Blog #3 Quarter 2

In the next chapter of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell all of the magicians of The Society of York gather in the town cathedral to see Mr. Norrell and his display of magic. However Mr. Norrell doesn't show, Childermass does and Mr. Segundas doesn't remember him at all (therefore proving my theory that Mr. Norrell must have done some sort of magic on him because you can't just forget a person). Childermass tells them that Mr. Norrell shall do the magic at home and they shall watch the results. Some a loud voice begins booming out the story of a murder and they look around and find it to be the voice of a statue. Then all the other statues begin talking and moving around and half an hour later they stop. So the magicians of York can no longer call themselves magicians (except for Mr. Segundas) and The Society of York is forced to disband. Lastly, at the end of the chapter Mr. Segundas finds out that Mr. Norrell will soon be moving to London and Mr. Segundas will be the only magician left in Yorkshire.
Since we have been talking a lot a about style in class lately, I thought I might talk a little bit about Susanna Clarke's style. I've already mentioned that almost all of her characters are referred to as a "Mr", "Ms" or "Mrs" and the only character that isn't is Childermass. Also she uses a lot of parentheses when she is writing instead of just using commas like most writers and another thing that makes her writing unique is her use of footnotes, where after a sentence she puts a little number and then on the bottom of the page she elaborates upon the subject of the sentence. The use of her footnotes show really how much thought she has put into the universe of this book, as most of the footnotes are stories, songs, or more information about the world that her book takes place in. Another thing that makes her style very different is how most of the time she writes in a third person point of view, but sometimes she will slip into the first person as herself as the author for a few sentences. So it's almost like she's narrating her book. Lastly I noticed that when she writes the word "choose" or any other form of it, she writes it as "chuse", which I thought was sort of strange seeing as she doesn't spell any other words differently.

Blog #2 Quarter 2

Well I read the next chapter of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and in this chapter there are some exciting things that happen. First of all Mr. Segundas and Mr. Honeyfoot go to visit Mr. Norrell and he lets them look in his library, and it turns out that in their world there are books of magic (like spells and such) and books about magic (about people doing magic and magical occurrences) . Mr. Norrell has the rarest kind in his library, the books of magic, but he does seem very skeptical of all the authors and doesn't seem to think that a lot of them are very good. However, Mr. Segundas and Mr. Honeyfoot are amazed and then even more so when Mr. Norrell tells them that he can actually DO magic. So they go back and tell the Society of York of their findings, who doesn't really believe them because for some odd reason they can't remember much of their visit. So they send Mr. Norrell a letter who replies with an angry one back and sends a guy named Mr. Robinson to make them sign a contract. It says that if he proves he can do magic they have to disband the Society of York and never call themselves magicians again, all sign except Mr. Segundas.
One thing I don't get is why Mr. Norrell sends Mr. Robinson with the contract when in the chapter we were introduced to his creepy man of business, Childermass. So if Mr. Robinson handles Mr. Norrell's contracts and such, what exactly does Childermass do? He sort of gives off a creepy air when you read about him and I think that so far he's the only character in the book who doesn't have the "Mr." or "Mrs." in front of his/her name, which is a little strange. Also I bet that the reason that Mr. Segundas and Mr. Honeyfoot forgot most of there amazing trip is because Mr. Norrell used a spell on them because they were so awed that I don't think it's possible that they could have forgotten something like that. Also in this chapter I learned a lot more about the main characters. I found out that Mr. Honeyfoot seems to be a real idealist and thinks that everyone wants to do everything for the greater good and such, Mr. Segundas however seems to be more sensible and more of a realist, and Mr. Norrell seems to know just about everything out there for there to know.

Blog #1 Quarter 2

I just started reading a book called, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, a novel by Susanna Clark. So far, the book has started with the description of the York society, a society of magicians that discuss old magic, but don't practice it. This is one of the earlier quotes in the book that describes the society, "In fact to own the truth, not one of these magicians had ever cast the smallest spell, nor by magic caused one leaf to tremble upon a tree, made one mote of dust to alter its course or changed a single upon any one's head. But with this one minor reservation, they enjoyed a reputation as some of the wisest and most magical gentlemen in Yorkshire." This quote made me think that, really if they can't do magic they shouldn't be able to call themselves magicians because they're just as ordinary when it comes to magic as the regular old people who are not in the society. I also think they shouldn't be some of the most respected gentlemen in Yorkshire if they can't even do the one thing that they are revered for. Anyway, in the beginning we also meet Mr. Segundas and Mr. Honeyfoot who are 2 of the members of the society that want to know why nobody ever does magic anymore. So they go to visit a sort of recluse magician because the magicians of the society aren't very helpful at all in answering their question. The York magicians before had asked him to join, but he sent a letter of refusal. When he sent his letter back the York society speculated that, "any body with such small handwriting could ever make a tolerable magician." and I thought this was funny because handwriting has nothing to do with magic (or at least I think it doesn't) and they aren't even tolerable magicians themselves because they can't even do magic, so who are they to judge. Anyway I thought this recluse magician had the right Idea because so far this society just seems like a group of phoneys. So Mr. Segundas and Mr. Honeyfoot go visit this recluse man who's name turns out to be Mr. Norrell. So because his name is in the title I predict that he is going to be a very important character in this book and I also think that the main plot of this book is that the 3 men are going to either try and find out how the magic disappeared or try to bring the magic back to everyone in England.