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3 September 2004

• Elswyth Thane's Williamsburg Novels (Dawn's Early Light, Yankee Stranger, Ever After, The Light Heart, Kissing Kin, This Was Tomorrow, and Homing) are on my favorites page.

Books read: 7

4 September 2004

• The Grand Tour is the long-awaited followup to Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer's classic fantasy of manners, Sorcery and Cecelia (which of course I had to reread before reading The Grand Tour). The books follow the adventures of Kate and Cecelia, cousins who live in an alternate Regency England in which magic works; Wrede writes one cousin and Stevermer the other.
  
  Sorcery and Cecelia consists of a series of letters between Kate, who's having her first London season, and Cecelia, who's stuck at home. The letters are deliciously crafted; the first, from Cecy to Kate, traverses territory from tantalizing backstory hints ("the incident with the goat") and humor ("I am determined to have the headache Thursday, if I have to hit myself with a rock to do it") to the real zinger, which hooked me into the story for good: "Sir Hilary Bedrick has just been named to the Royal College of Wizards; the whole village is buzzing with the news." And it just gets better, as Kate and Cecy delve deeper and deeper into linked mysteries, finding witty romance and adventure along the way.
  
  The Grand Tour follows Kate and Cecy on their joint honeymoon through Europe, with their new husbands, Thomas and James. Kate's entries are in the form of a journal, while Cecy's are from a deposition given to the authorities after the events of the book; this makes for a slight disjunction between the heroines, as the reader gets to see Kate's inmost thoughts but not Cecy's. I thought the epistolary style of the first book worked better, though of course it wouldn't have been possible to use here, given the circumstances. The plot, alas, lacks the complexity and the immediacy of Sorcery and Cecelia; the dangers feel less dangerous and the villains less interesting. However, The Grand Tour is still a captivating return to a fascinating world and delightful heroines, and I devoured it happily. I thought the ending left a little room for another book, which would be most welcome.

Books read: 2

5 September 2004

• Steven Saylor's The Judgment of Caesar is the latest entry in his series of mysteries set in ancient Rome and featuring Gordianus the Finder, and it's an excellent installment in a consistently good series. In this one, Gordianus and his wife Bethesda travel to Alexandria so that she may bathe in the waters of the Nile to restore her health, but before they can even land in Egypt, they are caught up in the conflict between Caesar and Pompey, and eventually in the struggle between Cleopatra and Ptolemy for Caesar's influence and rule over Egypt.
  
  Saylor weaves his plots around actual historical events and people, so that the series has provided readers (to this point) with an overview of Roman history in the first century BCE, a turbulent time when Rome was passing from the old republic through the dictatorship of Caesar to the empire of Augustus. Saylor's scholarship is excellent; I'm reasonably well-versed in this period, and I've never caught him in a misstep. The pages are alive with fascinating, real people: Cicero, Crassus, Catilina, Catullus and Clodia (Catullus's "Lesbia"), Caesar, Pompey, Cleopatra...the list goes on and on.
  
  In Gordianus, Saylor has created a compelling character who rivals any of the historical figures in complexity, and watching his evolution throughout the books provides much of their enjoyment. That's doubly true in The Judgment of Caesar, in which the actual mystery, per se, takes up only about 50 pages; the rest of the book is devoted to exploring Gordianus's interactions and relationships with his family and the powerful political figures he meets. If you haven't read the earlier books, start with Roman Blood, in which Gordianus takes on a case for Cicero, of whom Saylor paints a particularly vivid and convincing portrait.

Books read: 1

6 September 2004

• The 2004 Newbery Award winning The Tale of Despereaux, by Kate DiCamillo, is, as the subtitle says, "the story of a mouse, a princess, some soup, and a spool of thread." Despereaux is the mouse, who falls in love with the (human) princess and is exiled to the dungeon by the other mice because of it. His story intersects with the story of Roscuro, a rat who lives in the dungeon, and of Miggery Sow, a slow-witted servant girl. DiCamillo writes in an invitingly old-fashioned style that just suits this charming tale of people, mice, rats, and the light and darkness in their souls and ours.

Books read: 1

7 September 2004

• Sarah Dunant's The Birth of Venus is a lush and exciting historical novel of Renaissance Florence, set during the turbulent late 15th-century, when Lorenzo de' Medici died and the city came under the control of the religious fanatic Savonarola. Alessandra Cecchi is a clever, spirited girl who longs to be a painter. She agrees to marry an older, wealthy man in order to escape the bonds of proper maidenly behavior, but her wedding night turns out very differently than she expects, as does her growing relationship with the painter who is decorating her father's chapel.
  
