Comments on: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell: A Novel

By: Henry

Henry — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 16:56:20 +0000

It’s appropriate imo, and indeed its slight archaism conducts well with the general tone of the passage – while it’s disparaged in modern English, it has a well established history – see further here href=”http://alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxtryand.html” rel=”nofollow”>http://alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxtryand.html

By: rilkefan

rilkefan — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 16:30:28 +0000

“In the end is it not futile to try and follow” – “try and follow” is your example of good prose?

By: Kieran Healy

Kieran Healy — Mon, 13 Sep 2004 17:29:22 +0000

But the style is more vaguely Jane Austen than vaguely George Eliot, so it’s much more entertaining.

By: cleek

cleek — Mon, 13 Sep 2004 15:04:02 +0000

all this talk of ‘class’ and ‘the assured diction of the nineteenth-century novel’ makes my hair stand on end – because after 100 pages of reading, i decided Middlemarch was the most tedious thing I’d ever encountered; and i vowed to never again read any novel written before 1900 (except Twain). call me a heathen, i don’t mind. so, i need to ask: does the writing in JSAMN resemble that meandering, highly-detailed, where’d-th-point-go ‘realist’ style ?

By: Kieran Healy

Kieran Healy — Mon, 13 Sep 2004 04:15:34 +0000

OK, I just went out and bought it.