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Centinaia di anni fa la magia esisteva in Inghilterra, ma ora è sparita, insieme alle strade che conducevano ai regni fatati e ai suoi abitanti. I maghi sono solo degli studiosi di storia della magia e di libri di magia – sempre che riescano a procurarseli - ma non sono più in grado di praticarla. Tutto ciò cambia quando un gentiluomo del Nord, Gilbert Norrell, riesce a far parlare e muovere le statue all’interno della cattedrale di York. Di fatto l’unico mago praticante di cui si abbia notizia da secoli, Mr Norrell decide di trasferirsi a Londra convinto di poter dare un prezioso contributo nella guerra contro Napoleone. Ma quasi contemporaneamente alla sua comparsa sulla scena, ecco che si fa avanti il giovane Jonathan Strange, che mostra un brillante e naturale talento nella pratica della magia. Norrell accoglie Strange come suo allievo e insieme decidono di restaurare la magia in Inghilterra…

La trama di questo romanzo è decisamente più complessa di quanto possa apparire dalla mia stringata sinossi, allo stesso modo l’intreccio è molto elaborato e il tutto è arricchito da una miriade di personaggi ben caratterizzati, che fanno da degni comprimari a Norrell e Strange.

La Clarke attinge a diverse tradizioni letterarie dell’Ottocento in questo libro, che colloca in un periodo storico ben preciso: l’età georgiana e, al suo interno, una porzione consistente del periodo della reggenza. Nel leggere, quasi immediatamente, vengono richiamati alla mente lo stile e le atmosfere della commedia di maniera. Il linguaggio, l’ironia – che qui, in realtà, cade spesso nella satira – gli ambienti gentilizi sono un po’ quelli che si ritrovano nell’opera di Jane Austen. È in questo mondo che si inserisce l’elemento magico ed è in questo senso che si può parlare di universo alternativo, ma non esattamente di storia alternativa. La magia ha una potenza rivoluzionaria fino a un certo punto sulla società di cui leggiamo, che presenta più o meno le stesse caratteristiche di quella che ritroviamo nei romanzi dell’epoca. In quest’ottica la pratica della magia giunge a essere considerata un’occupazione come ce ne sono altre e, quindi, guardata con sospetto perché – si sa – i gentiluomini di allora non lavoravano. Nell’ultima parte dell’opera risultano bene evidenti anche altre tradizioni letterarie del passato, come quella del romanzo gotico e dell’eroe byronico. Il che rispecchia l’evoluzione della trama, che assume delle tonalità più cupe, laddove si incomincia a esplorare il lato oscuro e pericoloso della magia.

Uno degli aspetti peculiari del libro sono le numerosissime note a piè di pagina che aiutano il lettore a orientarsi nell’universo di Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell ed, eventualmente, a entrare a farne parte: sembra quasi che il narratore/scrittore – con tutta probabilità mago e studioso – si rivolga a noi, alle prime armi con la magia, che abbiamo iniziato la nostra educazione attraverso la storia di Norrell e Strange.

Romanzo densissimo, popolato da personaggi affascinanti e ben delineati, mi ha fatto venire voglia di riprendere in mano Frances Burney, Jane Austen, George Byron, Charles Dickens…

Utilissimi spunti post-lettura si possono ricavare dalla Reading guide e dal Crooked Timber Seminar scaricabili partendo dal sito ufficiale dedicato al libro.

Con il titolo Jonathan Strange & il Signor Norrel, è stato pubblicato prima da Longanesi e, poi, in edizione economica, da Tea.

10 persone l'hanno trovato utile

Amazon Customer

Scrittura piccolissima

Recensito in Italia il 3 ottobre 2023

Caratteri così piccoli che è impossibile da leggere

Non so se lo consiglierei

Viola

Recensito in Italia il 2 febbraio 2018

Libro scritto in un inglese chiaro e non difficile, per lo meno con una buona padronanza della lingua, molto lungo e scritto piccolo piccolo. Purtroppo non è sempre scorrevole. Direi che per 1/3 del tempo non succede assolutamente nulla, è noioso. Per fortuna non si tratta dell'ultima parte ma di capitoli abbastanza iniziali, quindi si riesce a leggere fino in fondo. Carina l'idea di inserire un paio di personaggi 'misteriosi' che si definiscono verso la fine e trama ben inserita all'interno della storia della Gran Bretagna. Tuttavia, proprio per queste parti lente non sono sicura che lo consiglierei.

