Reading Log
Feb. 16th, 2005 07:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
carynb
Well, I finally finished it. It only took me 6 weeks.*g* This was one dense book.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, by Suzanna Clarke: There are things about this book I really like - the footnotes, for instance, were great. She's built an entire other history, complete with academia, and it was really interesting to see how she did it.
I'm not real sure how I feel about the book overall, actually. Technically, it's really well-done. I just don't think it was particularly entertaining, especially in the first half. Since Mr. Norrell & his associates are really unlikeable in ordinary ways - petty, ambitious, jealous - the time spent drawing them wasn't really engaging me. I did read the last half of the book in about 10 days, so, eventually (once Jonathon & Arabella were in the picture), it did catch me. It just took an awful long time to get there. Characters are the prime things for me. If I'm gonna enjoy the book, I have to like spending time with the people in it.
On the other hand, the reason it seemed so dense is because there wasn't a much filler in there at all. Her use of language was fabulous, the sense of time & place she drew really vivid, the storylines tight. It's just that too often, it just seemed more of a technical exercise rather than a story, y'know?
There were so many raves about this book when it came out that I guess I was expecting something that would sweep me up and not let me go until I was done. That wasn't how it worked for me.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, by Suzanna Clarke: There are things about this book I really like - the footnotes, for instance, were great. She's built an entire other history, complete with academia, and it was really interesting to see how she did it.
I'm not real sure how I feel about the book overall, actually. Technically, it's really well-done. I just don't think it was particularly entertaining, especially in the first half. Since Mr. Norrell & his associates are really unlikeable in ordinary ways - petty, ambitious, jealous - the time spent drawing them wasn't really engaging me. I did read the last half of the book in about 10 days, so, eventually (once Jonathon & Arabella were in the picture), it did catch me. It just took an awful long time to get there. Characters are the prime things for me. If I'm gonna enjoy the book, I have to like spending time with the people in it.
On the other hand, the reason it seemed so dense is because there wasn't a much filler in there at all. Her use of language was fabulous, the sense of time & place she drew really vivid, the storylines tight. It's just that too often, it just seemed more of a technical exercise rather than a story, y'know?
There were so many raves about this book when it came out that I guess I was expecting something that would sweep me up and not let me go until I was done. That wasn't how it worked for me.
