Monday, January 10, 2005
Finished Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell tonight
Felt like a forced march over the weekend while driving myself to finish the book before tomorrow when it's due back at the library. Did toy with keeping the book longer & paying the fine, but remember how frustrating it was waiting for months for a book i really wanted to read & how disappointed i was when the library accidentally returned it before my 10 days were up. So decided to return it on time - the next fan-in-waiting should have the book a bit sooner.
The wait was certainly worth the wait. A fine fine novel. Not sure whether to call it "unquestionably the finest English novel of the fantastic written in the last seventy years" as Gaiman did since i'm not sure what falls in the fantasy realm. Titus Groan? Many of course would argue for the Lord of the Rings as the best fantasy of the past 70 years, but having listened to LOTR recently after watching the movies, I would disagree. LOTR is too enamored with itself & its invention of a full mythical world - believe Tolkien perhaps became too big a fan of his creation, which perhaps explains why the climactic destruction of the ring occurred with 100 or more pages remaining. Also there were far too many boring sections - a big reason to listen on CD since I could easily skip any boring "history of the dwarves 500 years ago" type section with the simple push of a button.
But back to the novel at hand. I am impressed at Ms. Clarke's creative power. To create an 'world', no, an entire 'history' - the world was our own with an alternate timeline of a magical history interweaving within our own - along with a compelling story makes me envious of her ability to write such a lengthy & entertaining tome. Any critiques i have are mere nitpicks, so instead will write that the novel is superior to American Gods or any of Gaiman's novels - there's too much pulp to Gaiman's novels (comic books are his natural milieu) - or any of the Harry Potter books. Compared to Rowling, Clarke has a greater richness and less formula, not to mention the greater maturity - there is some truth to the tagline "Harry Potter for grown-ups" - this is a novel for adults.
Thinking through the comparisons now, I'd have to pick Titus Groan vs. JS & MN as my picks for best English fantasy of the past 70 years, though neither will attain the iconic status of LOTR. A book has to come along at a certain time to achieve that status & I'm not sure this is the right era for any novels to attain that status. LOTR coming out after the war and in time for the hippie generation touched a certain cord that I don't believe any novel of any genre could touch today.
The wait was certainly worth the wait. A fine fine novel. Not sure whether to call it "unquestionably the finest English novel of the fantastic written in the last seventy years" as Gaiman did since i'm not sure what falls in the fantasy realm. Titus Groan? Many of course would argue for the Lord of the Rings as the best fantasy of the past 70 years, but having listened to LOTR recently after watching the movies, I would disagree. LOTR is too enamored with itself & its invention of a full mythical world - believe Tolkien perhaps became too big a fan of his creation, which perhaps explains why the climactic destruction of the ring occurred with 100 or more pages remaining. Also there were far too many boring sections - a big reason to listen on CD since I could easily skip any boring "history of the dwarves 500 years ago" type section with the simple push of a button.
But back to the novel at hand. I am impressed at Ms. Clarke's creative power. To create an 'world', no, an entire 'history' - the world was our own with an alternate timeline of a magical history interweaving within our own - along with a compelling story makes me envious of her ability to write such a lengthy & entertaining tome. Any critiques i have are mere nitpicks, so instead will write that the novel is superior to American Gods or any of Gaiman's novels - there's too much pulp to Gaiman's novels (comic books are his natural milieu) - or any of the Harry Potter books. Compared to Rowling, Clarke has a greater richness and less formula, not to mention the greater maturity - there is some truth to the tagline "Harry Potter for grown-ups" - this is a novel for adults.
Thinking through the comparisons now, I'd have to pick Titus Groan vs. JS & MN as my picks for best English fantasy of the past 70 years, though neither will attain the iconic status of LOTR. A book has to come along at a certain time to achieve that status & I'm not sure this is the right era for any novels to attain that status. LOTR coming out after the war and in time for the hippie generation touched a certain cord that I don't believe any novel of any genre could touch today.
