Book Review
Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell By SUSANNA CLARKE
Reviewed by PEGGY BARNETT
A headline for a review of this book called it "Hogwarts for Grown-Ups." A Harry Potter fan might have a little trouble with that definition. What the two have in common is an emphasis on magic, of course. Another is the need for the reader to suspend disbelief.

Susanna Clarke artfully entices the reader into her almost-real work right away. The setting is early-19th Century England where some people are sad that the great days of English magic are over. There is no question that there used to be magic, but it is, alas, no more. That idea is wrong, though, and Mr. Norrell appears on the scene to convince everyone.

He turns out to be a powerful magician who thinks that he is the only magician in England or the world. That idea turns out to be wrong, too, because Jonathan Strange is not far away. After much soul-searching and maneuvering, he becomes Mr. Norrell's pupil in magic.

Several secondary characters, Mr. Honeyfoot, Mr. Segundus, Mr. Drawlight, and Mr. Lascelles, add to the plot and the humor. Then there is Stephen Black, who may or may not be a king, and the "thistle-haired" gentleman, and Arabella and Lady Poole. This is a long book, but it needs to be to tell this complex, absorbing tale.

Clarke convinces us that it's all true by assuming that we already know about this magic and this imaginary history.There are many straight-faced footnotes giving us the background of all these impossible events which no longer seem so impossible. Perhaps you didn't know that the Duke of Wellington was able to defeat Napoleon because of the magic spells cast by Jonathan Strange, such as creating roads for the English army that dissolve when the French try to use them.

The story is about the struggle between magicians, but it is also about the people who are stolen away into faerie land or something like it and the attempts to release them. Perhaps good will win out, but it doesn't seem a sure thing, and sacrifices will have to be made.

Read Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell at the Mary Willis Library to findout who the Good Guys really are.

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