The bestselling novel of the same name, the first by Susanna Clarke, won the 2005 Hugo and World Fantasy Award for best novel, received the Locus Award for best first novel, was Time’s 2004 “Best Novel of the Year,” and was long-listed for a Man-Booker Prize, among other honors.
And we can’t wait to watch it! About the mini-series, the BBC website says: “Eddie Marsan (Ray Donovan, The World’s End), Olivier award-winning Bertie Carvel (Restless, Matilda), Charlotte Riley (Wuthering Heights, Easy Virtue) and Alice Englert (Ginger & Rosa, Beautiful Creatures) star in the seven-part mini-series, which has been adapted from Susanna Clarke’s bestselling novel by Peter Harness (Wallander, Doctor Who) and directed by Toby Haynes (Sherlock, Doctor Who).”
The novel is a fantastic alternate history, set in a carefully researched Napoleonic England, in which two rival magicians reignite the practice of magic and use spells to help England defeat Napoleon. Norrell summons a faerie, “the gentleman with the thistle-down hair,” to assist in reviving a dead woman, and both magicians soon wish they had left the Raven King alone to rule the faerie kingdom of Lost-Hope. Perhaps the most fascinating thing about the nearly 800-page novel is Clarke’s literary style, which borrows from 19th-century writers like Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and various Romantics. The most common complaint is the slow buildup of tension--and the footnotes (inserted by the imaginary narrator), which are a further drag compared to current fantasy novel pacing. But trust us, once it gets rolling you can’t put it down.
Can’t wait to see how the mini-series compares!
Marsan in the background as Mr. Norrell and Marc Warren as the Gentleman with the Thistle-Down Hair.
Can’t wait to see how the mini-series compares!
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