Una persona l'ha trovato utile

Giorgio ruffoni

Così così

Recensito in Italia il 12 dicembre 2018

Consegnato nei tempi corretti. Però Libro rosso anziché nero. Angolo vicino alla rilegatura rovinato, ma voglio leggerlo e me lo tengo cosi

Recensito in Italia il 8 maggio 2018

Stile eccezionale, storia appassionante e mai scontata. Un libro che riesce a rendere magico il mondo reale. Quando sono arrivata all'ultima pagina, la tentazione di riniziarlo subito è stata forte! Se potessi, gli darei più stelle!

2 persone l'hanno trovato utile

Ilaria Degano

Fascinating

Recensito in Italia il 24 aprile 2016

The author creates a fantastic world and wonderful characters. Her knowledge of the historical period is deep and the story is well plotted. Compelling

2 persone l'hanno trovato utile

Massimo Vultaggio

Eccellente mio caro.

Recensito in Italia il 7 marzo 2016

Da Wikipedia:
Jonathan Strange & il signor Norrell è il primo romanzo di Susanna Clarke, scritto dal 1992 al 2003, pubblicato nel 2004 in Inghilterra e negli Stati Uniti e nel 2005 in Italia da Longanesi. Ha vinto il premio Hugo per il miglior romanzo nel 2005.
Il romanzo è ambientato in un XIX secolo ucronico, durante le guerre napoleoniche. La storia è basato sul ritorno della magia in Inghilterra dopo centinaia d'anni, e la burrascosa relazione tra due maghi del tempo. Nella storia vengono descritti eventi storici e personaggi dell'epoca: tra di essi il Duca di Wellington, Lord Byron e re Giorgio III. Lo stile del romanzo ricorda quello utilizzato da Jane Austen nelle sue opere.
A corredo del testo decine di note richiamano episodi, libri di magia e biografie. Il libro è illustrato da Portia Rosenberg.

Commento: Inizio molto lento, ma quando chiudi vorresti continuare a sapere di loro e di John Uskglass.

Acquisto straconsigliato.

2 persone l'hanno trovato utile

molto bello, ma acquisto consigliato agli amanti del genere

tiziana

Recensito in Italia il 28 aprile 2016

Ho acquistato questo libro, perchè ero in cerca di un libro "fantasy" ma non banale!!!! All'inizio ho fatto un pò fatica ad addentrarmi nella storia e sinceramente volevo quasi abbandonare la lettura, ma non ho mollato!!! Ed ho fatto benissimo! Tutta la storia si è rivelata avvincente e piena di sorprese! I personaggi sono descritti benissimo e ti sembra proprio di essere accanto a loro a vivere l'avventura. Il finale poi... mi ha commosso!!! Incredibile non lo avrei mai pensato.

Una persona l'ha trovato utile

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ZuriBear

Perfect in every way (for me!)

Recensito negli Stati Uniti il 14 novembre 2012

*Spoilers Within*

I need to start off by saying, as others have, that this book is certainly not for everyone. This isn't a bad thing, though. Clarke has crafted a beautiful novel that reads smoothly for the audience it's geared towards, while it may stump others who are used to the fast-paced, action-packed, romance-ridden novels that have become so popular. It reads like Austen-- so if you're not into Austen, you most likely won't dig this book. That said, if you LOVE Austen (as I do) and also have a great affinity for the fantastic and sometimes ridiculous, this will be right up your alley.

