Modern Dickens

44. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

I couldn’t help thinking about Dickens (and I am certainly not the first) as I read this book because I felt that there were so many similarities between the story structure and his works, the least of which was the length, but let’s start there.

At almost 800 pages, I think this book is too long, but at the same time if I had any real complaints about the plot it wasn’t that it needed editing.  In fact, there were many plot lines that I wish had been taken further.  In fact, this would have been a perfect serial.  The characters were all really well developed and had their own interesting stories, and the plot was more of a life story with many small plot climaxes as opposed to one overriding big bang climax.  I really think that if I had read the book a section at a time I may have enjoyed it more.  If I had put the book aside and come back to it later I am sure I would not have forgotten anything about the characters but what I may have benefited from was a rest from the story in a way that would have made it more interesting instead of more of a drudgery.  Basically, I would have loved to read each section in the New Yorker instead of in a huge block of very heavy book (not to mention it was a library book with an expiration date!).

The thing I really liked about the characters was that you never really had a hold on who was good and who was bad, because everyone was a little of both; expect for one truly good guy.  Most importantly, they are developed so you feel like you really know every character and that each one is different from the others and critical to the story in their own way.  Plus, we are talking about a book about magic and all of the characters were down with that.  There wasn’t a lot of, “This is unbelievable,” it just was.  Although the people who say this book is like Harry Potter for adults are kind of crazy.  The magic here is about war and power but it is also very dark.

The over all atmosphere of the book was really well developed as well.  The chapters switch back and forth to describe what is going on with different groups of characters and based on the descriptions of the surroundings you could tell the shifts in their circumstances from good to dire.  I wanted to be in Norrell’s library, to walk on the fairy roads, and maybe even dance a bit in Lost-Hope.

I love Dickens and in many ways I loved this book. I smiled as I turned the last page, but I was glad to see it end.  I can’t believe they haven’t made it into a movie yet.