“Piranesi” by Susanna Clarke

This book might be labeled a mystery novel, of sorts. Or perhaps science fiction or fantasy. It is fantastical. And deeply mysterious. Giovanni Battista Piranesi was an eighteenth century Italian polymath who drew etchings of imaginary prisons. The eponymous hero of Clarke’s novel lives within a giant decaying house, made of stone, with endless halls adorned by giant statues and lapping tides of water that rise and recede with regularity. The novel is written as a series of diary entries, written by the protagonist, as he struggles to make sense of his world. He believes himself to be some sort of scientist. Or, at least, a man of reason and logic. He meets bi-weekly with the Other, the only other person he presumes to be living somewhere within the house, to exchange knowledge and insights into the mysteries of their home. “I realised that the search for the Knowledge has encouraged us to think of the House as if it were a sort of riddle to be unravelled, a text to be interpreted, and that if ever we discover the Knowledge, then it will be as if the Value has been wrested from the House and all that remains will be mere scenery…. The sight of the One-Hundred-and-Ninety-Second Western Hall in the Moonlight made me see how ridiculous that is. The House is valuable because it is the House. It is enough in and of Itself. It is not the means to an end.”

“Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell” by Susanna Clarke

I was not sure I would enjoy a thousand page novel about magicians set in a slightly skewed Napoleonic England. But to call this playful historical fiction would not be a stretch. British ministers like Wellington and Canning all dip into the story, but Norrell and his pupil, Strange, take center stage throughout. By the turn of the nineteenth century, all of British magic had been lost and forgotten. People still remembered the tales of the Raven King, John Uskglass, who swept down with his fairy armies to conquer the north of England, but the practice of contemporary magic had long ceased. The fun thing about Clarke’s novel is it is interspersed with footnotes for the reader to dig deeper into the history of magic in England. For instance, in chapter 23 footnote 6, we learn, “There have been very few magicians who did not learn magic from another practitioner. The Raven King was not the first British magician. There had been others before him—notably the seventh-century half-man, half-demon, Merlin—but at the time the Raven King came into England there were none.” Active magic dipped into and out of the realm, preserved only in the realm of fairies. In another footnote we learn, “Chaston wrote that men and fairies both contain within them a faculty of reason and a faculty of magic. In men reason is strong and magic is weak. With fairies it is the other way round: magic come very naturally to them, but by human standards they are barely sane.” Clarke’s dedication to the backstories and fake histories of magic is what makes this novel so memorable. She really builds the edifice on which the story of the novel rests. It becomes just one story within the history of magic in England.

By the nineteenth century, there were only a handful of theoretical magicians, who only studied the history of magic, and a few more charlatans, who claimed to read futures and conjured simple love spells. Norrell was the first practicing magician of his age. A country gentleman, he had acquired every book on magic he could get his hands on from the old aristocratic libraries and made it his task, not just to study, but to do magic. Norrell also hid his books and his spells from almost everyone. That changed with Strange. The brilliantly talented, but unread, Strange became his first pupil. The relationship was always tense. “The silence which followed was peculiarly awkward. Here sat the only two English magicians of the Modern Age. One confessed he had no books; the other, as was well known, had two great libraries stuffed with them. Mere common politeness seemed to dictate that Mr Norrell make some offer of help, however slight; but Mr Norrell said nothing.” Nonetheless, Strange slowly improved his skills through trial and error and was eventually sent to the Peninsular War to help Wellington in action. ““Can a magician kill a man by magic?” Lord Wellington asked Strange. Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. “I suppose a magician might,” he admitted, “but a gentleman never could.”” Throughout the book, fairies play tricks, ladies return from the dead, and widows speak to cats. Eventually, there would be a falling out between the two magicians. Strange kept pushing the limits of practical magic further than Norrell was comfortable. Nonetheless, even after their parting, Strange admitted, “One can never help one’s training, you know. As a magician I shall never quite be Strange—or, at least, not Strange alone—there is too much Norrell in me.”