Peony’s Reviews > Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell > Status Update

The reunion was interestingly done

Increasingly interesting, but not because of a solid plot.

Enjoyable turn of events to see…but not well-executed enough. Where is the solid plot I was hoping for? I do not see it.

I do not yet enjoy any of these chracters. They were promising, but Arabella was quickly deprived of all personality outside of wifedom, Lady Pole got reduced to a sour damsel, Strange is…almost tolerable, but ultimately not. The novel is too preoccupied with the same range of psychological mechanisms that get replayed over and over in the story, like a parody that has lost the soul of some original.

Still waiting on that plot which picks up that I was promised.

Strange is… different. He was always odd, I suppose, but he forgot to be so for a while, and now it’s like he’s having a midlife crisis. And his wife’s personality has disappeared for so long that I nearly forgot she had one!