Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Genre

Genre

Reviewers variously describe Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell as a fantasy novel, an alternative history, a historical fiction, or as a combination of these styles. Clarke herself says, "I think the novel is viewed as something new ... blending together a few genres – such as fantasy and adventure and pastiche historical – plus there's the whole thing about slightly knowing footnotes commenting on the story." She explains in an interview that she was particularly influenced by the historical fiction of Rosemary Sutcliff as well as the fantasies of Ursula K. Le Guin and Alan Garner, and that she loves the works of Austen.

In his review for The Boston Globe, John Freeman observes that Clarke’s fantasy, like that of Franz Kafka and Neil Gaiman, is imbued with realism. He argues that the footnotes in particular lend an air of credibility to the narrative: for example, they describe a fictional biography of Jonathan Strange and list where particular paintings in Norrell’s house are located. In an interview, Clarke describes how she creates this realist fantasy: "One way of grounding the magic is by putting in lots of stuff about street lamps, carriages and how difficult it is to get good servants." To create this effect, the novel includes many references to real early-nineteenth century people and things, such as: artists Francisco Goya, Cruikshank, and Rowlandson; writers Frances Burney, William Beckford, Monk Lewis, Lord Byron, and Ann Radcliffe; Maria Edgeworth's Belinda and Austen's Emma; publisher John Murray; politicians Lord Castlereagh and George Canning; The Gentleman's Magazine and The Edinburgh Review; Chippendale and Wedgwood furnishings; and the madness of King George III. Clarke has said that she hopes the magic is as realistic as that in Le Guin's Earthsea trilogy. This realism has led other reviewers, such as Polly Shulman, to argue that Clarke’s book is more of an historical fiction, akin to the works of Patrick O’Brian. As she explains, "Both Clarke's and O'Brian's stories are about a complicated relationship between two men bound together by their profession; both are set during the Napoleonic wars; and they share a dry, melancholy wit and unconventional narrative shape." Shulman sees fantasy and historical fiction as similar because both must follow rigid rules or risk a breakdown of the narrative.

As well as literary styles, Clarke pastiches many Romantic literary genres: the comedy of manners, the Gothic tale, the silver-fork novel, the military adventure, the Byronic hero, and the historical romance of Walter Scott. In fact, Clarke's novel maps the literary history of the early nineteenth century: the novel begins with the style and genres of Regency England, an "Austenian world of light, bright, sparkling dialogue and well-mannered gentility", and gradually transforms into a dark, Byronic tale. Clarke combines these Romantic genres with modern ones, such as the fantasy novel, drawing on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, Philip Pullman, T. H. White, and C.S. Lewis. As Maguire notes, Clarke includes rings of power and books of spells that originate in these authors' works. In contrast, Sacha Zimmerman suggests in The New Republic that while Tolkien's world is "entirely new", Clarke's world is more engaging because it is eerily close to the reader's. Although many reviewers compare Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell to the Harry Potter series, Annie Linskey contends in The Baltimore Sun that "the allusion is misleading": unlike J. K. Rowling's novels, Clarke's is morally ambiguous, with its complex plot and dark characters.