Week Eight: Contemporary Fantasy - Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Suzanna Clark (# 6 points)

 

Jonathan Strange and. Mr. Norrell is a fantasy novel that is very realistic to call it fantasy. 

 

The background of the story is England, so that made me compare this story with Harry Potter, while I read it. In Harry Potter, the theme of magic and wizard was expressed in a more unrealistic and imaginary way, but in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, two characters who can do real magic were actively engaged in real-life events like the war between Great Britain and France, and the real historical figure like Napoleon appears in the story, so the writer combines the history of the United Kingdom and the magical world. It’s like the history of the magical world that the writer created flows away with the real history of England. And I think this makes me feel like the magic in this story could be possible or exist. 

 

Featuring wizards and fairies, this work tells a very dark and fantastic story, and, of course, it is fiction. However, the author does not show such a fantasy from the beginning. Magic and a fantastic world didn’t seem normal in misty England after the Industrial Revolution. People grow up listening to the existence of a fairy, but other than that, they have a complete modern way of thinking. At the point where magic is handed down only as a tradition and record, even the people who call themselves magicians do not believe in real magic except for very few people. They accuse people who claim to do real magic of being scammers. And when someone who actually uses magical abilities appears in front of them, they just want him to provide eye candy at social parties instead of helping people with magical powers or fulfilling a mission to revive British magic.

 

Above all, it is the very human protagonists that make this work more realistic. The characters in this work are not beautiful and powerful wizards or warriors. The protagonists Norell and Jonathan Strange are ordinary people who are whimsical and have flaws. 

 

In addition, another realistic aspect of this work is that it reflects the human relationship in reality that no one can conclude as good or bad by showing the complex and diverse psychological states and behaviors of humans instead of the typical good versus evil confrontation structure that is commonly shown. Norell and Strange scratch and hurt each other, but their relationship is a relationship of love and hatred, which is entangled as a rival of fate and the only one who can understand each other.

 

Their confrontation is not something that the protagonist ends in victory by defeating the Demon King. At the end of the work, it is impossible to say who won and who lost, another problem follows the solved problem, and the love-hate relationship between the protagonists becomes more subtle. It feels like their stories will continue, that cannot finish with the phrase 'they lived happily well.’