MAGIC AND HISTORY IN SUSANNA CLARKES

JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR NORRELL

By

Istvn Szabadi

University of Debrecen

Institute of English and American Studies

Supervisor: Dr. Tams Bnyei

Debrecen, Hungary

2012

i

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 1

I. History ................................................................................................................................... 3

1. History as the object of contempt ................................................................................... 3

2. Historiographic metafiction ............................................................................................ 5

3. Historical representations................................................................................................ 9

II. Magic .................................................................................................................................. 14

1. Magic and history intertwined ...................................................................................... 14

2. Magic as discourse .......................................................................................................... 18

3. Primitive magic ........................................................................................................... 20 4. Magic as institution ........................................................................................................ 26

III. The dichotomy of Nature and Culture .......................................................................... 29

1. A Rousseauian text ......................................................................................................... 29

2. Nature: feared and desired ............................................................................................ 30

3. Fairies: a natural culture ............................................................................................... 33

4. Magic and Christianity .................................................................................................. 36

5. A return to (of) Nature ................................................................................................... 38

Conclusion: Nature re-presented .......................................................................................... 42

1

Introduction

We must have magicians. Who else can interpret Englands history to us? Our common

historians cannot (Clarke 91).

Susanna Clarkes first novel, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, presents an account of

a certain period of English history, saturated by the presence of magic. Neil Gaiman considers

Clarkes novel as the finest English novel of the fantastic written in the last seventy years

(on the cover of the book) but Audrey Niffenegger, in her introduction of the novel, suggests

that the categorisation of the novel as fantasy fails to define the complexity of Jonathan

Strange and Mr Norrell: Fantasy is simply the branch of literature which contains a very

high ratio of invented things to real things. Susanna Clarke straddles the line her inventions

dovetail so perfectly with things we know to be true (though how we know this is another

perplexing question) that after spending an afternoon with Jonathan Strange doing magic in

the service of Lord Wellington or kibitzing with Lord Byron it is no wonder that some of us

yearn for the good old days of English (n.pag).

Niffenegger touches upon issues I shall elaborate on my paper: First I intend to define

Clarkes novel in terms of a postmodern pseudo-historical genre, as historiographic

metafiction, based on Linda Hutcheons theory. As the issues of history and historical

representation are crucial for the genre and for postmodernism as well, I discuss the way they

are presented in Clarkes novel, applying the theories of Hayden White and Frank Ankersmit.

I shall also analyse the manner in which magic and history are intertwined in Jonathan

Strange and Mr Norrell and examine how the novel juxtaposes possible approaches to the

issue of magic. I propose a reading of the Strangite approach as similar to primitive magic in

the anthropological sense and then I describe Gilbert Norrells attitude in terms of magic

considered as an institution with its specific cultural role; in terms of alchemy rather than

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primitive magic. Finally, I shall give an interpretation of the difference between these

approaches based on the dichotomy of Nature and Culture in the sense in which it is discussed

by Jacques Derrida.

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I. History

1. History as the object of contempt

He hardly ever spoke of magic, and when he did it was like a history lesson and no one could

bear to listen to him (Clarke 1).

The motto of the novel poses a set of disturbing questions: the criticism is aimed at Mr

Norrell, the magician, who is destined (mostly by himself) to restore English magic to its

former glory. Starting a novel which is supposed to be full of magic with such a sentence

may have a discouraging effect on the reader: why would the author connect magic and

history, especially if the latter is shown as something of embarrassingly low interest? Which

one of the two is the novel really about? Is it a fantasy novel at all? In my paper, I will explore

the relationship in the novel between magic and history.

In The Burden of History Hayden White shows that late 19th century historians were

shown as people of a very low status in literature (34). He enumerates a group of exemplary

characters who represent the same historical consciousness as Mr Norrell. Through them the

works of literature express contempt for history and regard historians as figures of stagnation

or regression to the past. Casaubon in George Eliots Middlemarch is such a character, just

like Jrgen Tesman in Ibsens Hedda Gabler. They both embody the history that is unable to

release people from its burden, its nightmare those who examine it will always remain in a

detached, distant past and eventually forget about present reality (The Burden 34-37). White

attributes the origins of this attitude to Nietzsche: Nietzsche hated history even more than he

hated religion (Tropics 32). In The Use and Abuse of History, Nietzsche enumerates three

different conceptions of history. Norrell represents the attitude that Nietzsche calls

antiquarian. For Nietzsche, this conception of history is irreconcilable with life: there is a

degree of doing history and a valuing of it through which life atrophies and degenerates

through which living comes to harm and finally is destroyed, whether it is a person or a

people or a culture (Nietzsche 27, 31). Hayden White rejects this negative attitude and in his

works he strives to reconsider the place of history. Similarly to White and to Nietzsche,

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Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell offers several contrasting and overlapping (thus much less

determining) attitudes and views of history.

