Haunted Mirror

That is what [sis] Becky thought I'd said the first time--and honestly, I wouldn't put it past Susanna Clarke to have intended the perception.

I'm almost done with the book: about a 6th left, which (considering I was only a third done a few days ago) is not far from finished at all. This is enough evidence that I love it. Why I am going to expound next, and this will probably be only the beginning. (If you are in a mood for Clarke-esque footnotes, go to my anachronistic_red account on Xanga, and follow the tag for theTword, in which "T" stands for T*lk**n and stand in amazement at one re-reading of the first two volumes' effect on my ability to communicate with the world at large.)


I'm in all-over awe of this book, but my sales pitch is this:

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is precisely the book that might have come out of a response to Bronte's faulting of Austen (all shut up in drawing rooms and privet hedges, with no wild moor or tumbling becks in sight, to paraphrase only slightly).
Wild, wild England bookending very British (quintessential age of Britain Britishness) characters and laughing at the magic men have held onto in it's pale weakness no man would accept in his tea.

I never read this book before because all the descriptions started in the wrong place. They start with the MacGuffin or Maguffin--Napoleon--if only in reference to the period. Much more to the point is that this is almost to the Regency era, which frames a sense of magic that feels like that of DeLint's Little Country more than that of Harry Potter.
And Strange is the bright, rebellious pupil. No, that is the wrong start, too. Strange is already a man when he comes into this book, and while I was thinking he was of the make of Nathaniel in the Bartimaeus Trilogy, instead, he's merely a genius under a scholarly Casaubon type (yet not Casaubon, to my utter relief also, and yet the similarity to a character in one of my other favorite classics drew me in to trust). He is married by his second appearance, and he has a patience and kindness that I was not expecting. Certainly he's a bit careless, but his contrariness comes of being too bright among the dull. It's not a main feature.


I think I should post this to Amazon, something I've never considered doing before. But I flatter myself I have important things to say about this book.

I'll probably being poetizing it once I'm finished. For now I'm happy with the bleakly beautiful poems in the text.


~ETA:
While the rest of the world is relieved (or not) that Rowling landed the last Harry book, I'm sitting here bouncing because Clarke got the ending of JS&MrN so perfect, I could never have foreseen it.
And she didn't banish magic from England. *beams*
    I did post that review. My first ever.