I like to make lists, so that's how I'll review this novel. The things I like best about this novel are:

1) The tone. I have never read an author who sets a tone so beautifully before. Throughout most of the book, the feel of the world she's created is dark and dreary, but the book never feels heavy or weighed down by it. Her dark skies, rainy afternoons, and Perpetual Darkness are balanced artfully with a near constant outflow of humor. Even the darkest moments in the book never feel especially bleak-- at some points in the book she made dreariness seem almost inviting. She could have chosen to make the entire novel be heavy and somber, but she did the exact opposite with it, which I thought was very clever and creative.

2) The humor. As most people have noted in their reviews, Clarke is a master with subtle humor. Her jokes don't beat you over the head and are never inappropriately placed. Most of the laughs come from the very obvious jabs at English propriety. Like Austen, she points out ridiculous human behavior without ever directly saying "humans can be ridiculous."

3) The characters. Clarke doesn't bother to introduce characters who don't serve some kind of purpose. Unlike some other writers (*cough* George R. R. Martin *cough*) Clarke won't mention a name more than a few times if that person doesn't ultimately affect the course of action within the plot. Case in point: Vinculus. At first I thought it was strange that Clarke kept bringing up this particular character's name after it seemed that he would be insignificant, but after reading on I began to realize that every mention of Vinculus' name, and eventually every one of his appearances, was another spoke in the wheel always turning in the direction of the action. All of her characters are illustrated not through descriptions, but through their actions and words. She never outrightly says that Lascelles is a despicable person, but we KNOW he is based on what he says and how he behaves.

4) The villain/the conflict. The gentleman with the thistle down hair! His character reminds me of Christoph Waltz's character in Inglorious Bastards. His attitude throughout the whole novel is just delightful, and yet his appearance in any scene is enough to make your skin crawl. He doesn't exude the typical villain's persona, which is absolutely brilliant, because it makes him even more frightening. And I think it's wonderful that Clarke could have written an entire novel in which good-battles-evil without the opposing forces every really meeting (except for once-- and that was towards the beginning, before the two knew they were enemies,) and even without the opposing forces every really understanding what they were up against. The triumph occurs almost by complete accident, but is all the sweeter because it comes at the hands of Stephen Black--who, I might add, I was rooting more for than any other character in the novel. It was a completely unconventional way of seeing the conflict through to the end.

So there it is. I loved this book- if I didn't know better, I'd have thought that Clarke knew exactly what my tastes were and wrote this book just for me. I loved every word of it, but I wouldn't ask her to to write more of it because it was so perfect just the way it was. If you're a fan of Austen, The Lord of the Rings, and Dickens, then I'd venture to say that this book will be one of your favorites!

That said, throughout the novel I began to cast this in my mind in case a movie or series was ever made based on it. I just like to cast books in my head, so here's what I came up with:

Mr Norrel- Ian Holm
Jonathon Strange - Paul Bettany
Arabella- Anne Hathaway
Lady Pole- Mia Wasikowska
Gentleman With Thistle Down Hair- Jude Law
Stephen Black- Djimon Hounsou
Childermass- Michael Sheen
Vinculus- Tom Hollander
Lascelles- Rupert Everett
Drawlight- John Leguizamo
Miss Greysteel- Justine Waddell
Lord Wellington- Kenneth Branagh

I could cast the whole book but I'll stop there. I'd love it if they made this into a miniseries or something-- but I'd only trust the British to do it justice. (^:

35 persone l'hanno trovato utile

Michael Killen

Very well written, but not for the faint of heart

Recensito nel Regno Unito il 9 luglio 2023

Part of the charm of this book is also it's drawback. The long character sections give great detail to characters who might only appear for a chapter, but eventually they'll tie into the book at a later stage. It's a long book, with TONS of footnotes. But for an original setting and time we haven't seen in a fantasy novel, it is an absolute gem of a find.

Carlos Aponte Rodríguez

No está mal. Not bad

Recensito in Spagna il 5 giugno 2023

Lo compré para mi hijo pero no le enganchó así que lo terminé leyendo yo. No está mal, es una historia distinta a la mayoría de ese género, en el las historias que se parecen tanto unas a otras.
En su narrativa se refleja muy bien el complejo de superioridad inglés de la época, quiero creer que está escrito así de forma irónica.
No me gustaron los frecuentes pie de página, que se pierden en explicaciones larguísimas que no aportan nada a la novela.
Hay libros tan buenos que el lector desea que nunca acaben, éste no es uno de ellos. Se hace muy largo, habría sido mucho mejor si hubiera sido más directo. Le sobra un tercio de sus páginas.