Apart from the character of Mr Norrell, the novel presents another, very different

instance of contempt for history. Towards the end of the book John Uskglass returns to

rewrite his book which is the body of Vinculus1, the street sorcerer2. When Vinculus realises

the change he celebrates it with a gleeful dance, but Childermass3 becomes upset and worried

at the loss of the words. He does not understand why the original had to disappear. Vinculus

answers as follows: I was a Prophecy before; but the things that I foretold have come to pass.

So it is just as well I have changed or I would have become a History! A dry-as-dust

History! (Clarke 994). While White acknowledges the validity of such contempt and

declares that the perception of history and historians has to be changed, he strives to attain

this through unveiling and analysing the truth-manufacturing processes of historiography in

order to establish the position of history as a dialogue between past and present and validate

its importance in understanding human experience (The Burden 67). Jonathan Strange and

Mr Norrell is not a book about the contempt for history but it is precisely about how

problematic an issue history can be, in Hayden Whites sense.

1 Vinculuss father ate the actual book of the Raven King and as a consequence his son was born with the book written on his skin in strange, blue marks, that is, the Kings Letters (Clarke 974). 2 Street sorcerers pretend to be practical magicians who rob children of their pennies (Clarke 5). They are charlatans, their practical magic is the bosom companion of unshaven faces, gypsies, house-breakers (Ibid.). Keith Thomas in Religion and the Decline of Magic discusses the role of cunning men, that is, medieval magicians who can be identified with street sorcerers in Clarkes novel. Even though it is not in the main focus of my paper, it would certainly be worth examining the connection between them, as well as the way they are

related to primitive oracles, magicians and witches as described, for example, in E. E. Evans-Pritchards Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande. 3 Childermass is the servant of Mr Norrell who also performs magic, mostly in secret.

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2. Historiographic metafiction

If one accepts that it is possible and rewarding to examine the novel from this

perspective, one can see that it exceeds the limits of the genre of fantasy. It can find its place

in the genre of historiographic metafiction as defined by Linda Hutcheon. Jonathan Strange

and Mr Norrell has characteristics in common with novels analysed in Hutcheons A Poetics

of Postmodernism (John Fowless A Maggot, J. Michael Coetzees Foe or Ian Watsons

Chekhovs Journey) but it also resembles Lawrence Norfolks Lemprires Dictionary. All of

these novels provide an unofficial, alternative account of a certain historical period. Norfolk,

for example, gives false, fantastic causes and background to the French Revolution without

altering further basic historical data. There are apocryphal accounts of history in Jonathan

Strange and Mr Norrell as well that are similar to those in Norfolks novel. For instance, the

whole of the Napoleonic wars is waged with magical aid: Norrell and Strange both do magic

on the instructions of the government both in England in the Peninsular War with the Duke of

Wellington. The representation of historical figures also contributes to the apocryphal nature

of the novel as all of them are heavily involved in the magical reality: the Duke of

Wellington, the mad King George III and Lord Byron all appear in the novel with a first-hand

experience of magic. Furthermore, gothic writers (such as William Beckford, Matthew Lewis

and Ann Radcliffe) are presented as contributors to magic: there is debate if the horrors of

their writing could be used in magic to create dreams that Mr Norrell could then pop into

Buonapartes head (Clarke 311). Sir Walter Scott also appears in the novel to write about Mr

Norrell (Clarke 363). However, the novel ventures even further than this; what it offers is the

invention and a thorough rewriting of what is represented as an uncanonised, forgotten aspect

of public history. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell presents a recognisable early 19th-century

England (and Europe) which differs from the official historical version in one major

respect: in this world, magic is part of life, known by practically everybody. In the England of

the novel nobody is surprised at the existence of magic and magicians.

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According to Hutcheons theory, the attention drawn to history is itself a characteristic

of historiographic metafiction. She finds that the presence of the past (Hutcheon 4) is an

important concept of postmodernism and thus it is a crucial aspect of historiographic

metafiction history is now, once again, an issue and a rather problematic one at that

(Hutcheon 87). This tendency surfaces at several points in the novel, most strikingly in its

exhaustive rewriting of history. Hutcheon attributes to the genre the attitude of a critical

revisiting, an ironic dialogue with the past instead of a nostalgic return (Hutcheon 4) to it

and this is what rewriting contributes to. Such revisiting also means giving voice to

oppressed, minoritarian discourses (Hutcheon 61)4. Similarly, by choosing history (and also:

the problems of history and attitudes to history) as a central theme, as a central plot element of

the novel, Clarke indeed conjures the presence of the past: the basic difference between

