There are writers who draw on the fantastic to build their plots and others who slip into that space of fantasy to let themselves, and therefore let us, carry away. Susanna clarke is of that type of authors. Something like what it represents Michael Ende with his novels capable of balancing a more youthful reading with the depth of the fantastic as a transcendent matter.
Because fantasy can have a perfect metaphorical reading, from the most candid fable to the most complex construct. Fantasy is evasion but also a reunion with lost essences and even feminist vindication in Clarke's case on many occasions.
That is why entering the universe of Susanna Clarke is to want to rock again in those approaches that have an almost allegorical point of evocation but always knowing how to compensate it with actions and adventures only at the height of very vivid imaginations ...
Susanna Clarke's Top 3 Recommended Novels
Jonathan Strange and Lord Norrell
Years of writing, practically a decade. Great stories are what they have… A complex story in terms of the multitude of angles from which to approach it. One of the most brilliant and original novels to appear in recent times, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is a fabulous tale in every way - for its narrative ambition and for the extraordinary stories it tells.
As an authentic work of literary goldsmith, Susanna Clarke has imagined a complete and coherent fantastic universe down to its last details, creating in the reader the illusion of being immersed in a story of absolute realism and verisimilitude. At the beginning of the XNUMXth century, the exploits of the Raven King, the greatest of all the wizards of the Middle Ages, survive in memory and legend, but the practice of magic has been completely forgotten in England.
Until the day the elusive Mr. Norrell of Hurtfew Abbey gets the stones of York Minster talking. The news of the return of magic spreads like wildfire and Mr. Norrell, convinced that he must put his arts at the service of the government in the war against Napoleon, moves to London.
There he meets young Jonathan Strange, a brilliant and willful wizard, and after overcoming some misgivings, he agrees to welcome him as a disciple. At a time when only charlatans called themselves magicians, Norrell and Strange set out to clean up the good name of their craft, which they consider a science with capital letters.
Under Wellington's orders, they will perform dozens of magical acts, and their success is such that very soon they will be consulted on many other issues, from curing the madness of King George III to the best revenge for disgruntled lovers. In their wake they will find love and death, portents and cruelties, and driven by ambition and rivalry, the path of glory will inevitably bring them closer to the abyss.
Between Jane Austen's fine social comedy and Tolkien's bleak universe, Susanna Clarke has managed to create an imaginary world of enormous beauty and mystery. Distinguished as Best Novel of the Year by independent booksellers in the United States and nominated for the Whitbread, Booker and Guardian Awards, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell have been lavishly praised by critics.
Piranese
The tradition of fantastic history is born neither more nor less than in Dante. From the poet's journey with Virgilio always by his side and with Beatriz on his horizon, we find that starting point of a genre loaded with symbolism. Susanna on this occasion recovers that notion of the missed trip, inside a house on this occasion. The oneiric has the keys to everything, it's just a matter of making sense of it.
Piranesi's house is not just any building: its rooms are monumental, with walls filled with thousands of statues, and its corridors endless. Within the maze of corridors there is an imprisoned ocean in which the waves rumble and the tides flood the rooms.
But Piranesi is not afraid: he understands the onslaught of the sea like the pattern of the labyrinth, as he explores the limits of his world and advances, with the help of a man called The Other, in a scientific investigation to reach The Great Secret Knowledge.
Grace Adieu's ladies
The first work by Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell - undoubtedly one of the most brilliant and original novels of recent years - was translated into thirty-two languages ​​and became an international hit. Awarded, and lavishly praised by critics, it was the creation of a fantastic world, coherent down to the smallest details, where magic and history were prodigiously intertwined.
Three years later, without departing from that imaginary universe that has become his hallmark, the eight stories that make up this new book by Clarke will undoubtedly delight its thousands of unconditional readers. The Land of Goblins is not as far away as we imagine.
Sometimes, it is enough to cross an invisible line to discover that we must face conceited princesses, aggrieved owls and ladies who embroider curses; or with endless dark paths and mansions that never appear to us with the same aspect.
Among the heroes we can find the Duke of Wellington or Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, as well as characters from the previous book such as Jonathan Strange himself or the legendary Raven King.
Thus, mixing the fine Victorian social comedy with classic themes of British folklore, historical rigor with an overflowing and fertile imagination, Susanna Clarke transports the reader to a singular and unexpected world, whose atmosphere has the fascinating and at the same time truthful flavor of Dreams.
