Susanna Clarke

That eight-hundred-page bulge in many a geek’s stocking this year is Clarke’s first novel, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, whose titular characters are magicians who decide to redirect British history. Clarke’s incredibly detailed and ambitious work weaves real and imagined history, mythology, and period manners into a sly, often humorous narrative. Her book has been called “a Harry Potter for adults,” but, since we often saw adults reading the Harry Potter series in the first place, consider this a lengthy and highly entertaining continuation in the literate public’s attempts to escape reality. Clarke talked to us from a German hotel room as she settled in for a night of solitude after a long day on her book tour.

THE RAKE: Fantasy literature isn’t usually highly regarded, but Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell was a contender for this year’s very serious Booker Prize. Do you think attitudes towards the genre are changing, or is there something different about your book?

I certainly think attitudes are changing a bit toward fantasy and toward genres in general. A few years ago when Philip Pullman’s was longlisted for the Booker, some people questioned the book’s right to be there, simply because his book was a children’s book. But no one blinked when Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell made the longlist. Barriers between categories are breaking down a little. It helps that “literary” writers are borrowing from different genres—finding a vitality there, which is perhaps sometimes missing from literary fiction. I suspect it helps that Strange and Norrell is a bit of a blend of genres. Sure, it’s fantasy, but there’s also some historical fiction, adventure, and mystery. So the fantasy comes wearing an interesting post-modernish dress.

Who is most like you: Jonathan Strange or Gilbert Norrell? Who did you enjoy writing more?

Neither is much like me. But there are a few similarities between me and Norrell. We both like staying at home, surrounded by books and being quiet. In that way, Norrell is quite like lots of writers—except that he doesn’t write anything. I probably enjoyed writing Strange more, because I suspect he has more good dialogue, by which I mean more funny dialogue. But Norrell was good to write, too, especially when he was being ridiculous.

Your book is heavily footnoted and as carefully researched as a made-up world can be. What are your favorite reference sources?

I particularly like secondhand books on social history, English folklore, and old country ways and beliefs. For example, there’s a Welsh author, George Ewart Evans, who interviewed English country people in the fifties and sixties about what they could remember about past customs and beliefs. Some of their stories reached back to the mid-nineteenth century. He talks about things like horses’ skulls buried under floors and beliefs about bee-keeping, stuff like that. Horse-whispering was once quite a big thing in Eastern England and Scotland.

For the behavior and ideas of the country gentry in the early nineteenth century, Jane Austen can’t be bettered. There’s also a series of little books published here [in England] by Shire Books on all sorts of odd subjects: spoons 1645-1930, candle lighting, mausoleums, smocks, smoking antiques, and so on. I collect these compulsively. But what I like best is the research I’m going to do next. Once you’ve begun and you’re seriously into it, it becomes a bit like homework, but the research you’re going to do next is always interesting.

I hear you’re a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Did you take any lessons from its writers as you worked on your book?

The things I loved in Buffy are the same as the things I love in other literature and films. A pushing-together of light and dark, comedy and themes of death, madness, loss. A wonderful quirky style of dialogue. Wonderful characterization and plots that come out of the characterization. I hope that I got some of these things into Strange and Norrell. I’m actually expecting Buffy to influence my writing a little more in the future.

Not to give anything away, but you wrap up your book in an unusual fashion. What was your intention with this?
One of the things I tried to avoid in Strange and Norrell was the usual big fantasy showdown between a clear source of good and a clear source of evil. It’s much more about people with good and evil in them. I think that that is reflected in the ending.

Susanna Clarke reads December 9 at Barnes & Noble, Har Mar Mall, 2100 N. Snelling Ave., Roseville, 651-639-9256 and December 10 at Bound to Be Read, 870 Grand Ave., St. Paul, 651-646-2665


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