Tesla A’s Reviews > Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell > Status Update

Damn! I loved the ending and I’m glad my dear Arabella got to enjoy the world away from the book in the nose in darkness guy. I see what Susanna did there. What I love love is that despite this being about strange and Norrell, they did not save anyone and just got stuck in their little bubble while magic was being done in the most unexpected places to them. I see it, Susanna!

Above update was for here

This is like a live tweet at this point but did Susanna “fridge” Arabella for this? It can’t be, right? I came to understand the sense of Arabella affliction as the catalyst for Strange’s foray into greatness + expansion of English magic. But now, it can’t just be that she went through all that for this?! Also, is the gentleman the only faerie in this business because of Norrell? If not, why him?

Commercial break: if this were romantasy, they would have Stephen swooning all the way to high heaven for how much the gentleman searched high and low, killing, and maiming just to find his name so that he can bestow it upon him.

PS: less than 100 pages to go and I’m feeling some of the mysteries about faeries and the other otherlanders are going to be left unresolved.

Before I binge this to the end, I just want to note that Strange’s conceitedness and arrogance have come to fore so much. He’s so concerned with himself and loves his assumptions that he’s not paused once to ask others or listen to them properly. He’s also so obsessed with Norrell and it’s interesting to see how he’s inadvertently absorbed Norrell’s behaviour. PS: British East India Co. magic — gagg

Arabellaaa! Wait, what? There must be more, right?

… while I wish that we got more of Arabella’s viewpoint, it’s totally understandable given the fidelity to the time period that the book has endeavoured to build. There’s a subversive streak in the curious case of Lady Pole, Stephen Black, Arabella, George III that’s also ironically going on with “the gentleman with thistle-down hair” and I find these passages highly intriguing…

Ooh, that book review was damn fire and it was such a good way to solidify the fault lines that have or may be showing up. I love that we are getting to the good turn into the so what of English Magic. PS: poor Drawlight - didn’t much like him but that was a wild exit. PPS: we could write essays about Arabella and the peculiar role she’s playing. Wish we got more into her perspective.

Whoa, the war has ended! Excited to see how Strange and Norell have developed away from each other? Whats the pathway forward without the war for our magicians? I am loving how all our side characters are so deeply developed that I can now grasp them. So many threads to unravel since we encountered some… how will they connect?

I’ve inevitably hit that part of a chunky book where the story is rebuilding itself again and I’m wondering: “where are we are going again?” If I did not know that Napoleon is defeated in 1815, I would be completely unmoored otherwise. Still, this is just conjecture to keep me grounded at least because: “where are going?” Trying to apply Arteta to trust the process…