Norrell and Strange is shown in their attitude towards magical history and the past reality of

magic, and the controversy of their principles becomes one of the major driving forces of the

plot.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, as historiographic metafiction, differs significantly

from the classical, 19th-century historical novel. Gyrgy Lukcs in A trtnelmi regny

examines the characteristics of historical novel and here I would like to point out three that

Linda Hutcheon also discusses in A Poetics of Postmodernism. First, Lukcs argues that the

protagonist, as a historical figure, always embodies and internalises the nation and the

ideology it fights for: [the heros] human greatness is based on the fact that her/his personal

passion, personal aims coincide with the actual great historical currents and that she/he

combines the positive and negative sides of this current (Lukcs 44 my translation). This is

contrasted by the postmodernist historical figure in Hutcheons theory: the protagonists of

historiographic metafiction are anything but proper types: they are ex-centrics (Hutcheon

4 Even though it is beyond the scope of this paper, this aspect of marginal history could offer a great number of possible approaches to the text: it would be fruitful to examine the situation of Lady Pole, Arabella Strange or

Stephen Black in the story. They represent the off-centre positions and the author builds around them one of the

most problematic and subversive side of the plot that is, how gender and racial issues saturate the text.

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114). Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell both struggle finding their proper place in their own

time and also in the huge magical tradition. They cannot embody a tradition they cannot or

do not want to understand. Hutcheon also argues that while historical fiction, according to

Lukcs, uses historical data and evidence only to increase the verifiability of the novel by

assimilating and internalising it, postmodern fiction actually uses historical data but rarely

assimilates them (Hutcheon 114). This factor is clearly present in Clarkes novel in the huge

amount of bibliographical data and footnoting as a device. The third characteristic is

concerned with real historical figures. Lukcs writes that historically significant figures

are compositionally supporting characters (Lukcs 45 my translation) but in postmodern

novels this is hardly the case (Hutcheon 114). Clarkes novel presents historical figures

like the Duke of Wellington as characters that are heavily involved in the plot. Lukcs

suggests that the author of historical fiction lets them [the historical figures] act of their own

accord (Lukcs 45) but in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell they do not appear only to play

themselves, that is, to act the way they did in real history. As I have discussed before,

these characters are apocryphal and this also means that they are significant in the novel.

Although the apocryphal history depicted in the novel can be regarded the way

Doctorows Ragtime was considered as dehistoricized and devoid of historical memory by

Terry Eagleton, this claim is not valid, neither can we say that this kind of novel lacks the

referent or real historical world (Hutcheon 18-19). This is one point where Hutcheons and

Hayden Whites theories meet: postmodernist, historically conscious thinking does not lack

such a referent but highlights what is problematic about it and its representation by the means

of historiographic metafiction [which] inscribes and only then subverts its mimetic

engagement with the world (Hutcheon 20). I will return later to the way this shift is

discussed by White and how it is applicable to Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.

Hutcheon considers the presence of footnotes as an important element of

historiographic metafiction, and Clarkes novel uses them extensively. Hutcheon writes: [the

genre uses] the paratextual conventions of historiography (especially footnotes) to both

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inscribe and undermine the authority and objectivity of historical sources and explanations

(Hutcheon 123). The footnotes in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell create a small universe,

an alternative reality with the multitude of stories told in them, showing that the novel is

balancing on the borderline between fiction and history, simulating the truth-manufacturing

textual machinery of footnotes in order to offer a number of supernatural anecdotes.

Finally, it is interesting to see how a characteristic concern of historiographic

metafiction becomes a plot element in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. Hutcheon argues

that writing down the truth about history always involves a process that will silence,

exclude, and absent certain past events (Hutcheon 107). This is exactly what Mr Norrell does

when he strives to obtain every single book which is concerned with magic and magical

history. When Strange is trying to buy some magical books, the bookseller smiles and bows

and says, Ah sir, you are come too late! I had a great many books upon subjects magical and

historical. But I sold them all to a very learned gentleman of Yorkshire. It is always Norrell

(Clarke 278). Meanwhile, Norrell himself wants to write a comprehensive study of magic

(and magical education) so that everyone would know his account of the past as the only and

definitive version. This account would omit the Raven King and the fairies who embody the

kind of magic that is beyond the scope of institutionalisation intended by Norrell. He admires

and follows another, long-deceased magician, who also wanted to write a comprehensive

collection of rules concerning magic and exclude[d] those kinds of magic for which it is

customary to employ fairies (Clarke 75). Norrell is sure that Great Britains best interests

were served by absolute silence on these subjects (Clarke 539)5.

