Susana Clarke's debut 831 page novel opens with a group of theoretical magicians (magicians who don't actually DO any magic) talking about magic, which is pretty much all they do. Two of them, John Segundus and Mr Honeyfoot are distressed with the current state of things, and so they try to figure out just exactly WHY magic has stopped being used.

To that end, they go to ask a learned gentleman of magic, Mr Gilbert Norell of Hurtfew Abbey, why there are no more practical magicians in England. Mr. Norell informs that he himself is a practical magician, and from there, the story launches. Mr. Norell is hired by the government to aid England in the war against Napoleon Buonaparte [sic], and his chief contact is one Mr Walter Pole, who's newly married wife has just died. Mr. Norell, in order to help out the grief stricken man, brings the lady back from the dead, but only by making a deal with a devious and nefarious creature from the Faerie Realm known only as The Gentleman with the Thistle-Down Hair.

The Gentleman, as he is known, becomes the main antagonist of the story, putting Lady Pole, a butler named Stephen Black, and a woman named Arabella Strange through some distressing enchantments.

Meanwhile, a street-corner soothsayer named Vinculus has found a man named Jonathan Strange who is destined, according to a prophecy by none other than The Raven King himself (the greatest Magician of this, or any age) to become the second of the two magicians who will restore English Magic to England.

Strange becomes student to Mr. Norell, but chafes under the tutelage, and when he is brought into the war against Napoleon, finds that perhaps Mr. Norell's ways aren't always best, and so a schism forms between them.

The Gentleman continues to taunt them both, in an attempt to bring them down to stop them from restoring English Magic.

I managed to finish this book yesterday, after reading it for a month and a half, which, if you know me, is a rarity. It never takes me a month and a half to read a book. This one did, though. Not because it's hard to read, because it's not, or because it's hard to understand, because it isn't. It's so richly detailed and realized that you just want to take in all the details. Clarke redraws the history of England almost from scratch. Footnotes abound everywhere explaining stories that are commonplace to those in the world of the story, but not so much to us. She explains to us who The Raven King was, and his importance to English Magic. She spends a good deal of time talking about the magicians of the past, and what impacts they had on the present, but never in a boring or expository way.

The story itself winds it away around our two main magicians, plus the Gentleman, and a host of secondary characters- The sneaky and stylish Christopher Drawlight; loyal and honorable Lacelles; the mysterious servant John Childermass; Lord Walter Pole, Lady Pole and their butler, Stephen Black; the family Greysteel. It flows back and forth easily between these people, and never gets confusing, or loses us in its narrative. Each character is defined and easily remembered, and readers will find something attractive and repulsive about each. In short, they are real people.

As the story reaches its climax, each character's storyline in the whole gets resolved one by one, and each one, except for maybe one is a satisfying conclusion, both independant of the whole, and within the arc of the story itself. From a storytelling point of view, which is how I always look at it, Lacelles's resolution was particularly satisfying, as was Stephen Black's.

Strange and Norell, who become rivals, and then enemies meet up at the end of the story one last time, to discover the truth of The Raven King, and of themselves. The resolution to their storyline was not one that I saw coming, but which I found fit the general tone and texture of the epic on the whole, and worked very well. I especially enjoyed the final line of the book, which won't make any sense to you unless you've come all the way through.

All in all, a fantastic read, and one I enjoyed very much. If you get the chance to read this book, I highly suggest you do so. It may take a little work in the beginning, but once the story gets going (right around the first appearance of The Gentleman), you won't want to put it down.

4.5/5 Stars

-Rifty