A Modern Classic

[poliphilo]

It's a very big book. As big as a Collected Shakespeare. It caught my eye as I walked between the stacks and  I thought, "Hm, I've heard of that".

What had I heard? Oh, good things, bad things- nothing very specific- but I knew there was a buzz about it.

So I went and carried out my mission- which was to harvest books about Elizabethan England for Ailz- and on my way back decided to look for it again.  I had to poke about a bit. It wasn't exactly where I remembered. Maybe it was playing hide and seek with me; it's the sort of book that would.

But I found it at last. When you're as big as this book is you're not going to stay hidden for long.

I don't exactly know why but as soon as it was in my possession I found I wanted to read it very, very badly.

It's not an easy read; it's too damn heavy; you could do with a lectern. But I like how it comes with its own ribbon book mark.

I knew straight off that I'd made a discovery. OK, it's a discovery others have made ahead of me  (Neil Gaiman says it's the best British fantasy novel for 70 years) but you don't necessarily believe what's written on the back cover, do you? 

And this was a very specific discovery. One of a kind I don't remember having made before. I wasn't just that I liked the book.  It was that I knew- with most of it still unread- that I was dealing with a classic.

I'm picky about the word classic. Most of the things that are called classics are nothing of the sort. Classics are built to last. A classic can be expected to live longer than the average human being- to live indefinitely. There are actually very few classics around.

So, it's engaging, inventive, imaginative, funny- but so are lots of other books that aren't classics. What's the special ingredient?

In a word- confidence. This is an author who knows exactly what she's doing. She writes (in an unfaltering  pastiche of early 19th century prose) with, poise, clarity, wit and- when the story goes off in that direction-  beauty. Her tale is labyrinthine but never confused. It has a huge cast- every member of which is unmistakably individual.  Her world, for all its fairy-tale weirdness, is as solid as Tolstoy's.

I find I haven't yet named any names and I think I'll leave it that way for the present.  Anyone care to hazard a guess?

Comments

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Might this be Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell? I liked it very much, with some reservations. There's a coolness of tone about it which is part of its charm, but made me feel that it was holding me at arm's length.

Of course, you may be reading something else entirely...

[dakegra.livejournal.com]

<-- my guess, from the Gaiman reference.

I listened to the audiobook, and got about 7 hours into the 28 hour total, and got depressed that whilst a lot of individual things had happened, I still had no idea what the overall story was. And that I still had nearly a full day worth of listening to find out.

I do intend to pick it up again, at some point.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've read about two thirds of it- and the threads are beginning to come together.

I believe the last third is going to be terrifically exciting.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You're right. Well done!

I like the coolness. For me that's a great part of the attraction. If Jane Austen had ever decided to write a huge epic fantasy novel she'd have adopted something like this tone.

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

Wow, that sounds awesome. Although I'm not much of a fantasy fan myself, I do enjoy Austen and good writing.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm not really a fantasy fan either- mainly because fantasy books aren't particularly well-written. This one is the exception.

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

I was just thinking this must be some book if you were giving it a thumbs up. I hold your opinion in high regard, not just because of how much I agree, but also because of your writing. You know what good writing is!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

I can't give my heart to a badly-written book. I enjoy J.K. Rowling- for example- but I can't love her.

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

I enjoy her as well, but you're right, it isn't love, not like the kind I hold for Turgenev or... Tom Wolf.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm sure that Jane Austen is the exact model for the voice.

[ibid.livejournal.com]

She gets into the early 19th century wonderfully well.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

With just a touch of the Georgette Heyers, I think....

[oakmouse]

I agree. One of the things I like about it, in fact.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I cheated and googled, but I must admit that I had heard neither of the author nor the volume. I'm glad that you're enjoying it!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I can't recommend it highly enough. It's a wonderful book

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

I'm dying to know!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

Without looking at the other comments, I'm guessing Jonathan Norrell and Mr Strange

[jfs.livejournal.com]

:-)

I haven't got into it properly yet, despite owning it for a while. However, I have a long weekend of (hopeful) indolence coming up, so I shall pack it and retry.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's very leisurely I suppose. But on the other hand it keeps throwing up little surprises. I find it wonderfully entertaining.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

I thought it was going to be that one! I read it, it's ok, I carried on reading it because I wanted to know how much weirder it was going to get!

Not as good, IMHO as "An instance of the fingerpost" by Iain Pears, which I mentioned once before... you will have to send me your address and I'll post it to you!

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Ah, that's another fine book. The ending didn't quite come off, for me, but an extraordinary book overall nonetheless.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Endings are difficult. Nature doesn't really do endings- and so the endings of books almost always feel artificial. The climax of JSAMN is too neat (perhaps) but the final chapter- with its new beginnings and unfinished business- I like a lot.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, please.

I don't think I want to post my address here. Can you give me your email address?

[sovay]

I find I haven't yet named any names and I think I'll leave it that way for the present. Anyone care to hazard a guess?

Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, which I have yet to read. But I trust your recommendations.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's the one.

I've just finished it and am wondering how long we'll have to wait for a sequel. Seeing how this first novel took her ten years.....

[msjann65.livejournal.com]

Well, Friend, if I haven't already read it, I want to, since I appreciate your good taste. I am an avid reader who mostly depends upon books recommended by university professors or by friends who have enjoyed them.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

I do recommend this one- most heartily.

[oakmouse]

Ah, I was right --- but there aren't many books that would fit your description. *g*

I loved it too, although I agree that some aspects of the ending aren't quite as convincing as I would like. I need to reread it; been about a year or a little more.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The climax is a little too neat, perhaps.

But I like how she ends with new beginnings and a lot of unfinished business.

[oakmouse]

So do I, very much. It's far more realistic than a lot of fictional endings. And, well, in magic and faery, pretty much nothing is neat and tidy.

I'm just not sure I buy all of the new beginnings as being completely in character. I feel a wee bit as though her characters do some changing that she knows about and we don't. Which isn't fatal, but it does leave a slightly unsatisfied feeling.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think she deliberately keeps her distance from her characters. It's a choice she's made- an aesthetic choice- part of the whole wonderfully maintained fiction that she's writing the book in the 1820s. If she had got more involved with them it would have been a different book- and almost certainly less ironic and amusing.

[oakmouse]

I agree --- but that's not what I meant. I think that she has sufficiently deeply internalized her characters' motivations that she perhaps neglected to show us quite as much as we ought to have seen for the ending to be entirely credible, while thinking that she had shown us enough.

On the other hand, that may just be my cavil about how she handled her character development.

[seaslug-of-doom.livejournal.com]

Oh I've had that one sitting on the stack for some time, along with about 15 others. But first I think I'm going to read your other recent recommendation, 1599, which arrived from Amazon today.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ah, that's brilliant.

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

I love that book. It's one of those books that you want to loose yourself in, and it's long enough to actually allow you to do so. I hate books that ought to be 200 pages longer...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't know quite what to do with myself now I've finished it. I want more of the same and there isn't any.

Favorite Authors

[msjann65.livejournal.com]

When I was a child I was told that if I liked a particular book, I should write to the author and say so and then ask for more. Maybe that is still good advice....

Re: Favorite Authors

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Very good advice.

And did you carry it out?