  I was unsurprised to learn that Sarah Dunant is known for her thrillers, as The Birth of Venus is remarkably gripping and suspenseful. At the same time, it's richly detailed, in a way that fully integrates the historical period with the exciting plot and striking characters. My one small criticism is that Dunant often seems to lose track of her tenses in the opening chapters, switching from past to present in a way that doesn't flow with the text. However, this was less evident throughout the rest of the book, and it's a tiny cavil to set against the overall excellence of this riveting book, in which Dunant brings Florence alive with passion, wit, and imagination.
  
  
• Clare Mallory's Merry Begins is a rather charming school story from the 1940's by a woman who was herself the headmistress of a girls' school in New Zealand. This may account for the relative realism of Merry Begins; there are no dramatic rescues or kidnappings as there are in Elinor Brent-Dyer or Enid Blyton (much though I love Blyton's school stories), just a down-to-earth, yet engaging portrayal of the girls, with an emphasis on the relationships between the older and younger girls and the proper use of responsibility and power in a school setting. I liked it a lot and hope that Girls Gone By will get around to republishing the rest of the series soon.

Books read: 2

8 September 2004

• Jeanne DuPrau's The People of Sparks is a sequel to The City of Ember, and happily, it's better than the first book, which, while very inventive, lacked the satisfying ending and the well-rounded characters DuPrau supplies here. I don't want to go into any detail about the plot, lest too much information spoil the plot of the first book if you haven't read it (and please do not read the Amazon.com editorial review of The People of Sparks, as it contains massive book-destroying spoilers; I've emailed them about it, and hopefully they'll revise it). Suffice it to say that The People of Sparks is an interesting examination of the nature of conflict, of violence and pacifism, and of responsibility and duty.
  
  
• As a dyed-in-the-wool Jane Austen fan, how could I resist Karen Joy Fowler's The Jane Austen Book Club? Fowler brings together five women and a man who meet once a month to discuss each of Austen's six novels, individually (unfortunately, Fowler doesn't include the novella Lady Susan or the unfinished The Watsons or Sanditon). Using the book club meetings as a framework, Fowler explores the lives of its members: Jocelyn, an unmarried dog breeder; her best friend Sylvia, whose husband has just left her; Sylvia's daughter Allegra, a lesbian jewelry designer; Prudie, a high school French teacher; the talkative and slightly dotty Bernadette; and Grigg, the science fiction geek.
  
  The Jane Austen Book Club is delightful, with a light, ironic tone reminiscent of Austen and touches of quiet yet devastating wit: "[Prudie] drew your eye. She would probably age well, like Anjelica Huston. If only she would stop speaking French. Or go to France, where it would be less noticeable." I did wish to spend more time with some of the characters; Jocelyn and Sylvia get the most screen time, and I really wanted to see more of Prudie and Grigg. But I guess that in itself is a tribute to Fowler's gift for creating memorable characters, isn't it? In any case, whether you're a Janeite or not, The Jane Austen Book Club is indeed excessively diverting.

Books read: 2

10 September 2004

• Jane Austen's Mansfield Park is on my favorites page.

Books read: 1

12 September 2004

• Dorothy Dunnett's The Game of Kings is the first of her Lymond Chronicles, a series which many consider some of the best historical fiction ever. The Game of Kings is set in 16th century Scotland, governed by a regent for a child queen (the five-year-old Mary, Queen of Scots) and threatened by the English, who are pressing for a marriage between Mary and their boy king, Edward VI. Francis Crawford of Lymond is a rogue nobleman, accused of treason, leading a band of outlaws; most of the country is out to capture him as he dances in and out of traps and ambushes, his motivations unclear until nearly the end of the book. Lymond is a fascinating character, and Dunnett unfolds his story gradually and masterfully, in bits and pieces. It did take me a while to get into the book, but by the end, I was entirely enthralled by the net Dunnett had woven. Next five Lymond books, here I come!

Books read: 1

14 September 2004

• I've just finished Lian Hearn's Tales of the Otori series (Across the Nightingale Floor, Grass for His Pillow, Brilliance of the Moon), and I feel as though I've been eating Hershey's chocolate when I expected Valrhona (or at least Lindt). These much-heralded books are set in a fantasy version of medieval Japan, and on the face of it, the story is promising: Takeo is the lone survivor of the massacre of his village by an evil overlord. He is rescued by the mysterious Lord Otori Shigeru, who adopts Takeo and brings him into his plans to overthrow the lord who destroyed Takeo's village, and Takeo discovers that he has supernatural talents which tie him to a guild of assassins and spies.
  
