{"id":52578,"date":"2025-11-28T17:44:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T01:44:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/?p=52578"},"modified":"2025-11-30T18:04:39","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T02:04:39","slug":"jonathan-strange-mr-norrell-by-susanna-clarke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2025\/11\/28\/jonathan-strange-mr-norrell-by-susanna-clarke\/","title":{"rendered":"Jonathan Strange &#038; Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:129,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/app.thestorygraph.com\\\/books\\\/f7a719a2-e615-4dd8-9a93-dfd0025f342e&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20240910073551\\\/https:\\\/\\\/app.thestorygraph.com\\\/books\\\/f7a719a2-e615-4dd8-9a93-dfd0025f342e&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-01 03:07:33&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:403},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-09 03:15:15&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:403},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-24 06:43:15&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:403},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-30 23:45:13&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:403}],&quot;broken&quot;:true,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-30 23:45:13&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:403},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>Book 58 of 2025: <a href=\"https:\/\/app.thestorygraph.com\/books\/f7a719a2-e615-4dd8-9a93-dfd0025f342e\">\u2b50\ufe0f<\/a> 2005 Hugo Best Novel<\/p>\n<p>Whether it\u2019s because I\u2019m not enough of a fantasy fan, or not English enough, or some other thing, this was <em>not<\/em> my thing. It took me over a month to get through it, sometimes because I couldn\u2019t get through more than 15 pages without getting bored, and sometimes because I just couldn\u2019t convince myself to pick it up. And after finally slogging through all 782 pages, it had an unsatisfying end; not so much finishing as just kind of petering out and stopping. Enough other people liked it for it to have won a Hugo, but for me, this was the most difficult of the Hugo Best Novel winners to get through since John Brunner\u2019s <em>Stand on Zanzibar<\/em>.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display:block; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;\" src=\"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_5377.jpeg\" alt=\"Me holding Jonathan Strange &amp; Mr Norrell.\" title=\"IMG_5377.jpeg\" border=\"0\" width=\"749\" height=\"562\" \/><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>58\/2025: \u2b50\ufe0f: Whether it\u2019s because I\u2019m not enough of a fantasy fan, or not English enough, or some other thing, this was _not_ my thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2036,2049],"tags":[2012,3313,6981],"class_list":["post-52578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-photos","tag-hugoaward","tag-hugobestnovel","tag-susanna-clarke"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52578"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52580,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52578\/revisions\/52580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}