soph (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophia_sol) wrote2017-10-01 08:11 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2017-10-01 08:11 pm
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
Has it seriously been 3.5 years since I last read this book? Apparently! Multiple times over the last few years I felt in the mood to reread it but never did because facing that many pages at once seemed like more of a commitment than I was willing to make. But I finally got around to rereading it again and it is, as always, great. I think at this point I've read it enough times that I'm not getting anything really new out of the experience, but it's still an endless pleasure to be able to bury myself in that world for several weeks.
There's two things about the book I particularly want to mention this time around.
1. There's just such an ENDLESS quantity of extremely minor characters who exist for only a couple sentences or maybe a couple pages in this book who could easily get an entire novel or at least a short story of their own and I want to read all of them. The Summer King! Maria Absalom! Francis Pevensey! Mr. Pink! Mrs Brandy! The Half-Finished People and the Lakota! ET CETERA.
2. This book is just so good at summoning up the atmosphere of eerie otherworldliness associated with the Raven King and the King's magic and fairies/Faerie in general. SO GOOD. The Raven King is 100% my favourite character in this book and he just pervades the entire thing even though he only shows up on-page for like...two pages. Which is exactly the right amount of time for him to show up because it means he never has the chance to become prosaic in the eyes of the reader.
There's two things about the book I particularly want to mention this time around.
1. There's just such an ENDLESS quantity of extremely minor characters who exist for only a couple sentences or maybe a couple pages in this book who could easily get an entire novel or at least a short story of their own and I want to read all of them. The Summer King! Maria Absalom! Francis Pevensey! Mr. Pink! Mrs Brandy! The Half-Finished People and the Lakota! ET CETERA.
2. This book is just so good at summoning up the atmosphere of eerie otherworldliness associated with the Raven King and the King's magic and fairies/Faerie in general. SO GOOD. The Raven King is 100% my favourite character in this book and he just pervades the entire thing even though he only shows up on-page for like...two pages. Which is exactly the right amount of time for him to show up because it means he never has the chance to become prosaic in the eyes of the reader.