Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell discussion thread - No spoilers until 28 March, please

[CoteDAzur]

A number of us over on 50-Book Challenge thread are interested in reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by 28 March. Everyone is welcome to join in, and feel free to start posting, but please refrain from spoilers until 28 March. Enjoy

Finished! Great book. Will go and review it on the 50 book thread.

About half way through now and quite enjoying the imagey, Stephen and the man with the Thistle-down hair much more than the Magician stuff. I think it will make for good TV

Has anyone else read, or is planning to read, the accompanying short stories The Ladies of Grace Adieu? I started it last night.

I've read it! Also brilliant...and redresses the lack of female characters in JS&MN.

Finished! Exquisite, just as I remember it.

Yay, finished! Took 2 weeks and I found it was a bit of a slow starter but gradually sucked me in, and by the last book I was completely hooked. I think I enjoyed the enchantment part of the story towards the end more than the earlier alternative history, tbh. Loved the creation of the whole magical world of Faerie and the interaction with the 'real' world. Will definitely look out for the Ladies of Grace Adieu.

The descriptions of Faerie kept making me think of Rudyard Kipling's books Puck of Pooks Hill and Rewards and Fairies which I vaguely remember reading as a child - anyone else remember those?

Only just found this thread, so marking place.

If anyone else is still dithering my top tips are:

a) try and track down a copy of the triple decker edition if you can find one at a decent price
eg because it is both more practical and possessed of period flavour.

b) start at a time when you'll be able to devote a solid hour or two rather than five minutes here and there. Lots of readers (including me) are defeated by the first few chapters when they first try it, but once you've got through the first hundred pages and really atuned yourself to the language and the setting then the rest whizzes by.

Agree - it does need to be read in big chunks. I had plenty of time over half term to do that, and loved immersing myself in that alternative world. Such an enjoyable story, once you get into it.

I finished reading The Ladies of Grace Adieu last night. Also very enjoyable. The first story has Jonathan Strange and his wife in it (that's the title story) and we encounter women magicians (so much for Mr Norrell thinking he had eliminated all rivals and their books :o). And the final one is an expansion of the tale of John Uskglass and the charcoal burner.

Well worth a read, to stay in that faerie world a bit longer :)

Are there any Nick Cave fans here? The ballad below feels a lot like a song from Nick Cave's album 'Murder Ballads' to me:

The Raven King

Not long, not long my father said
Not long shall you be ours
The Raven King knows all too well
Which are the fairest flowers

The priest was all too worldly
Though he prayed and rang his bell
The Raven King three candles lit
The priest said it was well

Her arms were all too feeble
Though she claimed to love me so
The Raven King stretched out his hand
She sighed and let me go

This land is all too shallow
It is painted on the sky
And trembles like the wind-shook rain
When the Raven King goes by

For always and for always
I pray remember me
Upon the moors, beneath the stars
With the King’s wild company

They certainly share a dark aesthetic, don't they?

Definitely. It makes me think of his with P J Harvey, or his duet with Kylie Minogue .

I'm really feeling the Raven King withdrawal now, two days post-JS&MrN. Why doesn't the author write a prequel to this book about the story of the Raven King?

I wonder what she is working on. No clues from her website

I read somewhere she was working on a sequel which is going to be based on the two servants (can’t remember their names, well spell them more like) the two at the end who had the book written on him and the card one.

Childermass and Vinculus. Yes, that would be great.

Another book about the Raven King, pretty please?

I hope the Raven King is played by someone really fanciable so we can enjoy a good old crush when it comes on t'telly.....shallow

I started it today and I've read 50 pages in three 20 minute chunks - not 'getting it' so far. But I take the points made yesterday about having big chunks to read it so will do this starting from tonight otherwise I won't finish it at any point this month! I also have five books on reservation at the library

stubborn - Nick Cave should play the Raven King

Yes, I can just picture Nick Cave now you've said that!

If you like long books, may I recommend pretty much anything by Neal Stephenson? I absolutely loved and whizzed through Cryptonomicon, followed by his Baroque Trilogy (need to be read in that order as Cryptonomicon is a prequel despite being set centuries after the others, though it is also a standalone novel). Reamde is brilliant too.

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace is also huge, though rather more hard going for most people I suspect.

I'm a big Neal Stephenson fan who has been harassing friends in the publishing industry for an advance copy of his upcoming novel Seveneves, to no avail read all his books except #2 & 3 in his Baroque trilogy because I just didn't get along with Quicksilver at all, with its pirates, vagabonds, rescued harem girls etc. I don't know how you say Cryptonomicon is a prequel to Quicksilver, though - not only do the stories have nothing in common but Cryptonomicon starts in 1930s-1940s (Alan Turing in school) and Quicksilver is about 1600s IIRC.

My favourite Neal Stephenson books are Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, and Anathem. Cryptonomicon was good and I loved it for the awesome mathematical geekiness but it didn't have the God-like creativity that we have come to expect from his stories imho. I don't know what the point of REAMDE was tbh, except maybe to get a TV series deal. It read like Jack Bauer's '24' - lots of gun-toting adventure, people shooting at each other etc.

It's amazing how different people love totally different books of the same author

Love the idea of a sequel about Childermass and Vinculus. Childermass in particular I thought was a great character (much more interesting than Norrell IMO) and I spent much of the novel waiting for him to reappear.

Getting excited about the TV adaptation now

Me too Froglet. I thought Childermass was showing potential as another magician. Definitely want to know more about him. And Vinculus too. Horrible and yet fascinating too

I've given up. Read the first third and couldn't bear to read anymore... especially not another 750 pages. It's so dull, slow, verbose, and unengaging...does it get better? Does anything, you know, happen?

I suspect I'll enjoy the TV adaptation, however. I'm going to a preview of the first two episodes in a few weeks time so I'll report back shortly after.

Yes, lots happen. I don't have page numbers (on Kindle) but where did you get to before you gave up?

The part where Strange has travelled to meet Arabella and Mrs Redmond, before he meets Norrell.

It's a marmite book, Southeast Something about it just clicked with me and I really enjoyed it but if you are not enjoying it then it would be an awful struggle to get through. I like the slow build up of the story and things do happen but not in great dramatic ways.