The first shall pass his life alone he shall be his own gaoler The second shall see his dearest possession in his enemy’s hand. The first shall bury his heart in a dark wood beneath the snow, yet still feel its ache The first shall be governed by thieves and murderers the second shall conspire at his own destruction The first shall fear me the second shall long to behold me One man asked why that was, and events that the Raven King had prophesised began to unfold:
Magic was a dry academic subject, not a practical art. The story began in an England where magic had died after the disappearance of its greatest magician, The Raven King, who had come out of the Land of Faerie to reign in the north. The style suits the period, suits the story, and it is the style of a storyteller with a keen eye, a gentle wit, and perfect control of her material. And while I have seen it suggested that the style echoes some wonderful authors – Austen, Trollope and Dickens are the names I have seen most often – and while I can see all of those influences, none of them dominate. I loved that though this very big book, divided into three volumes, looks so much like a take on a Victorian novel, it is set somewhat earlier, during the Napoleonic Wars. I finally read the whole book last year, when I realised that I could count three volumes as three novels and that I didn’t need to dawdle, because if I loved the book as much as I thought I would I’d be going back to read it again and again.
It wasn’t that I didn’t love it – I loved it from the start – but it was such a big book, I so wanted to linger, and I kept getting distracted, by life and by other books.
It was quite a few years before I read the book and I had quite a few false starts before I read it all the way through.
That was how my first copy of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell came home.
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