That Thing about Strange & Norrell

If you were turned off of Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by the initial hype (see the New York Times Magazine article) and subsequent lukewarm reviews (see Janet Maslin's review for the Times), take advantage of the new paperback edition to rectify that mistake. Contrary to Maslin's condescending assessment, I would assert that this fantastic history of the rediscovery of magic in early 19th century Britain is a rich and carefully constructed book, not in spite of its own profusion but because of it.

With passing reference to "Aficionados of such tales" and "those who find enchantment in books about magicians" Maslin carefully marks the distinction between herself and "those who find enchantment" (fantasy readers, presumably). With her reference to "footnotes -- endless footnotes" she marks herself as too hurried to absorb the dark hints and embedded tales in this overgrown garden of marginalia. No doubt it's hard to appreciate generous footnotes in a 782 page novel when you're writing a review under deadline, but, for whatever reason, she missed a key subtext of the story. Within the novel, the tendency to tell wandering and irrelevant fairy tales is a symptom of enchantment by a fairy lord -- a curse that prevents the thrall from telling anyone about the true nature of the enchantment. What, then, are we to conclude when the novelist fills her novel with wandering and irrelevant fairy tales?