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Talk:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

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Featured articleJonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
Main Page trophyThis article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on September 8, 2011.
Did You Know Article milestones
DateProcessResult
January 23, 2009Good article nomineeListed
March 25, 2009Peer reviewReviewed
April 4, 2009Featured article candidatePromoted
Did You Know A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on January 12, 2009.
The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that Susanna Clarke's novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell has 185 footnotes, which contain a meticulous false history of English magic and an entire fictional corpus of magical scholarship?
Current status: Featured article

A few queries

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Three queries that don't need to disturb the FA debate. Ignore if unhelpful. I'd like to hear something about the nature of the narrator. They write as if they and their expected readers inhabit the world described (at a later date), but are otherwise omniscient in the common manner of fictional third person narrators (a literary trick also used in Neil Gaiman's Stardust). Clarke says something on the subject in the reply to the Crooked Timber blog discussion here.

The article compares David Foster Wallace and Pynchon for the footnoting: readers of a British fantasy work might perhaps think either of Terry Pratchett or of The Third Policeman.

The pastiche style (particularly the Dickensian playfulness) reminded me a lot of Leon Garfield. Has Clarke ever mentioned him as an influence? N p holmes (talk) 10:35, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Np, thanks so much for your interest in the article! Unfortunately, what you are coming up against is the same problem I had in writing this article - the dearth of reliable sources. Occasionally I found tidbits on unreliable sites (as you did on the blog), but we can't use those here. You should know that the reviews rarely, if ever, mention the narrator, which is why he (?) is not discussed in the article. One of my frustrations with the reviews was their insistence on focusing on the footnotes and the pastiche and ignoring most of the other elements of the novel, particularly the themes. One problem I noticed with the reviews was that they threw out a lot of names of possible influences, without explaining in any depth why those influences might be reflected in Jonathan Strange. I tried to include the names that appeared most often in the reviews and those that had some sort of explanation. :) I also gave pride of place to Clarke's own ideas regarding her writing process. That said, I don't remember offhand reading much about Pratchett, anything about The Third Policeman, or anything about Garfield. Awadewit (talk) 18:28, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
1) On the narrator, can one not say a little just from the primary source? We allow plot descriptions after all. I don't think what Clarke writes at Crooked Timber should be seen as an unreliable source (it's her own words and it's not some anonymous blog where someone might be pretending to be interviewing her). Incidentally from what she says there, the narrator is (unsurprisingly) female. 2) Yes, you wouldn't want to name The Third Policeman if you don't have secondary sources to do so; but perhaps it might be better not to name the other writers either, or to keep the comment more general. But I'll leave it at that. N p holmes (talk) 06:06, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
3) From Google, I see she mentions Garfield here (transcript of an interview at a convention), along with Joan Aiken; but it's too passing a comment to be worth mention. N p holmes (talk) 06:54, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The author's own comments which happen to be published on a blog seem perfectly appropriate. john k (talk) 15:23, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
1a) I don't think we can describe the narrator using the novel. Usually, analytical statements about literature need to be sourced. Everyone would agree there is a narrator, but the tone of the narrator is not necessary something all readers would agree upon.
1b) Blogs are not generally considered reliable sources and FAs need to use only the best sources. There were other blogs I didn't use, upon Ealdgyth's advice here.
2) I named the writers most often listed in the reviews and added as much of an explanation as I could. I privileged listing those with explanations. Awadewit (talk) 23:46, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

List of real people and places

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Should not the article have a more extensive list on what people, places, events, etc. in the novel are actually real? Maybe a subarticle?