5 This process of selection, exclusion and silence is also thoroughly discussed by Hayden White: the way

different historical representations can be formulated from a given set of past events (The Burden 73).

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3. Historical representations

In Historical Representation, F. R. Ankersmit investigates how history is presented to

us and discusses how historians intend to reveal past reality (12-14). He makes a distinction

between two modes of talking about that reality: description and representation. For

Ankersmit description means speaking about reality through a subject-predicate construction.

For example, we can describe the earth by saying that the earth is globular, a claim whose

truth or falsity can be verified simply by deciding if the subject possesses that property or not.

Description is mimesis in terms of language and it takes its own truthfulness for granted.

As opposed to this, Ankersmits notion of representation suggests a mode in which

two things are presented whose relation is metaphorical in nature. For instance, the statement

the earth is a spaceship (Ankersmit 13) is definitely not true as a description (the earth is

not a spaceship) but in a diegetical sense, in the world created by the metaphor, true properties

of the earth can be derived from this statement. Hayden White writes that historical

representations are by no means identical to scale models, physical models whose accuracy

can be evaluated by measurements. It is the alien, distant or even absent status of the past that

prevents historians from doing so. They are not mimetic copies but metaphorical statements

which can be regarded as true or false only in their metaphorical sense (The Burden 81).

Even though the absence of the represented is unalterable, it is important to see what is

absent and thus needs to be re-presented in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. However,

first it is crucial to see how Ankersmit links the etymology of representation to the status of

the absent represented. The etymology of the word representation will give us access to its

ontological properties: we may re-present something by presenting a substitute of this thing

in its absence. The real thing is not, or is no longer available to us, and something else is

given to us in order to replace it (Ankersmit 11). In the case of Norrell and Strange the

Raven King is the absence, the missing represented. As Mr Norrell puts it: Do you think he

[The Raven King] cares what happens to England? I tell you he does not. He abandoned us

long ago (Clarke 539). The empty throne of the Raven King allegorises the absence of the

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referent of all discourses about the past. The attitudes of Strange and Norrell to this absence

will be discussed later.

In the absence of the referent, historical representations, historical narratives are

supposed to be as real as past events were. Hayden Whites theory on the process of

emplotment is applicable here to Clarkes novel. White argues that the events are made

into a story by suppression or subordination of certain of them and the highlighting of others

and so from value-neutral (Tropics 84) events it is possible to create an almost infinite

number of different kinds of representations. The lack of any single truth results in

accumulating and investigating various truths: [H]istorical insight is not a matter of a

continuous narrowing down of previous options, not of an approximation of the truth, but,

on the contrary, is an explosion of possible points of view (Ankersmit 16).

It also follows that one representation, one metaphor alone cannot generate a full

rendering of reality: numerous different statements can be true, like for instance the earth is a

spaceship, the earth is a garden (Ankersmit 14); these statements can coexist without

rendering each other false. What is more, the acceptance of parallel true metaphors is the only

way to a fuller understanding: [W]e are relatively helpless if we have only one metaphor.

Only if more metaphors are available can a comparison be made and only then can their

relative shortcomings and merits be discussed. This may explain why we dont have in history

just one more or less authoritative account, accepted by all historians (Ankersmit 14). Even

though the historian-author emplots his account as a story of a particular kind and produces

a romance, tragedy, comedy, satire, epic, or what have you (Tropics 86), these

representations never cancel each other out but rather create a more complete understanding

of the past.

The mechanism of emplotment is exemplified in Clarkes novel in the scene when

Childermass uses his deck of tarot cards to reveal the future (and also the past and the

present). This form of fortune-telling is traditionally about interpretation as divination, maybe

even more than any other classical forms. The cards are symbols with culturally attached

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meanings which, taken together, give meaning to a specific, momentary situation. There are

an infinite number of interpretations of a given number of cards. Of course, as magic is real in

the novel, it is no surprise that Childermass can tell the future of Vinculus, but the more

interesting instance of the dealing of the tarot cards is definitely the one done for Childermass

by Vinculus6. Even though he is able to deal the cards in a pattern that reveals the truth about

Childermass, Vinculus cannot attach meaning to this chain of signs because in this magical

reality he lacks the necessary knowledge. However, this example is applicable to the

problematics of not interpreting historical events: they remain a distant reality without any

connection between past and present, without creating the presence of the past.