  The elements of the plot are fairly standard -- orphaned hero, mysterious rescuer, hidden talents, love at first sight (with the heroine, Shirakawa Kaede), an evil overlord to conquer, prophecies which must be fulfilled -- but Hearn weaves them together in a way that could well be interesting to read. The problem is that her storytelling is distant and flat, which gave me little emotional connection to the characters and thus less interest in the outcome of the story. Hearn seems to be striving for an elegant, spare style like that of a Japanese screen or garden, but what she misses are the details: colors, flavors, tactile sensations. Fight scenes are over in a few sentences; journeys are pared down to a couple of paragraphs.
  
  The second and third books improved in this respect, but they remained curiously unengaging, perhaps partly because Hearn missed her opportunity to hook me in the first book. I thought the story was interesting, I liked many of the characters, I really wanted to like the books more, but I couldn't cross the distance created by the style to become really absorbed in them.

Books read: 3

15 September 2004

• Orson Scott Card's First Meetings in Ender's Universe is a collection of stories set in the world of his Hugo and Nebula award-winning novel Ender's Game, about a brilliant child who is chosen to lead an interstellar war. The four tales included are the original, novella-length version of Ender's Game, two stories dealing with Ender's family history ("The Polish Boy", about his father as a child, and "Teacher's Pest", in which Ender's mother and father first meet), and "The Investment Counselor", which explains how Ender met Jane, his computer companion, and serves as a link between Ender's Game and its sequel, Speaker for the Dead. The stories in and of themselves are too short to offer much depth or complexity; however, they provide interesting backstory for the books and would probably serve as a good introduction to the series for children (who seem, judging by the book's design, to be the target audience).

Books read: 1

16 September 2004

• Joan Aiken is a master at creating atmosphere, and Midnight Is a Place is no exception; the book could well be called a Gothic novel for children, with its orphaned hero (and heroine), disagreeable guardian, mysterious events, and gloomy setting. Lucas Bell, an orphan, lives with his guardian, Sir Randolph Grimsby, and his tutor, Julian Oakapple, in an old mansion called Midnight Court; soon after the arrival of Anna Marie, another orphan and the grandchild of the previous owner of Midnight Court, Lucas and Anna Marie are forced to fend for themselves on the streets of the dismal city of Blastburn. There is never a dull moment; the story speeds along, through the dangerous mill where the workers may be crushed by a press or drowned in glue, to the sewers where man-eating hogs run in packs. The force of Aiken's imagination is present on every page, in the suspenseful story, the memorable characters, and the ominous atmosphere.

Books read: 1

17 September 2004

• Welwyn Wilton Katz's The Third Magic is an interesting, though not completely successful, take on the Arthurian mythos. When 15-year-old Morgan Lefevre travels with her parents to the ruins of Tintagel in Cornwall, she is mysteriously transported from our world to the world of Nwm, where two groups of sorcerers (the female Circle and the male Line) have been in conflict for centuries. There she meets a boy named Arddu and discovers the secret of their connection to each other and to King Arthur.
  
  The premise of The Third Magic is intriguing, and I thought the way Katz weaves the story into the Arthurian legends is cleverly done, but there are simply too many ideas to be contained in a relatively short book. The only characters with much depth are Morgan and Arddu, and even they are often overwhelmed by the amount of plot Katz is trying to fold into the book; other characters are little more than outlines. It's ambitious, but ultimately disappointing.
  
  
• You know, I think I want every book by Dodie Smith to be I Capture the Castle, and when they're not, I'm always a little disappointed. The New Moon with the Old is about a family of four siblings (all in their midteens to early twenties) who suddenly find out that their father has committed fraud and has to flee the country, leaving his children to fend for themselves for the first time. Smith devotes a section of the book to each of them and their adventures; unfortunately, this means that the narration moved on to the next character just when I was really enjoying the current character's story. Although all of the plotlines are resolved (to some extent) by the end of the book, I was left a little unsatisfied by the episodic nature of the plot. Still, the characters are charming as always, and The New Moon with the Old is certainly something I'd read again -- I just won't expect the enchantment of I Capture the Castle.