In any event, for the record, the sale of the library of the Duke of Roxburghe which is an important plot element of Chapter 28 actually happened and Google Books has a contemporary document for it. [1]

Also Colquhoun Grant from Chapter 31 was real. His entry in Wikipedia mentions the novel, but there is no mention of him in the article for the novel. Obviously many other examples could be cited. 68.97.13.204 (talk) 14:05, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would agree - giving links to the articles on various historical figures who appear in literary works is one of the things that Wikipedia can be great for. john k (talk) 15:22, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
We cannot list every character in the novel - there are far too many - the article would simply end up being a list. Awadewit (talk) 15:00, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's not about listing every character in the novel, but listing real historical figures who appear in the novel. john k (talk) 17:06, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Title: Miss J. Austen, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. By: Bander, Elaine, Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal Online, 15597520, , Vol. 29, Issue 1 Database: Literary Reference Center "Moreover, Clarke's characters mention actual writers, artists, institutions and public figures of the day, such as Madame d'Arblay (72), Ackermann (136), Castlereagh (165), Canning (176), The Gentleman's Magazine (225), Mr. Beckford, Mr. Lewis and Mrs. Radcliffe (245), Haig and Chippendale's Upholstery (259), Wedgewood (260), Mrs. Edgeworth's Belinda (262), Wellington and the Peninsula campaign (285 ff), Goya (333), the King's madness, the Prince Regent, and the rival Royal Dukes (Ch. 32), Cruickshank and Rowlandson (407), Mr. Jeffrey and The Edinburgh Review (410ff), Brussels on the eve of Waterloo (430ff), the Princesses at Windsor (467), the publisher John Murray (passim), Lord Byron, his friends and his lovers (553ff), D'Israeli's Flim-Flams and Miss Austen's Emma (557)." Woken Wanderer (talk) 01:54, 24 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We use parts of this list (which is not exhaustive) in the "Genre" part of the article, where we integrate the information in a coherent way, explaining why the author references so many real people. Awadewit (talk) 16:17, 24 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

RE: "Should not the article have a more extensive list on what people, places, events, etc. in the novel are actually real?" I would disagree, because I think that the impact that the novel achieves on the reader, or at least the contemporary English reader, is achieved by producing a deliberate alternative history. Without wishing to be affectedly post-modern, least of all with respect to history and/or historical fact, I think this book uses "re-imagining" of "real" history to address 21st century issues in English identity. I'm aware that I'm swimming upstream on this point, given the deletion of the edit I'd made suggesting this line of interpretation, but I think that any entry on this novel must include the socio-cultural theme that England is a fusion of divergent cultural identities, and that this novel inverts the the commonly-held geographical trope that Southern England is the dominant locus of power and model of identity, in this country. Specifically, the novel confronts the "real" men ruling England, and its Empire, with Northern England being a war-winning but, magical Danelaw; complete with its own once and future wizard-king, with whom they have a treaty. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GeoffAyres77 (talk • contribs) 02:02, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Misleading summary?

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I just read the book and I think the summary is misleading. I don't know the etiquette so I won't edit the text.

«At Strange's request, Flora moves with her family to Padua and secludes herself inside her home, along with a mirror given to her by Strange.» It was more like Strange asks Dr Greysteel to get rid of Flora. And the Dr stays with Strange.

Is Lyocell an alternative spelling of Lascelles?

«Strange returns and gives Childermass instructions which allow him to free Lady Pole from the fairy's enchantment. Strange, bringing "Eternal Night" with him, asks Norrell to help him undo Arabella's enchantment by summoning John Uskglass.» makes it look like Strange directly talked with Childermass, when it was by accident, since Drawlight was killed by Lascelles before he could deliver the 3 messages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:646:4201:7930:AC36:9D87:FD3E:A440 (talk) 05:11, 22 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the comment, the plot summary was recently trimmed down by a single editor who may have introduced some errors or misleading passages. Please feel free to make any adjustments you think necessary, I just corrected the Lascelles bit and unlinked Venice, which was linked like six times LOL.— TAnthonyTalk 14:46, 22 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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Anyone more familiar with the book than I care to add it to this list?

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Types of mythological or fantastic beings in contemporary fiction is a page of, well, fantasy works (movie, TV, written, whatever) and the assorted mythological and/or fantastic critters they contain. This book would qualify. Anyone care to add it? Tamtrible (talk) 18:36, 9 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Variant covers

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The caption of the cover image suggests the book's first edition was released with variant covers. I'd like to see something brief about that in the article since it seems a bit unusual. I did a quick search and it looks like there were at least red and parchment-colored versions in addition to the black, but I didn't find any sources that talk about it. Colintedford (talk) 14:53, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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