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Diligent search through my past booklogs does not turn any notes up from the first time I read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, which means it must have been pre-2007 which is when I started keeping track of my reads. It did turn up a promise that a reread of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell would be "coming soon to a booklog near you!" from ... July 2015, which tells you how to trust my promises.
Anyway! Going into my reread of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, here is what I EXTREMELY VAGUELY remembered from that first pre-2007 read:
- Mr. Norrell is a stuffy, awkward little man who makes bad magical choices
- Jonathan Strange is less awkward but possibly makes equally bad magical choices
- something unfortunate and fairy-related happens to Arabella Strange, who does not deserve it
- Jonathan Strange fixes it but makes extremely unwise choices in the process
- Stephen Black, a former slave, spends the entire book using his top-notch buttling skills to be polite to a fairy who's ruining his life, which somehow saves the day and also critiques colonialism
- footnotes???
which is why here, now, I am surprised and discomfited to find myself with an EXTREMELY LARGE number of feelings and opinions on an EXTREMELY LARGE number of things, including all of the above but also including:
- the bit where John Segundus very politely refuses to give up magic even though he doesn't expect to ever be any good at it
- the bit where Wellington approves of the zombies for learning hell-language with such commendable speed
- (that one joke basically justified a great deal of the Napoleonic War bits for me)
- (that and the Goya zombie portrait)
- the bit where Jonathan Strange breaks up with Mr. Norrell and Mr. Norrell's sad dusty heart is broken
- (both Strange and Norrell pretty much deserve everything they get but Norrell actually makes me feel more things in general than Strange does, A Surprising Turn)
- the bit where Segundus does not get to teach magic
- the bit where Childermass promises to be contrary at whichever magician is left at the end of the day
- the brief portrait of Jonathan Strange's poor Jewish apprentice who is better than the other two and therefore treated mostly as an equal except for being expected to pick up after them and not getting called by his last name, you know
- the bit where LADY POLE ATTEMPTS MURDER
- (how the hell did I not remember Lady Pole)
- (what is wrong with me)
- the bit where Stephen Black stops Strange from absently ruining Arabella's handkerchief
- the bit where Stephen Black fails to interact with the beggar with the ship on his head
- the bit where Childermass fails at Raven King
- the bit where Stephen Black and Mrs. Brandy stare at each other in sad mutual incomprehension because of Stephen Black's fairy-induced depression
- POSSIBLY THE SADDEST SCENE IN THE BOOK
- I'M STILL VERY CONCERNED ABOUT MRS. BRANDY who imo deserved better than to disappear from the text after two very sweet and sad chapters
- footnotes! !! !!!!!!!*
Here, meanwhile, is an incomplete list of scenes which I note are not in the book and of which I feel the lack despite the fact that there are ALREADY 700 pages worth of things:
- Emma and Stephen interacting on the page at all, ever
- I mean I feel quite sure this is very deliberate, it's too careful not to be deliberate
- Emma's inner life is a very consistently and carefully constructed mystery
- but I regret it all the same
- also it would be nice to get more glimpses of Arabella actively pushing Strange to be a better human the way she does in his Inner Mind Theater at the very beginning of the book
- I do mostly believe that the book wants to see me flinch when politicians talk lightheartedly about sending Strange to support the East India Company with magic but I'm not sure that I know for sure that it does
- I'm actually not entirely sure how I feel about the reveal that all of the events of the book, as propelled as they are by the failings and dreams and affections of complicated individuals, were part of an enormously complex long game by the Raven King
- this is not actually a missing scene, now I'm just complaining
- anyway did I mention my concerns about Mrs. Brandy??
*it's really hard to get across in this format the actual greatest strength of the book, which is the way it uses its semi-scholarly omniscient voice to develop and delight in and consistently question its own worldbuilding, so footnotes!!!!!! will have to suffice
Anyway! Going into my reread of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, here is what I EXTREMELY VAGUELY remembered from that first pre-2007 read:
- Mr. Norrell is a stuffy, awkward little man who makes bad magical choices
- Jonathan Strange is less awkward but possibly makes equally bad magical choices
- something unfortunate and fairy-related happens to Arabella Strange, who does not deserve it
- Jonathan Strange fixes it but makes extremely unwise choices in the process
- Stephen Black, a former slave, spends the entire book using his top-notch buttling skills to be polite to a fairy who's ruining his life, which somehow saves the day and also critiques colonialism
- footnotes???
which is why here, now, I am surprised and discomfited to find myself with an EXTREMELY LARGE number of feelings and opinions on an EXTREMELY LARGE number of things, including all of the above but also including:
- the bit where John Segundus very politely refuses to give up magic even though he doesn't expect to ever be any good at it
- the bit where Wellington approves of the zombies for learning hell-language with such commendable speed
- (that one joke basically justified a great deal of the Napoleonic War bits for me)
- (that and the Goya zombie portrait)
- the bit where Jonathan Strange breaks up with Mr. Norrell and Mr. Norrell's sad dusty heart is broken
- (both Strange and Norrell pretty much deserve everything they get but Norrell actually makes me feel more things in general than Strange does, A Surprising Turn)
- the bit where Segundus does not get to teach magic
- the bit where Childermass promises to be contrary at whichever magician is left at the end of the day
- the brief portrait of Jonathan Strange's poor Jewish apprentice who is better than the other two and therefore treated mostly as an equal except for being expected to pick up after them and not getting called by his last name, you know
- the bit where LADY POLE ATTEMPTS MURDER
- (how the hell did I not remember Lady Pole)
- (what is wrong with me)
- the bit where Stephen Black stops Strange from absently ruining Arabella's handkerchief
- the bit where Stephen Black fails to interact with the beggar with the ship on his head
- the bit where Childermass fails at Raven King
- the bit where Stephen Black and Mrs. Brandy stare at each other in sad mutual incomprehension because of Stephen Black's fairy-induced depression
- POSSIBLY THE SADDEST SCENE IN THE BOOK
- I'M STILL VERY CONCERNED ABOUT MRS. BRANDY who imo deserved better than to disappear from the text after two very sweet and sad chapters
- footnotes! !! !!!!!!!*
Here, meanwhile, is an incomplete list of scenes which I note are not in the book and of which I feel the lack despite the fact that there are ALREADY 700 pages worth of things:
- Emma and Stephen interacting on the page at all, ever
- I mean I feel quite sure this is very deliberate, it's too careful not to be deliberate
- Emma's inner life is a very consistently and carefully constructed mystery
- but I regret it all the same
- also it would be nice to get more glimpses of Arabella actively pushing Strange to be a better human the way she does in his Inner Mind Theater at the very beginning of the book
- I do mostly believe that the book wants to see me flinch when politicians talk lightheartedly about sending Strange to support the East India Company with magic but I'm not sure that I know for sure that it does
- I'm actually not entirely sure how I feel about the reveal that all of the events of the book, as propelled as they are by the failings and dreams and affections of complicated individuals, were part of an enormously complex long game by the Raven King
- this is not actually a missing scene, now I'm just complaining
- anyway did I mention my concerns about Mrs. Brandy??
*it's really hard to get across in this format the actual greatest strength of the book, which is the way it uses its semi-scholarly omniscient voice to develop and delight in and consistently question its own worldbuilding, so footnotes!!!!!! will have to suffice