Books read: 2

18 September 2004

• If you're a fan of Dodie Smith, author of I Capture the Castle and One Hundred and One Dalmatians, then you'll almost certainly enjoy Valerie Grove's biography, Dear Dodie: The Life of Dodie Smith; if you're not, you still may be interested in Grove's lively portrayal of the witty and direct writer. Smith's plays (the most famous of which is Dear Octopus) were widely acclaimed in the 1930's, but after she spent the WWII years in America (so that her husband, Alec Beesley, could avoid military service), she lost touch with British audiences and turned to other outlets for her writing talent, producing several novels for children and for adults as well as four volumes of autobiography. Grove succeeds in capturing Dodie's direct, witty, sometimes brutally honest personality, producing an engaging portrait of her life and times.

Books read: 1

20 September 2004

• The Shadow of Albion, a collaboration between Andre Norton and Rosemary Edghill, is a alternative historical fantasy set in early 19th-century England. In this universe, Charles II was succeeded by his illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth, and thus the Stuarts have remained firmly entrenched on the throne; the French Revolution has happened, so Napoleon is in power, but America remains a British colony. The story begins when the dying Marchioness of Roxbury magically summons an alternate self (Sarah Cunningham, an orphan from Maryland) to replace her, catapulting Sarah into a new world of intrigue and power plays and into an arranged marriage with the Duke of Wessex, who leads a double life as a spy for King Henry IX.
  
  The Shadow of Albion lacks the witty effervescence of Sorcery and Cecelia, but it was an entertaining light read, with an intriguing plot and lively characters (particularly Sarah, whose new role of Marchioness is in constant conflict with her American upbringing and outdoors skills). As usual with alternate history, it's amusing to see how the authors have recast famous historical figures: Beau Brummell as valet to the Prince of Wales; the Marquis de Sade as a black warlock in Napoleon's service; and John Adams as a British diplomat. I could have wished for fewer sartorial details (a paragraph about practically every new outfit was far too much) and a little more humor, but The Shadow of Albion was enjoyable nonetheless; I'll be seeking out the sequel.

Books read: 1

22 September 2004

• Anne de Courcy's Diana Mosley: Mitford Beauty, British Fascist, Hitler's Angel is a sympathetic, yet critical account of the most enigmatic of the famous Mitford sisters. Acknowledged as the most beautiful of the sisters, Diana first married Bryan Guinness, heir to the Guinness brewery fortune, then scandalously divorced him to become the mistress and later the wife of Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists. Diana and her sister Unity became intimates of Hitler, and when World War II broke out, Diana and Sir Oswald were imprisoned for years. They eventually were released to house arrest, and after the war, they relocated to France and Ireland.
  
  I read Jan Dalley's biography of Lady Mosley a couple of months ago and felt that it didn't adequately investigate the motivations and causes of Diana's fascist beliefs, possibly because although Dalley interviewed Lady Mosley extensively, she was not given access to her unpublished diaries, letters, and other writings. De Courcy, on the other hand, was given full access to these writings and had hundreds of hours of interviews with Lady Mosley, on the stipulation that the biography would not be published until after Lady Mosley's death (which happened in the summer of 2003).
  
  In the first sentence of the book, de Courcy admits that "[a]lthough I came to love Diana Mosley personally, I abhorred her politics." In view of her feelings, de Courcy does an excellent job remaining objective about Diana, showing her intelligence and luminous personality, but not flinching away from examining her political viewpoints and her lifelong loyalty to the unpleasant, caddish Mosley. This is an engrossing biography and an indispensable addition to the Mitford canon.

Books read: 1

23 September 2004

• Andre Norton and Rosemary Edghill's Leopard in Exile is the sequel to The Shadow of Albion, which I thought was rather entertaining. Sadly, Leopard in Exile is not. The world's magical structure is poorly worked out; it's a mishmash of elements from British faery lore, Native American beliefs, Satanist black magic, and even Arthurian legend (the Holy Grail). The plot is absurdly contrived, the alternate history unconvincing (why would the American colonies under the Stuarts be more friendly to the native Americans than they were under Hanoverian rule?), and the characters poorly fleshed out. There's almost nothing of the relationship between Wessex and Sarah which was forged in the first book, just a lot of agonizing about how much they love each other, with very little interaction between them which shows rather than tells. Wessex's desperate search for Sarah, who has gone to the New World to help her friend Meriel, is a driving force behind much of the plot, but as there seems to be no depth to their relationship, it's next to impossible to feel any urgency about the search.
  