I bought it for my son, but it didn’t stick to him, so I read it myself. It’s not bad; the story differs from most of that genre, where you can find so many similarities among them.
The narrative reflects very well the English superiority complex, especially in the years when the action takes place. I want to believe that it is written like that ironically.
I did not like the frequent footnotes, where you get lost in tiresome and irrelevant explanations that add nothing to the novel.
Some books are so good that the reader wishes they would never end, but this is not one of them. I think it was too long. It would have been a much better book if the author had saved us one-third of its pages.

Bookworming

Ready to dance till dawn at the Fairy Ball in the kingdom of Lost Hope

Recensito nel Regno Unito il 25 giugno 2016

Two magicians shall appear in England. The first shall fear me; the second shall long to behold me …

Dressed in an oriental robe and a white skin-suit scribbled all over with the predictions of a medieval English magician, I cried out those lines in a fit of madness.
I was playing Vinculus, a character in the amazing, intriguing and compelling book called Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. A group of 10 of us, all lovers of this 1000 page (if you include the copious footnotes) work of magical fiction, had gathered together to enact, discuss and explore this amazing achievement. Acting out a huge piece of fantasy is not as daunting as it may seem; the same group of people have acted out Tolkien’s work and all of Homer’s, using a three day period to do so. In that time, we eat, dress and sleep the book in question.

Susanna Clarke writes about her invented world with such ease; it’s easy to believe England could really be like this – filled with magic and romance. It has been described as 'Harry Potter for grownups’ but that really does not do this eloquent and momentous work justice, although adults who adored Harry Potter will be impressed with the rich characterization and the great finale to the story.

Clarke has a flair for language, utilising the right words at all the right moments. She chose for her style an emulation of Jane Austin, (including archaic spellings). Some passages made me laugh aloud – Austin was funny, and here is another layer spread upon that ironic wit.

I’m not alone in loving the book; Neil Gaiman said, Unquestionably the finest English novel of the fantastic written in the last seventy years. It's funny, moving, scary, otherworldly, practical and magical...

This was Clarke's first book, although she’d prepared the ground by writing some short stories set in her parallel universe – a world that has the same history as our own, except for the fact that England was once filled with magic and magicians, and the North of England was ruled separately, by the Raven King – John Uskglass – a man who had been spirited away to fairyland as a child and returned full of fairy magic.
But all that was centuries ago. When the book starts in1806, England is struggling with the Napoleonic war, and practical magic has faded into the nation's past – now magic is only studied ‘theoretically’. But two of these students discover that Mr Norrell can really do magic. He’s studied the books all his life, and his displays of magic lead him, and his mysterious servant, John Childermass, from the north of the country to the bustling city of London. After he successfully brings a beautiful woman back from the dead and terrifies the French army with a fleet of ghostly ships, he is taken to the bosom of the rich and fashionable. Gilbert Norrell is dedicated to book-learning and he's trying desperately to ignore and forget that in raising Lady Pole from the dead, he has awaken an amoral fairy king, who is now strutting around our world, enchanting people. When Jonathan Strange, the 2nd magician in the prophecy emerges, a dangerous battle of wills begins. Strange is young, dashing and daring, and not at all interested in only learning magic from books. While Norell, a reclusive and cautious man, is trying to get rid of any taint of dangerous fairy magic, Strange is actively bringing it back. He has no idea what a menace the fairy king posses, especially to his own lovely wife.

I was soon hooked on Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell the first time I read it, even though you need to get through at least the first 200 pages to even begin to see where the plot is going. Reading it again for the weekend event made me love it even more. All its depth and humour and the true cleverness of the carefully crafted plot became even more clear. One thing I really loved was the vast history of magic Clarke invents for England. Long after I finished it, I was still thinking about the menacing settings, the wonderful characters, the brilliant narrative development and the history she creates.

