Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

It's amazing that so many people have given this book 5 stars and can describe it with gushing abandon. While it is in no way a turkey, neither does it deserve to be given such unrestricted praise.

Some reviewers have suggested that if you find this boring then you just don't ‘get it' or that you should stick with Dan Brown, but this implies that Strange & Norrell is a difficult read, or has hidden depths, or has something to ‘get'... and none of these are true. Unfortunately, while I can recognise Clarke's great achievement in producing such a hefty manuscript and her obvious gift for writing uncomplicated prose, sadly, there is little else to praise. Somewhere in amongst all the incidental events and happenings there is a really good story struggling to assert itself. Clarke really deserved some brave editors to give the book a plot and strong characterisation to bring her vision and imagination to life.

But there are too many inconsistencies - Strange creates torrents of rain to hinder the French army but then is completely perplexed as to how to put out a fire at a farmhouse; the books in the library at Hurtfew are scattered and two magicians proceed with a long, manual search in the dark to find one volume, and don't consider using a spell to locate it. Equally, there are too many pages describing situations and events that go nowhere and achieve nothing.

Many reviewers have complained of the footnotes detracting from reading the main text. I found that they gave away the main plot line within the first few pages (which characters would side with others, how relationships would progress) and, given that this is all the plot consisted of, left very little to be surprised by.

In some ways, these footnotes are far more entertaining and contain glimpses of Clarke's wonderful fairy-tale story-telling abilities: when she restricts her word count!

There are things to admire about this work, but ultimately I was uninterested, disconnected, frustrated and bored. Characters are one-dimensional, plot is wafer thin, comparisons to Dickens are misguided and Harry Potter has far more craft. Clarke and her publishers have pulled off an astounding magic trick to conceal something so weightless and insubstantial in such a bulging tome... and to persuade so many people to believe it is a tautly written and engaging masterpiece!