In an even more complex fashion the same principle of emplotment/interpretation is

depicted in the scene where Vinculus is rewritten by the Raven King. The street sorcerer is

glad to have changed as it indicates that magic is indeed alive and, like every living entity, is

subject to constant change. He feels that a History is different from a Prophecy in the

hierarchical sense mentioned before. However, he does not perceive that on a certain level

these are very similar texts. Trying to tell what will happen seems as problematic as telling

what has happened. The method both of a Prophecy and a History is based on interpreting

signs. When Childermass tries to identify and understand a sign on Vinculus the street

sorcerer cannot answer him the way Childermass demands of him: It means last Tuesday,

he said. It means three pigs, one of em wearing a straw hat! It means Sally went a-dancing

in the moons shadow and lost a little rosy purse! (Clarke 995). The confusion becomes total

if one realises that even the overall meaning or purpose of the new text is unknown and the

possibilities are unlimited. Perhaps I am a Receipt-Book! Perhaps I am a Novel! Perhaps I

am a Collection of Sermons! (Clarke 994). It can be a Prophecy, again, but also a History.

As long as events, symbols, signs remain value-neutral no explanation or truth-fabrication

is possible but through the process of emplotment a representation is produced.

6 Then he turned them over one by one: XVIII La Lune, XVI La Maison Dieu reversed, The Nine of Swords, Valet de Baton, The Ten of Batons reversed, II La Papesse, X La Rove de Fortune, The Two of Coins, The King

of Cups. Childermass laughed. That is my life there on the table. But you cannot read it (Clarke 238).

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Ankersmit makes another interesting remark that might be useful in a reading of

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell: The best historical representation is the most original one,

the least conventional one, the one that is least likely to be true and that yet cannot be

refuted on the basis of existing historical evidence (Ankersmit 22). Susanna Clarkes book is

indeed a most original and unlikely account, representation of the past. It is not likely to be

true and it can be refuted on the basis of evidence that is, evidence in the strictest sense of

the word.

Susanna Clarke invented a number of historians and books which retell an alternative

or apocryphal history that could not possibly have happened. Meanwhile, on the other hand,

the past that is considered as true or manufactured as true in the most conventional-rational

sense mingles so profoundly with the imaginary that one easily loses ones grasp on what is

intended as the novels primary reality. This characteristic of the novel suits both Linda

Hutcheons and Hayden Whites theory. This effect is also characteristic of the genre of

Menippean satire according to the analysis by Bakhtin7. As Ankersmit puts it: The

Menippean satirist shows his exuberance in intellectual ways, by piling up an enormous mass

7 Although there is no space here to go into a detailed analysis, I want to indicate a few directions that a reading of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell as a Menippean satire might take. In Problems of Dostoevskys Poetics, Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin describes Menippean satire and offers a set of characteristics of fourteen elements

(Balthin 143-149), also claiming that the Menippean satire has become a major means of carrying and accompanying the carnivalistic worldview, even today (Bakhtin 142 my translation). This indicates that the genre is still evolving with or without definable genre-consciousness (Bakhtin 142 my translation). There are several among Bakhtins features that seem to apply to Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. The element of laughter (especially reduced laughter) can be tracked in the overall ironical representation of English social life.

The freedom from demands of realistic, life-like (one may add: historical) representation is a basic, inherent

aspect of both Menippean satire and Clarkes novel. The adventurous journeys the characters (especially Jonathan Strange) go through are always means of searching for truths and principles (about magic and magical

traditions) by challenging (and subverting) them. The established framework of magic directly allows the

presentation of supernatural realms: here the land of Fairie is a recurring place, but heaven and hell are also

mentioned as real and accessible. According to Bakhtin, Menippean satire was the first literary genre to

introduce moral-psychological experimentation, that is, the representation of unusual, abnormal moral-psychical states of people all kinds of madness , duplication of personality, unstoppable musing, strange dreams and passions verging on madness (Bakhtin 146 my translation). The result of these transgressive mechanisms is that human fate loses its completeness and unambiguity, the identity of the self ceases to exist but this leads to the opening up of the possibility of another self, another life (Bakhtin 146 my translation). This is crucial for Jonathan Strange who can reach the desired, deeper, more dangerous forms of magic through

madness only. His insanity and the events it leads to fulfil another characteristic of the Menippean satire: the

genre, like Clarkes novel presents scandalous scenes, peculiar behaviour, improper speech and remarks, that is, the transgression of the generally accepted and usual course of events; of the norms of behaviour and etiquette (Bakthin 147 my translation).

13

of erudition about his theme or by overwhelming his targets with an avalanche of their own

jargon (Ankersmit 2). The reader is confounded in the maze of data, yet one can observe

how this also points towards proposing truths: the reader is forced to acknowledge the

existence of mechanisms of truth-producing. Truth is not something out there but an effect

of these mechanisms.

