DNF Audiobook Review – Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke, Narrated by Simon Prebble (3/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Length: 32 hours and 29 minutes (1032 pages)
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Release Date: September 23, 2005
ASIN: B0006SJ2G4
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Audiobook from Audible.com
Rating: 3/5 stars

“At the dawn of the nineteenth century, two very different magicians emerge to change England’s history. In the year 1806, with the Napoleonic Wars raging on land and sea, most people believe magic to be long dead in England-until the reclusive Mr Norrell reveals his powers, and becomes a celebrity overnight.

Soon, another practicing magician comes forth: the young, handsome, and daring Jonathan Strange. He becomes Norrell’s student, and they join forces in the war against France. But Strange is increasingly drawn to the wildest, most perilous forms of magic, straining his partnership with Norrell, and putting at risk everything else he holds dear.”

I have had this audiobook for quite awhile to listen to and finally decided to give it a go because I was going to be driving 18 hours over a couple days. This book is beautifully written and detailed but is just flat out boring. While Clarke does an excellent job of building a probable world where magic actually existed in London, I always felt very distant from the characters and story. I ended up stopping listening to this about 40% of the way through.

I listened to this on audiobook and the narration was well done. No complaints about the audiobook quality at all.

The story however, meandered between a huge number of characters. I cared less and less about the characters as more and more were introduced and finally gave up on following all the different names. The story was just not interesting. I agreed with most of London society in that Mr. Norrell needed to do something…anything interesting.

Overall this was not the book for me. Although the book is beautifully written, it is an absolute drag to read. I think this book had huge potential, Clarke does an amazing job of creating a probable historical London with magic. However, things moved way too slow, were very drawn out and were just exhaustingly boring.