Blog #7 Quarter 2

Over the break I have read quite a few more chapters of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, but it is a very long and slow moving book so I'm still struggling to figure out what the plot is exactly. However in the part I read this past couple weeks, Mr. Norrell starts using more magic in his now not-so-new London setting. First because he wants to help in the war he goes to talk to Sir Walter Pole, a Minister who is about to be married in a few days time, but Sir Pole rejects him saying that magic is not respectable and not serious. However when Sir Pole's finance dies a few days later, Mr. Norrell brings her back to life by calling up a fairy and the fairy agrees to revive her but only if he can have half of her life (not quite sure what that means, but I'm sure I'll find out later in the book). So, Sir Pole, being ever so grateful and now with a new appreciation towards magic, allows Mr. Norrell to help in the war effort. At first they have trouble finding something for Mr. Norrell to do, but soon they have him blockade all the French ports with fake ships to the French are too afraid to go out and in that time period with the French trapped, the English are able to accomplish a lot. So Mr. Norrell is a hero again and now he begins to do magic a little more freely in London, but soon after he gets a visit from London's most famed street magician (street magicians are thought to be nothing more than con artists) who tells Mr. Norrell a prophecy . Mr. Norrell, however doesn't believe him and throws him out before he can even finish his long prophecy. Then the scene changes entirely to the story of Mr. Strange (as we later learn; Jonathan Strange's father) and how horrid and greedy he was. However he dies at the end of the chapter and that's it. As I said before even though this story is a tad slow moving, it is also somewhat choppy and it really didn't make much sense to switch to that chapter then switch right back to the story of Mr.Norrell in the next.

I also mentioned a few posts back how the author spells choose, chuse, well she also spells a few other words differently, like:

• sopha = sofa

• surprize = surprise

• shew = show

• stopt = stopped

So I thought, okay this is a little unusual, and then I remembered how I went on a People to People trip to Australia a couple years ago and they made us research different topics about Australia and one of the kid's project was the differences in slang terms in Australia and America. So I looked up my book on the Internet and the book that I'm reading is the first American version of Susanna Clark's book because she is British and therefore used the British spelling of certain words. I never really thought that people would spell words differently in different countries and its very interesting to think about. Her spelling also adds more to the setting of the book because the book takes place in Britain and the author spells in "British".