In order to reinforce this distrustful approach to an exclusive truth, the novel radically

breaks with the solid mechanism of constructing the narrative voice (and the narrative

agency): there are at least three different (and incompatible) kinds of narrative identity and of

truth-manufacturing discourse. First, the voice of a classical 19th-century novelist provides the

omniscient narration which inherently knows everything and shares a certain amount of the

knowledge with the reader. The novel even uses consistently archaic forms of certain words

(surprize or shew) to characterise the narrative voice. Apart from the kind of truth derived

from omniscience, Clarkes novel evokes a historian-archivist discourse by means of the

extensive footnotes and bibliographical references. The kind of truth manufactured by this is

evidence-based, factual; it presupposes that the Truth can be reached but it is not self-evident

even for the narrative agency. The third narrative identity or agency involves a very subjective

perspective which surfaces in certain lapses that Victorian omniscient narrators would never

indulge in: The narrator expresses personal opinions, for example in the description of Sir

Walter Pole. So as to oppose a contemporary account of Sir Poles appearance, she writes:

To my mind he was not so very plain. True, his features were all extremely bad (Clarke 81).

Manufacturing truth in this way means that all that is held as true originates in the subjects

personal experience. Lapses of this kind radically subvert the integrity if the narrative voice

and make the reader uncertain of the kind of narrative s/he is reading. The three incompatible

discourses not only indicate plurality but create a paradoxical space of writing where,

however they would seem to, they do not cancel each other out.

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II. Magic

1. Magic and history intertwined

So far I have discussed what is problematic about history and how it is represented in

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell but now I would like to return to the other constituent part

of the simile of Mr Norrells motto: magic. In order to further explore the complex

connection between magic and history I will point out how Clarkes novel approximates the

two terms to such an extent that they frequently become almost synonymous or

interchangeable. Magic works as a metaphor of history.

This overlap or even identity between the historical and the magical, between history

and magic is exemplified through a scene in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. The authority

over explaining and interpreting history is contested: the future Lady Pole, Miss Emma

Wintertowne, expresses this in the most straightforward manner: Of course, said Miss

Wintertowne, we must have magicians. Who else can interpret Englands history to us []?

Our common historians cannot (Clarke 91). She states that magicians are more suitable to

carry out the explanation of history which means that in the reality of the book there is no

clear difference between history and magic: both have to do with the past not only as a set of

events and facts but also as a heritage, a living spirit of the community.

Causality and the way it fabricates worldviews are significant issues regarding both

magic and history. The novel provides examples where magic subverts rational causality and

performs changes in reality beyond the scope of normal understanding. Marcel Mauss, in A

General Theory of Magic, argues that magic always involves the modification of a given

state, magic is the art of changing (Mauss 61). In the novel it does not mean changes which

can be seen and followed in their course of happening but instead involves a certain change of

mental state or mindset which allows people to accept multiple variants of reality at the same

time or accept the changes without surprise8.

8 This aspect of the novel seems to qualify it as postmodern according to the system of Brian McHale in

Postmodernist Fiction, where postmodernism is defined as an ontological uncertainty concerning our world.

15

Such altering of reality is primarily related to the fairy gentleman with the thistle-

down hair. The way he lavishes Stephen Black9 with presents is exemplary of it: Poor

Stephen was assailed by miracles. Every few days something would occur to profit him in

some ways. Sometimes the actual value of what he gained was unremarkable [] but the

means by which it came to him were always extraordinary (Clarke 314)10. It is crucial that

the participants rarely know that magic is being performed. The version of the (hi)story they

know seems perfectly possible to them. When Stephen is magically transported to the

gentlemans house he shows an irrational acceptance of the represented reality: Once again

he was a little surprized but, as before, he grew accustomed to the idea in a moment and

began to look about him (Clarke 189-90).

According to Frazer, such an acceptance of the abnormal sequence of events as

meaningful characterises the worldview of primitive people they live in a world of magical

fallacies but they cannot see it. A savage hardly conceives the distinction commonly drawn

by more advanced peoples between the natural and the supernatural. To him the world is to a

great extent worked by supernatural agents (Frazer 24) 11. The way they see the world is

thoroughly saturated by magic. However, Claude Lvi-Strauss argues in The Savage Mind

that even if it [primitive thinking] is rarely directed towards facts of the same level as

those with which modern science is concerned, it implies comparable intellectual application

and methods of observation (3). For example, they possess a huge amount of abstract

knowledge concerning flora and fauna, which exceeds the concrete interest in their use (Lvi-

Strauss 4). Thus, the magical conception of the world is considered not as inferior but as on of

two parallel modes of acquiring knowledge (Lvi-Strauss 13).

