sometimes I read things that are not fanfic...

[ratcreature]

Like just now I am reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke, because I had seen it recced a lot. But... so far (I'm only on page 344 of its slightly over 1000 pages) I'm kind of underwhelmed.

It hasn't really hooked me, a sure sign for that being that I read it mostly on public transport, whereas if I'm really engaged with a book I usually bother to take it out of my bag and continue reading it at home rather than leaving it. I still don't like any of the characters. I realize that that's probably intentional, but while the book is kind of interesting with its worldbuilding I'm starting to ask myself whether I really want to spend several hundreds of pages more with characters I dislike. Also, I find the whole excessive footnote thing kind of jarring. If it was just brief footnotes it would be different maybe, but some are four full pages long.

Comments

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

I finished it, but then, I was trapped on a plane going from Chicago to Portland with nothing else to read, so I'm not sure how much that says about the book itself. *G*

I did keep hoping it would become more interesting-- or at least, more interesting in ways that mattered to *me*-- but while I loved the world-building, and the settings, and the way magic worked, and the *civilization*, and the sets... I was like you, I just didn't really *connect* with any of the characters.

[ratcreature]

Yeah, the world is kind of cool, but seriously, all the characters are like the ultimate anti-MarySues. You know, like how sometimes fanwriters do meta about how to avoid turning OCs into MarySues that hog the attention and the sympathy from canon characters, and give the different example for MarySues, like those authors who make the OC an unremarkable librarian with mousebrown hair and two cats who isn't attracted to the guys at all for herself etc. to avoid the whole violet eyes warrior princess who gets together with the hero thing, only that's far more like self-insertion anyway, and she ends up a yenta too? If I ever need to explain how to avoid making characters likable and attractive in any way, I can point to this book... *g*