

Oh yes, the footnotes. They are the key to the entire background and they don't feature at all in the TV adaptation. Raven King's story is completely absent from this TV series. A shame.

[2rebecca]

So is the gentleman not the Raven King then? I thought Norrell was conjuring up the Raven King and that's why he now doesn't want to talk about the Raven King and Strange has a book on the Raven King. If he isn't the raven king why haven't they explained who the feck he actually is?