9 The black servant of Sir Walter Pole. He becomes an involuntary friend of the fairy who tries to make a king of him. 10 The means include a person convinced that he met Stephen at a cockfight where they wagered on the deeds of

the Prince of Wales and now it is time that Stephen received his winnings. 11 Marcel Mauss argues similarly: the subjective association of ideas leads to the conclusion that there is an objective association of facts, or in other words that the fortuitous connexion between thoughts is equivalent to

the causal connexion between things (64).

16

Similarly, Tams Bnyei, in Apokrif iratok, analyses the relation of magical and

rational worldviews. He argues that their relation is supplementary (Bnyei 77), which means

that they cannot be clearly distinguished, and such endeavours proved to be unsuccessful or at

least dubious for anthropologists as well (Bnyei 78). Magic is resorted to as a solution for an

urging lack in realism. However, at the same time, the Nietzschean deconstruction of

causality (Bnyei 85) leads to the subversion of the supposed hierarchical relationship

between rational and magical causality: Causality, claims Nietzsche, is the retrospective

systematisation, falsification, or mythologisation in our minds of the processes of the world

(Bnyei 84). Thus, even though for Frazer magic causality [is] the mental operation that

brings together or correlates two things on the basis of an error (Bnyei 83), it is not less

faulty than rational causality: figurative (magical) causality becomes the causality par

excellence, of which rational causality is now a special case that unsuccessfully tries to deny

and suppress its figurative foundation (Bnyei 85).

For the concept of history causality is a major issue which creates an order, a system

from past events similarly to the fashion magical thinking produces order in the world.

Gyrgy Lukcs in his A trtnelmi regny examines the mechanisms of historical novels and

of writing about history. As a representative of Marxist historical theory, he found that history

is a long and gradual development with such major events as the French Revolution, for

instance, (Lukcs 28) which resulted in the break with small professional armies and also

meant that they were replaced by mass armies drafted from among ordinary people. This

massive involvement in military-political activities demanded that the nation understand the

historical context and social content of wars. It had to be contextualised why wars are

important for the development of the nation (Lukcs 23) and also that people must be made

aware of their place in the narrative course of history (Lukcs 25). Robert Youngs White

Mythologies is preoccupied with the theoretical perplexities of writing history (Young vii)

and discusses Marxist historical theory, putting emphasis on Lukcs as well. This system of

thought, Young argues, is a defence of a belief in the rationality of the historical process

17

(22) but, according to him, history has never been devoid of uncertainty: far from being the

concrete, it has always rather been the theoretical problem (23). He affirms Linda

Hutcheons views on the position of history in postmodernism as well when saying the more

general perspective of postmodernism has been widely characterized as involving a return

of history, albeit as a category of representation (23). Marxist teleological conception of

history is subject to criticism in Youngs book: what is in dispute is whether history has a

meaning as History [as] part of a larger meaning of an underlying Idea or force (22)

because this is what characterises Gyrgy Lukcss Marxist theory as well: the insistence on

history as a totality (Young 24) where history is self-evident and needs no elaboration

, [it is] an outside, a concrete, that somehow remains exterior to theory, unaffected by it

(Young 22).

Perhaps it is not too far-fetched to parallel this kind of firm belief in the ideological,

metaphysical sense that history makes with the supernatural causality of primitive people.12

Hayden Whites theory of emplotment and representation also points out the fallacies in the

way historical accounts are created: arbitrary emphases and exclusions are the realisations of

pre-generic plot structures (The Burden 72) and certain mythical themes. Through this

coding process, which always reflects the culture it is born in, the myths and archetypes are

rewritten again and again. This mythicised history and historical causality are not so distant

from the strategies of what anthropologists regarded as magical.

12 As Evans-Pritchard describes it in Theories of Primitive Religion: Primitive thought is orientated towards the supernatural [they] do not inquire into objective causal connexions , they are prevented from doing so by their collective representations, which are prelogical and mystical (80-81).

18

2. Magic as discourse

For all its centrality, magic as a legitimate means of interpreting the human experience

of history is by no means presented as a homogeneous system of thought in Clarkes novel:

one of the key elements is precisely the debate between Mr Norrell and Jonathan Strange over

the principles of their attitude to magic. It has to be noted first that the contrast between their

attitudes goes beyond personal opinions and can be described rather as the contrast between

two discrepant discourses. They do not only disagree about the features of magic but

conceptualise it as a different object. What Clarkes novel does here and throughout the novel

is the conceptualisation of magic as a discourse in Michel Foucaults sense of the word.

Sara Mills quotes Foucaults definition when saying discourse is not a group of signs or a

stretch of text but practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak

(Mills 17). There are three factors which can define two sets of ideas as two different

discourses: the factors of truth, power and knowledge (Mills 18). For Foucault a discourse

means the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true from false

statements (Mills 18). In the case of the two magicians this means not that they disagree

about a particular object: for the two of them magic is a completely different discourse.

