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Loved Jonathan Strange's war 'exploits' and his first step into a mirror; he directed himself toward Henry Lascelles. Surprise! A bit of comeuppance there. Also took to Childermass as he stepped to the fore. These were highs for me.
Posts: 61 | Registered: Aug 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Liz B: I adore Austen. There's TONS of plot in Austen. *confused*
Huh. Austen is what I was afraid this book would be like. I hate her books; I find her unreadably dull. Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is so much funnier! How can you all dislike a book that is so funny?!
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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I thought the book was fascinating and funny for quite a number of pages. Then everything kind of soured and the book started to feel more full of itself than anything else.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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If anyone has trouble reading LotR, I highly recommend the excellent unabridged audio version read by Rob Inglis. When read by a storyteller, it's easier to be patient with Tolkien's descriptions and lore and to savor them for the treasure that they are. (Similarly, it took finding an audio version of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell for me to finish that one.)
Posts: 2911 | Registered: Aug 2001
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I agree, if it's a fat book that I like. Right now I'm hashing my way through a fat book that I think is just 'ok.' I'll be glad to finally get through it. (Norrell, however, was a fat book that I loved.)
Posts: 6415 | Registered: Jul 2000
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I really wanted to like this one, but I've started and stopped half a dozen times. I'm about half way through, and nothing is happening at all.
I felt the same way with the first book in Neal Stephenson's latest series set in England. Just too slow moving, too fancy pants interested in sounding floofy and elegant or developing character's quirky personality.
The writing's nice enough, but get to the point before page 350.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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Jane Austen is very funny. I thought Once and Future King was a children's book (juvenile fiction anyway - especially the first part). Strange and Norrell is paced just fine; it just doesn't have anyone in it I care about - so far.
edit: Oh, and George Harrison, but it's close.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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*nod* George Harrison is like a blend of the best qualities of the other Beatles. He doesn't quite have the brilliance of Lennon, but his other qualities balance out nicely. I have his boxed set on vinyl, and I wish I had it on CD so I could listen to it more often.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Oh, and the comic strip Tom linked to was completely meaningless to me. I didn't get it at all. This probably means I have no sense of humor or that I'm stupid or something. :-\ Can someone explain to me why it's funny?
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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I make no claims of objective merit; like I said on another thread, I like McDonald's cheeseburgers, too.
There are people who find that Achewood strip not only achingly funny but absolutely brilliant. I strongly suspect that these same people consider the Qwantz.com strips to be genius, too. I would expect a degree of correlation between those people and the people who really, really like Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, for reasons it'd take me a long time to fully articulate. *grin*
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I suppose so. I'm a huge fan of Qwantz.com, and neither achewood nor strange/norrell are my thing. I'm amused that you mentioned them because I almost linked qwantz just to show a web comic that was funny, for the sake of comparison.
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I make no claims of objective merit; like I said on another thread, I like McDonald's cheeseburgers, too.
Okay, but can you explain it to me anyway? Because I can't even begin to imagine what might be funny about it. What am I just missing?
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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I suspect it operates on a level similar to the lighthearted joy some people find in "magic realism" (in movies or books and whatever). The strip exists with no context, especially since it's the first strip of the run; we don't know any of these people, but we know there are three of them, one of them has a drum machine, and one of them is standing on its manual -- in the corner -- in a slightly sheepish way.
The artwork is deliberately crude; there is no motion between panels, and the first two characters appear to be expressionless templates. The dialogue is tonally flat, slightly simple and yet tinged with formality -- a trait shared by the font chosen. In fact, we seem to exist in a stiff, somewhat formal world in this comic, one in which people can be "utterly confounded" by drum machines.
And then the third panel.
The first two characters appear to be animals of some sort, albeit ones dressed for the 1930s. Philippe is a curvy, ambiguous tube in baggy pants -- and has an expression! He's happy! He's happy because...he's...standing? In the corner? On the drum machine manual?
And that's the "joke." We don't know why. We never learn why. It is providing him with happiness. We can assume that this happiness is why the other character is reluctant to take the manual from him, but it works just as well to assume that Philippe is psychotically violent and would resist the attempt. At this stage, we don't know -- and it's irrelevant.
What's important is that we are encountering here a phenomenon or behavior for which we have no referent, and yet which gives pleasure. "Philippe," we say, "you are the sort of tube-shaped thing that enjoys standing on a drum machine manual. And you bring us glee."
And looking at what I just wrote, that last paragraph there strikes me as hysterically funny. So YMMV. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Seriously, thank you for trying. I thought maybe there was some hidden cleverness I was not getting, but it sounds more like some sort of postmodern thing--it's funny because it makes no sense.
Have you seriously found a correlation in the people in your life between enjoying that strip and enjoying Johnathan Strange and Mr Norrell?
quote:Have you seriously found a correlation in the people in your life between enjoying that strip and enjoying Johnathan Strange and Mr Norrell?
I haven't really looked for one. But I suspect there is one. That's not to say that people couldn't enjoy that strip for reasons that don't intersect the reasons other people might have for liking Susannah Clarke's stuff -- but I think there's a huge intersection there right in the middle that consists of a love of pseudo-formal post-modernism.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:What's important is that we are encountering here a phenomenon or behavior for which we have no referent, and yet which gives pleasure. "Philippe," we say, "you are the sort of tube-shaped thing that enjoys standing on a drum machine manual. And you bring us glee."
What's also important about the Achewood strip is that this world appears, for unexplained reasons, to be populated with stuffy well dressed European bulldogs. I find that utterly hilarious.
And I think Jonathan Strange may be the best novel published in the past two or three years.
So, there's one representative.
Posts: 794 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I enjoyed Jonathan Strange, but I don't like Achewood at all. I'm in the non-human camp with Icky on that one.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I don't dislike Strange and Norell, but I have not bothered to finish it, even though it was a lot better. I like parts of it, but over all I am bored wiht it.
I don't remember how long it has been since I tried to read a book that bored me so much that I didn't bother to finish it.
I disliked that cartoon as well. It seemed just....stupid. No point, and not funny at all.
I had a friend who thought I was crazy because I wasn't a Python fan. I liked some of it, but even the HG was too long and stuffed with not-so-funny scenes.
He thought that only people who weren't smart enough to get the jokes didn't think they were funny. I got them, they just seemed not-so-funny after about 10 min of listening to it. Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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I don't think it has anything to do with smarts. I think it has to do with how people react to disappointed expectations and/or cognitive dissonance.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Just finished reading it. It's an amazing book (IMHO)! I also just...entered the world. Surreal and yet so real :-)
I will miss the characters, the story, everything...
This land is all too shallow It is painted on the sky And trembles like the wind-shook rain When the Raven King goes by
Posts: 1785 | Registered: Oct 2003
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(Norrell, however, was a fat book that I loved.)
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