Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is the story of two magicians bent on bringing magic back to England, written as a kind of modern Victorian novel. I'm a big Jane Austen fan (George Eliot too), and Susanna Clarke combines the wry commentary and deep insight into the nuances of class and society of those authors with the world of faeries and magic.
This is not sword-and-sorcery fantasy. Clarke's magic is convincingly woven into the social, political and cultural milieu of early 19th Century England. So, for example, Jonathan Strnage is the official magician for the Duke of Wellington and helps him defeat Napoleon at Waterloo. He befriends Byron, a minor character, and inspires Manfred.
(In some ways the concept is similar to The Watchmen--placing the fantastic in a realistic and ultimately human context. Clarke lists The Watchmen as one of her favourite novels.)
My analytical chops are little rusty, but there's a lot of literary history woven into the book as well. Jonathan strange is the romantic magician hero, and the tension between the him and Mr. Norrell mirrors the tension between the Romantic authors (Byron, Wordsworth, Shelley) and the more traditional 18th Century writers (Johnson, Sterne, Fielding, etc.). In fact, there are multiple references to the work of Mrs. Radcliffe, who could be seen as a kind of bridge between those two periods.
Overall, this was a really satisfying read. And while it looks thick (my copy is over 800 pages), the plot doesn't sag and the literary allusions only enhance an otherwise entertaining story.