Of course, I also watched the TV series, now available both in the UK and the US to watch again. Bertie Carvel who plays Jonathan Strange so well, said; I read it years ago and loved it … They've preserved the scale and majesty of the story … So you have credible, fully imagined characters recognisably of the same world we inhabit. Paul Kaye, who played my chosen character in the film said, I read the book and loved it. It sort of obsessed me for a while and I felt an affinity with what turned out to be my character, Vinculus. I found the footnotes addictive! If there wasn't one on the next page I would be disappointed. This review first appeared at [...]

10 persone l'hanno trovato utile

Mark Eremite

A Beautiful Playground (That Goes Nowhere)

Recensito negli Stati Uniti il 8 luglio 2012

The thing about this book is that it is long. That's it, really. If it were shorter and to the point, the great many negative reviews here would be positive. Most of the people who didn't like this book just grew impatient with it. And I'm not faulting those people; this book is really, really long. It's easy to lose your patience with it.

However, everyone has had the experience of reading a truly great book and then being sad when it was over. "I wish it had been longer," we think. In the spirit of that, Clarke has written a book that is less about conflicts and stories and more about the very act of story-telling. She has created smart, interesting, and unique characters, put them in a rich, evocative world, and then she's let them go about their business, having funny conversations, dealing cleverly with small problems, and creating and breaking relationships with one another.

Although I grew a little annoyed at the start by the rambling style of plotting, once I saw it for what it was -- a sort of bedtime story that your parents just add onto every night so that it might never end -- I began to enjoy it quite a bit. Clarke is a gifted writer, and her world was so well-rounded that even when nothing much seemed to be happening in it, it was still a joy to visit.

At its most basic, the story is about two magicians who develop a friendship/rivalry over the state of magic in England. They are (without much realizing it) at odds to the story's biggest antagonist, a deceptively kind and magical spirit known only as the gentleman with the thistledown hair. If the book is to be said to be about anything at all, it is about the consequences and ramifications of this unlikely triangle of magicians. Even so, the ultimate conclusion of this plot is done so hastily and obliquely that Clarke seems openly to announce that it is not really the point of the book.

The vivid and archaic tone of voice of the book is quite enrapturing for those who aren't in a hurry to get anywhere, and although the constant footnotes seem unevenly applied (some footnotes seem necessary to understand the story, while others discuss things that barely have any connection at all to the plot), they are almost as entertaining as the book itself. Clarke, it seems, has crammed every magical idea she could come up with into them, including how that magic would fit in the larger world that we more regularly experience (the footnote that details the conflicts between magicians and priests was my favorite). In fact, ironically, I found that it was the magical aspect of the story that bothered me the most.

The book treats magic as if it were no less common to people than Latin: something old, once ubiquitous, but no longer in use. Norrell and Strange are responsible for bringing magic back into use, and with it they get church statues to talk as well as foil the forces of Napoleon's army. Unfortunately, magic (much like time travel) can be a tough element to have in a story unless there are clear and recognizable limits to its use. If anything really can happen, then it makes what DOES happen less interesting or at least less at risk. It is never obvious what rules govern the magic that Norrell, Strange, and Mr. Thistledown Hair are utilizing, and so, when they are suddenly able to do something amazing (walk through mirrors) or are suddenly NOT able to do something they could once before (locate people through bowls of water), the reader is asked simply to believe that, yes, suddenly these rules have always existed.

It was the same reason I stopped reading HARRY POTTER: writers of magical worlds often seem to have the least work to do in creating conflict or tension. A new rule is introduced, or a magical exception is made to an old one. It seems a little cheap, and if this WERE a story-driven novel, I'm sure this arbitrary wizardry would've dropped my enjoyment of the book. However, being so obviously about the mere joy of fiction, the book only uses these few cheap tricks to keep some semblance of a trajectory to the otherwise static, playground world of the book's various heroes and villains. There are a few satisfying resolves to some of the book's questions, but the end result, really, is just about enjoying those questions for as long as you can.

21 persone l'hanno trovato utile