If you saw the movie The Prestige (which was also a book), you have a little of the flavor of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, though Clarke's book is comical, and The Prestige, in my memory of the film, is rather grim. Strange & Norrell is recommended by my local library for readers who enjoyed The Night Circus, which is how I came across it. Some reviewers have said it combines high fantasy with the drawing room humor of Jane Austen. Certainly the social contretemps endured by Clarke's characters seem more in keeping with the brightness of Austen's world than with the deadly earnestness of The Prestige, despite all the magic and references to Faerie.
Personally, though, I can't imagine any of Austen's people holding much truck with the spell-strewn, whimsical characters of Clarke's book, though I see what reviewers mean about the society humor. The book is funny as well as fantastical, and the humor is a nice balance to the dark twists the story takes. I don't think the book would be as effective without the sniping social climbers, jealous rivals, mystified government ministers, and long-suffering servants who inhabit its pages and counteract some of the eeriness. There are many good fantasy writers, but the ability to seamlessly combine wildly imaginative plotting, alternate worlds, wit, history, and satire is rare, I think.
I would compare the tone of the book to Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising, with its sense of menace and otherworldly mayhem, crossed with the quirkiness and dark humor of Sadie Jones's The Uninvited Guests, with some Neil Gaiman-style chaos, a la American Gods, thrown in. This description is not to detract at all from the author's originality and sheer imaginative brilliance, but it does give you an idea of the territory the novel occupies.
The genius of the story lies in the characterization of the magicians as just another species of "gentlemen scientists," men of standing who happen to have chosen the art of magic for their profession instead of law, the military, or the Church. They approach the most arcane and fantastical of tasks--walking through mirrors, bringing someone back from the dead, moving a city across the ocean to affect the course of a war--with the matter-of-factness of scholars; they study, hoard books, publish, curry favor, seek publicity, become arrogant, and jockey for position. Historical figures, including George III, the Duke of Wellington, and Lord Byron, mingle easily with the book's characters, exhibiting none of the artificiality of "cameo" appearances. They are just a few more well-drawn personages in a large, sprawling, and lively cast.
In one of my favorite scenes, Strange, the bolder and more adventurous of the contending magicians, has feuded with Lord Byron, whom he encounters while traveling in Switzerland. The two men share the same publisher, who receives letters from both of them, each complaining about the other, on the same day. The publisher, Mr. Murray, decides that although it's too bad his clients don't jibe, it really isn't surprising, "since both men were famous for quarrelling: Strange with Norrell, and Byron with practically everybody." In a footnote, Clarke has Byron use Strange as the inspiration for the magician in his poem Manfred.
I don't know if Ms. Clarke intends ever to revisit these characters; the story's conclusion seems to leave the possibility open, since the end, though satisfying, doesn't tie all the loose threads up neatly. While this may have been simply a nod to complexity and a refusal to go with a predictable ending, it makes for an easy segue into a sequel if it ever comes to that. I wouldn't count on it, but I wouldn't rule it out either. The trickster spirit of the novel, of taking characters and readers places they didn't expect to go, is evident even in the closing sentences. I turned pages anxiously to see how it would turn out but was obstinately sad when it was all over.
