this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2023
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Johnathan Strange and Mr Norrell. After that book I gave myself permission to DNF though, so it was a maturing experience for me. I mostly wanted to know what happened to Stephen and that's what drove me, along with the "No mere book shall defeat me" attitude.
I really enjoyed all of the Fae short stories actually. I'm not really a horror fan, but I found Fae, and mortals interaction with it, particularly gripping and memorable. I never put the book down when I was in Fae, trapping me along with the victims, perhaps that's why I wanted Stephen to just be ok.
It was just everything else in the book I couldn't enjoy. The titular characters I found uninteresting. The setting, fae excluded, I was apathetic about. The structure, the footnotes, dear god the footnotes.
But the Fae stuff? I'll take 10 more of them in an anthology please.
I agree with you about Strange and Norrell. The pacing was poor and it was over-long.
But!
Susanna Clarke's next book, Piranesi, is actually really good. Like, really, incredibly good. I recommend it to everyone and so far no one has said anything but positive things about it. I rarely re-read books but this is one that I've come back to.
As it happens, I read Piranesi first, so I found JS&MN a bit disappointing, but I'm glad I read them that way around otherwise I might have skipped Piranesi, and that would have been a mistake!