  And worst of all, the narrative includes footnotes, which are very difficult to use effectively in fiction without distracting the reader from the flow of the action; here, they are overly self-conscious, frequently patronizing (the note explaining the bill which abolished slavery in Britain and its dominions ends "Aren't you glad I'm here to tell you these things?"), often useless (defining a recaumier as "A couch to you", when it's clear from the context anyway), and generally aggravating. Do we really need a reference to a web site about jambalaya when it's served to one of the characters? Surely not. I cannot imagine what the authors (or their editor) could have been thinking to include these idiotic, distracting notes.
  
  I still think The Shadow of Albion was worth reading, but by all means, avoid the sequel. (Hey, and I didn't even mention the gratuitous Star Wars reference or the meaningless appearance of a character from one of Edghill's other books - duly noted in the footnotes, of course).

Books read: 1

24 September 2004

• Eva Ibbotson writes funny, imaginative, and usually creepy fantasies for kids, and The Haunting of Granite Falls is another fun romp. American millionaire Hiram Hopgood buys the family castle of Alex MacBuff, the impoverished heir of the MacBuffs of Carra, but he doesn't want the castle in Scotland -- he wants to move it to his hometown of Granite Falls, Texas, where his ill daughter, Helen, can enjoy it. However, Mr. Hopgood insists that the castle be ghost-free, so Alex has to convince his five ghosts to move out. When Alex and the ghosts all end up in Granite Falls, the stage is set for a lively, scary tale of kidnapping and supernatural mayhem. I love how Ibbotson mixes humor and deft characterization with genuinely tense and spooky action, like a slightly less ghoulish Roald Dahl.

Books read: 1

25 September 2004

• Libba Bray's A Great and Terrible Beauty is a fascinating combination of dark fantasy, Victorian novel, and boarding school story. Gemma Doyle is sixteen and living in India with her parents when her mother dies mysteriously, a terrifying event which Gemma witnesses in a disturbing vision. She is sent back to England to Spence, a girls' boarding school, where she finds her way into an influential clique and learns more about her mother's and her own connections with a mystical group called the Order. I must admit that I wasn't convinced by the Victorian setting, as Gemma's attitudes and speech patterns were on the modern side, but the story is powerful and the writing compelling; so much so that I was disappointed at the ending's lack of resolution to the book's major storyline. However, I find that this is the first of a planned trilogy, so I'm hopeful that the sequels will provide a better payoff.

Books read: 1

26 September 2004

• Jasper Fforde's The Well of Lost Plots and Something Rotten are the latest installments in his Thursday Next fantasy detective series (aptly described by The Guardian as "a hitchhiker's guide to the library" for its Douglas Adams-like zany creativity). There's really little that I can say about them that I haven't said already about the first two books, The Eyre Affair and Lost in a Good Book, particularly without spoiling the earlier books. Lost in a Good Book did suffer somewhat from setup syndrome, beginning a longer plot arc and not resolving much within the book; I was happy to find that the two newer books carried out the plot arc nicely, with more action and less setup.
  
  The Well of Lost Plots is set in the Bookworld, where Thursday is working as a Jurisfiction agent, patrolling books from the inside to protect their textual integrity, under the direction of Miss Havisham of Great Expectations; in Something Rotten, she returns to her real world (with her son Friday and Shakespeare's Hamlet), there finally to confront the massive Goliath Corporation in order to get her husband back. Thursday is an engaging character, sympathetic and realistic, and her supporting cast (both real (to her) and fictional) is wonderfully varied and zany. Something Rotten feels as though it might be the end of the series, with a satisfying wrap-up to Thursday's adventures; I'll be fascinated to see what Jasper Fforde does next.

Books read: 2

27 September 2004

• Kept in the Dark is one of Anthony Trollope's lesser-known efforts, published just before his death in 1882. Like the brilliant He Knew He Was Right, it examines a husband's jealous suspicions of his wife, though here the suspicion is of past infidelity rather than present. After their marriage, George Western discovers that his wife Cecilia was engaged to Sir Francis Geraldine; because she never revealed this to Western, he feels indignantly that he has been "kept in the dark" and leaves her. Though not as powerful as He Knew He Was Right, Kept in the Dark shows Trollope's penetrating insight and sharp characterization, particularly in the person of Miss Altifiorla, a selfish former friend of Cecilia Western's who is instrumental in revealing her secret to her husband.

