Close viewers of BBC America or just anglophiles in
general may have noticed this past summer that Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell got the miniseries treatment from
the boys over in London. Because I love
a miniseries and alternate history, this one was high on my must-watch list.
And then, natch, I didn’t get around to it until after the weather started to
get sucky. Sigh. At any rate, the miniseries was glossy, composed, and very,
very English.
Before I say anything else, I should mention that I
actually haven’t read the book, so my thoughts are purely limited to the TV
show. My understanding is that, despite the show’s seven hours of total screen
time, there are still loads of plot points and character bits from the books
that were condensed, eliminated, or otherwise altered in the final product. Though,
honestly, given the show’s obsession with pondering over what it means to be
English, I have to imagine that’s for the best. (Readers, please correct me on
this if instead you believe what was actually eliminated was more germane to
the plot.)
At any rate, Jonathan
Strange & Mr. Norrell is set in 19th-centruy England during the
Napoleonic Wars. It presents an alternate history of England where magic,
formerly thought to have been eliminated from England a few hundred years before, has begun to make a comeback in the form of Mr. Norrell, a fussy
English gentleman who has gleaned how to work magic from his massive collection
of books. Being the only Magician in all of England, he somewhat reluctantly
goes about reviving the practice of “English Magic”, offering his services to
Lords and Royals as he can find them. Mr. Norrell is fastidious about
preserving the English decency that he feels magic requires, though to be fair
we never really see any examples of what non-English magic would be or why it
would be less preferable.
"Yes, yes. Much magic. Quite special. Tea, please?"
Just when Mr. Norrell is about to make good on his fame
and fortune as the sole Magician in the land, in comes a young gentleman of
property (of course) named Jonathan Strange. Strange it seems has also become
awakened to magic after hearing a prophesy from a street vagrant. Like you do. Strange
becomes Norrell’s pupil, though the two initially disagree about the importance
of a character known as The Raven King. Strange believes The Raven King to be
the source of English magic, whereas Norrell sees him as sort of an enemy of
the state for practicing a wilder, less organized (read: less English) magic.
This small theoretical difference eventually grows into a much bigger rift that
generates much of the action for the story.
"Mine is a dashing and brazen magic, much like my waistcoat."
Things are further complicated when Norrell, somewhat out
of his depth, is asked to resurrect the wife of a prominent Lord. In doing so,
Norrell brings forth The Gentleman, a fairy who agrees to revive the Lady, but
at a cost of half of her life. Unable to
admit defeat, or that the magic that returned the Lady to life wasn’t proper
English magic but the magic of Faerie, Norrell allows the Gentleman more
interest in the “real” world. The Gentleman also soon develops designs on
Strange’s wife Arabella as well as a servant in the Lord’s house. And from
there the fun starts.
Pictured: Not David Bowie.
The story begs and borrows a lot from earlier English
literary traditions. Strange is a classic Byronic Hero; the emphasis on
structure and Englishness flies straight out of the Regency and Victorian
periods where England was the unquestioned capitol of the world. As such, it
spends much of its time focusing on bringing those concepts into a fantasy
story, allowing the more fantastic elements to serve as stand-ins for England,
its virtues, and its faults. Which sounds incredible, but after about hour four
you really do start to feel a little like you’re listening to a stuffy
literature professor ramble on about the Romantics when all you really want to
do is go outside because it’s such a nice day out.
Plenty of aspects of the show work very well. It’s
gorgeous to look at with a very refined and specific art direction that is
quite eye-catching. The visuals are lush, costumes are gorgeous, special effects
FAR better than I thought they would be. Performances are strong, particularly
Eddie Marsan as Mr. Norrell, who nails the fussy, quick-to-offend, yet
vulnerable and self-doubting character so ridiculously well that I was
completely ambivalent about how to feel about him the entire time watching the
show. He’s not exactly an antihero nor a hero outright; that the actor is able
to walk the line between someone you really want to know more about and someone
you just want to punch in the face is impressive and keeps you paying attention
to him.
There's also a lot of dancing at a supernatural ball in Hell. Seriously.
Where I think the show falters is in taking what is
arguably an incredibly immersive reading experience and translating it to a
viewing experience that doesn’t have the same heft. The novel takes a story
about defining what it means to be English and makes even that process as
English as possible, purposefully opting always to describe the magic in the
most mundane and muted ways possible. The novel also contains more than 200
footnotes, giving it the veneer of a researched scholarly paper and further
bolstering its detached, English sensibility.
Did I mention there are also zombies?
That creative interpretation of a fantastic story is
wonderfully ironic on the page and doesn’t translate at all to the screen.
Which is understandable. It’s not a good idea, cinematically-speaking, to tell
a story about magic and then downplay the magical effects. So where the book
would take an almost distasteful approach to describing a scene where Jonathan
Strange conjures horses out of sand and sends them charging into the surf to
right a frigate that’s shoaled just off the coast, the show is left with no
option but to make this a fantastic event.
All of this will depending on your need for the show to
be faithful to the book, of course, or your affection for the experience of
reading the book to be accurately recreated in your watching of the show.
Classic Your Mileage May Vary situation.
Bottom line: If you desperately can’t wait for the Harry
Potter prequels to come out and really need a good dose of English people talking
about magic and you’ve always nursed a crush on Count Vronsky, Mr. Rochester,
or any other literary brooder of that era, this is a fun way to spend seven
hours of your time.
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