One of my most anticipated titles of 2015 is BBC’s adaptation of Susanna Clarke’s New York Times best selling novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. It’s a novel ripe for adaptation, full of imaginative wonder and moments of awestruck beauty. It’s a breath of fresh air in a genre which is still too infatuated with Tolkien’s archetypes, and instead, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell brings to mind the 19th Century stories of fantasy and fairy tales such as Phantastes by George Macdonald, or Lord Dunsany’s 1924 novel The King of Elfland’s Daughter.
A necessarily large and sprawling story, the novel takes place in an alternate history where magic is real, although by the time of its present setting, 19th Century England, the practical use of magic has all but disappeared, and so called magicians are now little more than historians of previous practitioners. Until, that is, a Mr. Gilbert Norrell announces that he can practice magic. It’s not often that a fantasy novel over 700 pages earns its length, but Jonathan Strange & Mr Norell certainly does; the background and world building, often communicated through lengthy footnotes, fosters a reading atmosphere that is meant to be slowly savored instead of ravenously devoured. I’ll say nothing more so that those of you who haven’t read the book can enjoy the at times languorous plot that captivated millions.
BBC plans a 7 episode mini-series, starring Eddie Marsan and Bertie Carvel as the titular characters. There hasn’t been much in the way of news or updates about it until recently, when the teaser trailer was released. Visually, they’ve captured the atmosphere of the setting admirably, and while those 30 seconds aren’t much to go on, it’s enough to whet my already unsatiable appetite for more of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.
While my enthusiasm for the show teeters on fanboysim, the only qualms I have are that by reducing such a rich world (in which the plot is almost secondary) to a series of this size, it stands to lose much of what made the novel great – footnotes don’t translate well to the screen. That being said, the wry, witty style of the novel should serve the show well, and I am thoroughly convinced that regardless of whether or not the show is true to the book (which isn’t always a good attribute in adaptions anyhow), it will still make a fine series on the small screen.