Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

Mr. Norrell, BBC’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, TV series.

"He hardly ever spoke of magic, and when he did it was like a history lesson and no one could bear to listen to him."

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke

It is not often that I get to read a novel and watch the video adaptation at the same time. The book by Susanna Clarke is thick volume that depicts an alternative history of the English Napoleonic wars. It is a story of two magicians, one Mr. Norrell who reveals his powers by making the stone statues of the York cathedral speak and by reviving a young woman promised to be married to Sir Polk, from the dead. I have only read up to the end of the first book of this volume, so I will not introduce the other magician Jonathan Strange now.

So far in my reading Mr. Norrell, although a bit out of the ordinary, seems like a decent fellow, but in my viewing of the BBC TV series, Mr. Norrell, in his want of total control of his medium in England, and to see his plans come to fruition, has taken on some unscrupulous methods.