The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories

Honestly kinda conflicted about this book. On one hand, Clarke's writing is unparalleled and I am a huge admirer, semi-academically. On the other, I just frequently got bored through a lot of these stories or felt that they ended anti-climactically.

The best story in this lot is also the very first one listed, the titular “Ladies of Grace Adieu”. There's proper magic, there's a great storytelling trajectory, a small mystery underlying the whole thing, and a satisfying conclusion. That's pretty much more than I can say for most of the other stories. Some of them were really promising throughout (”On Lickerish Hill”, “Mr Simonelli, or the Fairy Widower”, for e.g.) but then just had very unsatisfying and sometimes abrupt endings. Others (”Tom Brightwind”, “John Uskglass and the Cumbrian Charcoal Burner”, for e.g.) were just so bizarre that I had trouble following along and skimmed through a lot.

Don't get me wrong though. I haven't read any contemporary historical fiction writer that is able to more accurately replicate an early 19th century writing style than Susanna Clarke and there's always a perpetual awe when I'm reading her book. It really feels like I'm reading something actually written by someone living in the early Victorian times, but then with our very modern concepts of magical realism thrown in. Her stories are quite often pretty dark, morbid, and even gory, but with an outer coating of Regency/Victorian aesthetic, so there's almost a Tim Burton thing going on here. I've really never read anything like her writing before or since. I'm, of course, basing most of this from reading her most popular novel, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. For Ladies of Grace Adieu, I'd recommend only reading it perhaps after JS & MN - though it is shorter, it is not exactly a good primer for Clarke's writing style and might be just too eclectic for people new to her.