Today I was supposed to be packing for an upcoming trip, or cleaning in preparation for same, or dealing with the masses of vegetables I've accumulated from 3 consecutive weeks of CSA pick-ups. So, obviously, rather than doing most of these things (I did pickle some ginger and beets this morning), I picked up a new book to read. Like many people, I was excited to hear Susanna Clarke had a new novel coming out last year. I read
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell when it was quite new, having been given a copy by a friend who worked for the publisher. This was, if memory serves, around the time of my Jane Austen binge (as I've written a couple times before, I came to her late), during which period I also read (and adored)
Tom Jones. I devoured
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and it felt of a piece with the other things I was reading at the time. After I finished reading it, I passed it along to my then-husband who also devoured it, an experience that left him – bizarrely, I thought – somewhat angry. He felt manipulated by the book. Later, I'm displeased to realize, his critique of the book rubbed off on me. I haven't reread it, but I did watch the TV miniseries, which didn't raise my opinion of it. In the intervening years, I guess I've come to think of it not as a good book but as a diverting one. This may be unfair to it, though I do enjoy reading diverting books. The fact that it might be one was why I landed on
Piranesi this morning. I hadn't heard much of anything about
Piranesi except that it was "very different." I would agree that this is true, but – as with Clarke's earlier novel – I devoured it. I read it in the space of about four hours. Perhaps because of my grudgingly acknowledged bias against
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, I found myself thinking that
Piranesi felt mature by comparison. Now I don't know if I'm being fair to either book, but I quite liked
Piranesi. Maybe I should give
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell a reread.
