This is, without a doubt, one of my favorite books. Ever. It is, in a nutshell, about the revival of magic in England in the early nineteenth century. The characters are the fantastically vivid, the writing just as good, and the author possessed of a subtle and dry wit that never, ever fails to make me laugh.
It was published in 2004, but Susanna Clarke writes it as though it came out just about the time the story is set. Not boringly so (naturally, no thy's or thou's or anything of that awful sort), but in a way that makes it somehow more real, more believable.
"You must get me a house, Childermass," Mr. Norrell said. "Get me a house that says to those that visit it that magic is a respectable profession - no less than Law and a great deal more so than Medicine."
Childermass inquired drily if Mr. Norrell wished him to seek out architecture expressive of the proposition that magic was as respectable as the Church?
Mr. Norrell (who knew there were such things as jokes in the world or people would not write about them in books, but who had never actually been introduced to a joke or shaken its hand) considered a while before replying at last that no, he did not think they could quite claim that.
That above is an excerpt, and possibly one of my favorite (quotable) parts. Please, read it. I've never found anything quite so delectable as Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.
-SELA
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