Books read: 1

28 September 2004

• Stella Tillyard's Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa, and Sarah Lennox, 1740-1832 is a brilliant group biography of a family of noble sisters during the Hanoverian period in England. The Lennox sisters were great-granddaughters of Charles II (through his mistress Louise de Keroualle), daughters of the Duke of Richmond, and wives and mothers to politicians and peers, but also fascinating people in their own rights. All their lives they wrote letters voluminously, to each other and to other family members, and it's these letters that Tillyard uses in her reconstruction of their lives and their world, quoting liberally so that we hear the sisters in their own words as often as possible. Tillyard's portrayal of Hanoverian England is wonderfully rich and engaging, from politics and society to the details of daily life, and her portraits of the sisters and their relationship are acutely realized. Aristocrats is that rare and wonderful thing: a non-fiction book so engrossing that it's hard to put down.

Books read: 1

29 September 2004

• Branwell Brontë's father once gave him a set of wooden toy soldiers, which Branwell and his sisters Charlotte, Emily, and Anne played with and wrote stories about; these stories became masses of childhood writing about the kingdoms of Angria and Gondal, and the Brontë sisters all grew up to be famous writers (while Branwell wasted his life in dissipation and died at the age of 31). In Pauline Clarke's The Return of the Twelves, a boy named Max discovers the soldiers and finds out that they're alive; the imagination of the Brontës endowed the toys with names, personalities, and histories of their own. Max and his sister Jane cherish the soldiers and play with them as the Brontës did, until word gets out that they've been discovered, and Max and Jane must figure out how to keep them safe and restore them to their rightful home.
  
  You needn't know anything about the Brontes to enjoy The Return of the Twelves. Clarke provides all of the necessary information in the text, and the true joy of the book is her imaginative portrayal of the soldiers themselves and of Max's relationship with them, as he insists on not treating them just as toys and allowing them to control their own destiny.
  
  
• Maeve Binchy's newest, Nights of Rain and Stars, is unfortunately not one of her better efforts. I was interested to see that she'd chosen a different setting (a small Greek island village) from her usual Ireland, but the characters Binchy brings together are largely one-dimensional, and the plot which connects them thin and disappointing. Her dialogue is off as well; characters who are supposed to be German, Greek, and American use Irish words and phrases throughout the book. Binchy's usual warm and engaging writing is still present, but the flimsiness of the characters and plot left me feeling unsatisfied.

Books read: 2

30 September 2004

• Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is set in a painstakingly detailed alternate Regency England, in which magic once existed but is now only studied by scholars, called theoretical magicians. When Mr. Norrell of Yorkshire reveals that he is a practicing magician and raises a young woman from the dead, he becomes famed all over England, works for the Government in the war against Napoleon, and takes an apprentice, Jonathan Strange. However, Strange and Norrell hold widely differing viewpoints about the practice of magic and about the mysterious Raven King, who was once magician-king of Northern England, and they become mortal enemies as Strange delves deeper into the mysteries of the Raven King and of the faery realm from which he came.
  
  Clarke's world is utterly believable; I normally object to footnotes in fiction, but those she inserts as background information on the magic and history of her alternate England actually enhance the credibility of the world. It's like reading a critical edition of a 19th-century novel, so that I could almost have been convinced that there really was a tradition of magic in 19th-century England, and I just hadn't happened to run across it before. The historical details are wholly convincing, with appearances by personages from the Duke of Wellington to Lord Byron (of whom Strange comments, "No Englishman alive can equal his lordship for an insult"). Perhaps my favorite of these was the suggestion that the Government "should commission Mr Beckford, Mr Lewis and Mrs Radcliffe [all authors of well-known Gothic novels] to create dreams of vivid horror that Mr Norrell could then pop into Buonaparte's head" (since the bad dreams Mr Norrell was creating for Napoleon proved to be inadequately frightening).
  
  I keep seeing reviews referring to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell as "Harry Potter meets Jane Austen", but it's not really much like either; although the period is right for Austen, the voice is far more like Anthony Trollope, and the magic is nothing at all like J.K. Rowling's. If I had to categorize it, I'd call it "Anthony Trollope meets Lord Dunsany", but even that doesn't do it justice. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is something so rich and strange that as soon as I'd finished it late at night, I had to resist the urge to sit down and read it right over again.

Books read: 1

Total books read this month: 37
Total books read this year: 305

Last updated 29 November 2005. All text and photographs © George Mitchell and Margaret Johnston, unless otherwise noted Comments, questions, suggestions to margaret@lonelymountain.net.