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Reviews Literature / Jonathan Strange And Mr Norrell

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DuffyZeEmu Since: Feb, 2011
09/04/2011 19:58:43 •••

I feel the need to defend this masterpiece.

As much as there are a couple of reviews defending already, the negatives here are of the most terrible order- not even admitting that there could possibly be some merit in the book! I'll admit that I can see the first few hundred pages not being to everyone's taste, they were certainly to mine.

I finished it just yesterday, and I'll be damned if it isn't one of the very best books I've ever read. It is fully deserving of its awards- after all, even if the prose is not to your liking, how can you say there is not a genius originality in the concept and execution? A magic and history quite unlike any other, and written- as others have said- in a pseudo-period style to boot. I know it had me enraptured and hungering for more for the whole month or so it was in my hands.

Contrary to others, I immensely enjoyed the first part. The style, concept and wit was brilliant, and I did not think it too slow at all. Perhaps I had the advantage of being British myself when it came to the humour.

And, as something to add, I actually felt the plot started moving too fast towards the end. I was so accustomed to the pleasant and slow pace of the beginning that I should have liked it to continue in kind (though, looking at other reviews, it was perhaps a wide choice not to do so). At any rate, a few hundred pages more would not have gone amiss.

All that said, please; read this book. It may or may not change your life.

spambot Since: Sep, 2010
04/19/2011 00:00:00

"It may or may not change your life". I just. I don't even. Nevermind.

You tried very hard to come off as very British and very stylistically 19th-century in this review, but I don't know why; it's not charming, it's just kind of pretentious.

Catharsis Since: Jul, 2014
04/19/2011 00:00:00

Yes, Troper-who-explicitly-stated-that-you-actually-are-British, you are trying much too hard to be British here. Nice review.

yessiika Since: Jun, 2011
09/04/2011 00:00:00

Quite simply, spambot here is just being a bitch. Thank you for defending this book and pointing out how actually great it really is. I feel like, for all of the awards it won, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is severely under appreciated in many literary circles; do people just not have the patience to read anymore or what?


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