I think it is. I think it's one of the best of all time. (Her newest novel, truly in the WEIRD genre of fantasy, Piranesi, is quite wonderful too). The prose, the writing, the literary value of her evocation--it's just superb. You can forgive it for being a best seller. Unlike many best sellers, it deserves it...Look at the awards and nominations list:

Man Booker Prize 2004 Longlisted [41]
Whitbread First Novel Award 2004 Shortlisted [42]
Guardian First Book Award 2004 Shortlisted [43]
Time's Best Novel of the Year 2004 Won [44]
British Book Awards Literary Fiction Award 2005 Shortlisted [45]
Nebula Award for Best Novel 2005 Nominated [46]
Hugo Award for Best Novel 2005 Won [47]
World Fantasy Award for Best Novel 2005 Won [48]
Locus Award for Best First Novel 2005 Won [49]
Mythopoeic Award for Adult Literature 2005 Won [50]
British Book Awards Newcomer of the Year Award 2005 Won [51]

Neil Gaiman (no, it doesn't have to be true just because he said it) said it was the "unquestionably the finest English novel of the fantastic written in the last 70 years"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Strange_%26_Mr_Norrell

No opinions? I'm astonished.

Well, anyway, if you ever want to talk to me, one place might be at the HPL film festival next year, in Portland, and I hope to go to the Necronomicon in 2022 back east. So feel free to say hello in those places.

I agree that both Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and Piranesi are outstanding works of imaginative fiction, and Susanna Clarke is undoubtedly one of the premier English fantasists of this century. My reading tastes are all over the place, and I don't read a whole lot of fantasy novels, so I'm not qualified to determine whether Clarke is one of the all-time greats, but I certainly suspect that she is!

John Shirley Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> No opinions? I'm astonished.
>
> Well, anyway, if you ever want to talk to me, one
> place might be at the HPL film festival next year,
> in Portland, and I hope to go to the Necronomicon
> in 2022 back east. So feel free to say hello in
> those places.

I went to the Lovecraft Film Festival in 2007, at the Hollywood: I live in Irvington/Alameda, not far away.

It was at the festival that I first saw surgically implanted, subcutaneous horns--a cosmetic flourish. The festival helps to "Keep Portland Weird!".

It's funny: I remember none of the film entries, but I sure remember that...

:^)

--Sawfish

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To be honest, I have been into weird fiction genre for almost fourty years but never heard of any Jonathan Strange or Mr Norrell ... :-) On the other hand, no surprise I do not know the book, since it was published in 2004 for the first time. It is relatively new so it holds nothing interesting for a half-mad, hardcore fan of classic horror which I am.

Piranesi impressed me on a first reading, but I may want to return to it within two or three years for more understanding, and I'm not sure how it will stand up if I do. It reminded me, only a little in any of these instances, of Lovecraft’s “Shadow Out of Time” (first-person narrator who remembers only a little of a life in some other and alien place, finds scraps of writing he himself wrote); MacDonald’s Lilith (the “House” with its many Halls reminds me a bit of the Region of Seven Dimensions); Lewis’s Magician’s Nephew (which supplies an epigraph spoken by the [bad] magician who “uses” the portal to other worlds; one of the characters in the novel shares his names, Valentine Andrew Ketterley) and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (one of the statues in the House is of Mr. Tumnus); Peake’s Gormenghast (a seemingly-endless structure); 2001: A Space Odyssey (the movie – the white dwelling-place where Bowman encounters himself); Borges’ fantasies; even Robinson Crusoe. Owen Barfield is mentioned (p. 104). I wondered about the fact that the Barfieldian ideas are given to Laurence Arne-Sayles, a bad man (see pp. 147-148, 221). I thought of the professor &c. in Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. This is not to say that the novel seemed to me a patchwork of other people’s ideas.

One doesn't run across references to Barfield very often. He is one of the most interesting authors known to me, which is not to say that I agree with everything he wrote. I'm glad that I was able to correspond with him a little a few years before his death in advanced old age. There is a short film that's pretty valuable, though one might wish it had been made several years earlier.

[www.youtube.com]

Coleridge biographer Malcolm Guite gives an interesting talk about Barfield:

[www.youtube.com]

John Shirley Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think it is. I think it's one of the best of all
> time. (Her newest novel, truly in the WEIRD genre
> of fantasy, Piranesi, is quite wonderful too). The
> prose, the writing, the literary value of her
> evocation--it's just superb. You can forgive it
> for being a best seller. Unlike many best sellers,
> it deserves it...Look at the awards and
> nominations list:
>
> Man Booker Prize 2004 Longlisted [41]
> Whitbread First Novel Award 2004 Shortlisted
> [42]
> Guardian First Book Award 2004 Shortlisted
> [43]
> Time's Best Novel of the Year 2004 Won [44]
> British Book Awards Literary Fiction Award 2005
> Shortlisted [45]
> Nebula Award for Best Novel 2005 Nominated
> [46]
> Hugo Award for Best Novel 2005 Won [47]
> World Fantasy Award for Best Novel 2005 Won
> [48]
> Locus Award for Best First Novel 2005 Won [49]
> Mythopoeic Award for Adult Literature 2005 Won
> [50]
> British Book Awards Newcomer of the Year Award
> 2005 Won [51]
>
> Neil Gaiman (no, it doesn't have to be true just
> because he said it) said it was the
> "unquestionably the finest English novel of the
> fantastic written in the last 70 years"
>
> [en.wikipedia.org]
> _Mr_Norrell

I would be cautiously inclined to agree (I both nominated it and voted on it for the Hugo in 2005), although there has been some excellent fantasy written post-1981, even if you look only at what has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award. It certainly is the greatest fantasy novel I have read that was written after the year 2000 (with the possible exception of the Fifth Conflux tetralogy, but that is only available in Swedish and Danish).

If Gaiman's statement raises eyebrows, it can be added that (as he has said elsewhere) the stress here is on English, i.e. the Englishness of the novel. He has explained that he meant (paraphrasing here) "the greatest English-flavoured novel of the fantastic since Lud-in-the-Mist". And I can buy that.

I dislike Neil Gaiman. I disliked Lud-in-the-Mist. I suspect I will not like this Jonathan Strange book, but anyone is free to try to talk me into trying it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 24 Jun 21 | 12:19AM by Platypus.