Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

[Vicesquad65]

I just recently finished this book and I found the end a bit disappointing. I was wondering if anyone else had read this book and what they thought of it, not only the ending, but the book as a whole.

[katknit]

I read it a while back. Had trouble getting into it and thought it was way too long. With proper editing it would have been better.

[Vicesquad65]

i agree, it was difficult to get into this book, but once into it i found it pretty interesting....but long. very long.

[Kourt]

I read this book when it first came out. I thought it was interesting but after awhile the footnotes were rather annoying. The paper that the book was printed on was a little to thin for my taste also. But the story was good.

[kiakar]

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Kourt wrote:
I read this book when it first came out. I thought it was interesting but after awhile the footnotes were rather annoying. The paper that the book was printed on was a little to thin for my taste also. But the story was good.

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I believe that book was read on Barnes and Noble, maybe the university before the invention of the bookclubs. I didn't read it but alot of people read it with the author.

[Vicesquad65]

cool, i too found the footnotes a bit.....not really sure what to say about that actually. it was odd, and somewhat distracting, i think the footnotes could have been their own story all together

[Quack]

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell frustrated me a lot. In my opinion, there were some wonderful ideas stuck in the middle of a ton of excess boring and unnecessary writing. I know that the author is an editor. Maybe she believed she didn't need a lot of editing by anyone else. Frankly, she was wrong. I'll be interested to see her next work. She has the potential to be great.

[becke_davis]

I am a very fast reader but I must admit it took me ages to finish this book because I could only take so much at a time. It was very good -- it really sucked me in, but parts of it were so heavy, atmospheric and depressing that I couldn't stay in that world for any extended periods of time. I was glad I read it, glad I stuck to it and finished it, but it wasn't one of my favorites, either. I read a couple other books with a magical theme that I preferred, including The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon.

[jane_austentat…]

I really enjoyed this book (it has been a few years since I first read it). I felt like if Charles Dickens wrote fantasy - then this book would be the result... Everyone has different taste of course - this one just happened to suit mine!

[bellsofireland]

I agree with most of you that it was interesting, but with a lot of slow sections and annoying footnotes.

However, it was worth reading just for that scene where Jonathan Strange makes a tincture to render himself insane in order to see fairies. I laughed uproariously when he found himself wanting to blow out the candles in peoples' heads and had to muffle his laugher in his pillows. And moreso when, the next day, he couldn't remember if people had candles in their heads or not, and eventually decided that they did not, and it didn't matter anyway since it was not relevant to his present undertaking.

I also enjoyed the fairy's blindly enthusiastic attitude toward Stephen. It was odd to find these pieces of humor in a book that was dry in so many places.