Thus, Norrell says I cannot consider his [John Uskglasss] influence upon English magic

as any thing other than deplorable (Clarke 71), while Strange writes: It is JOHN

USKGLASSs magic that we do (Clarke 532). The basis, the centre from where truth can be

enunciated is the second factor, the factor of power, the condition of production of all

speech (Mills 20). Power determines what can be said but, in the Foucauldian sense, not

necessarily in a negative sense. Different truths are inherently derived from different

conditions of power. Instances of power (education, law, the media) become major issues

when it comes to differences between Norrell and Strange and it is Norrell who is oriented

towards these forms of power. The third factor, knowledge is the result or the effect of power

struggles (Mills 21). Constructing, sharing and withholding knowledge is a serious problem

for Norrell; I have already pointed out how he strives to obtain every single book which is

19

concerned with magic and magical history. In the next section I will discuss these issues in

detail, here I only mentioned them in order to position the Strangite-Norrellite difference in

the terminology of discourse.

The character of Childermass gives a twist to the problem of discourses. Even though

Jonathan Strange wants to free magic from the discourse of Norrell, he cannot but form

another discourse. One of his principles is that magic should be available to everyone

interested but another one is to oppose his former teachers views. He is optimistic about the

outcomes of this struggle: In the struggle to decide the character of English magic the sides

will be unevenly matched. There will only be one Norrellite magician and dozens of Strangite

magicians. Or at least, as many as I can educate (Clarke 703). However, it follows from

Stranges principles that, paradoxically, the so-called Strangites would not be like Strange

or only inasmuch as they would contradict their master and have their own ideas of what

magic is. It is only Childermass who is situated outside of these discourses, in fact, he is the

figure of the irreparable break between the two discourses that cannot be reconciled. This is

not only a mere desire for a chance to choose but a radical position between discourses, in the

clash between discourses. When Jonathan Strange asks him to leave Norrells service he turns

down the offer and explains his decision as follows: But then I would be obliged to agree

with you, sir, would I not? [] I tell you what I will do. I will make you a promise. If you fail

and Mr Norrell wins, then I will indeed leave his service. I will take up your cause, oppose

him with all my might and find arguments to vex him and then there shall still be two

magicians in England and two opinions on magic (Clarke 699).

20

3. Primitive magic

However, Norrell and Strange are still there as the two magicians. I will discuss first

Jonathan Stranges discourse of magic which shows several similarities with primitive magic

in the anthropological sense. It has already been suggested that magic cannot be distinguished

from a certain magical worldview. In Theories of Primitive Religion Evans-Pritchard quotes

Lvy-Bruhl who argues that in what he calls the primitive mentality objects and beings are

all involved in a network of mystical participations and exclusions (Evans-Pritchard 80). The

prelogical, unintelligible (Evans-Pritchard 81) thinking of the savage is definitely a

fallacy from the perspective of anthropology but in the world of Clarkes novel it is absolutely

real. In one of the final chapters Stephen Black gains the power to talk to and give orders to

basically all entities and even abstract notions of the world. He starts to perceive the world

from a new perspective which originates in a totally different conceptualisation of reality,

similarly to primitive thinking. and everything changed the world became a kind of

puzzle or labyrinth suddenly everything had meaning. Stephen hardly dared take another

step. If he did so if, for example, he stepped into that shadow or that spot of light, then the

world might be forever altered (Clarke 981). Basically, magic is a world-view that does not

tolerate lack or absence of meaning: every element of the world is meaningful.

Evans-Pritchard also discusses Sigmund Freuds perspective: from his psychological

point of view magicians are considered as cases of neurosis: the neurotic is like the savage in

that he believes he can change the outer world by a mere thought of his (Evans-Pritchard

41). The omnipotence of thought is exemplified in the scene where Strange visits King

George. He intends to cure the King of his mental illness using a book of magic which he

does not understand and thus he does not know how to perform the piece of magic that would

seem appropriate: Place the moon at my eyes and her whiteness shall devour the false sights

the deceiver has placed there How was the magician supposed to fetch the moon to the

afflicted person? (Clarke 447-48). However, when he actually recites the words only in his

thoughts! magic takes effect: The moons scarred white disc appeared suddenly not in

21

the sky but somewhere else it was inside his own head (Clarke 463). Merely through

thinking, magic is able to perform changes impossible by physical means. Strange forms

reality by a mere thought of his. Conclusively, even though the anthropological view

illuminates the workings of magic, the verdict which Frazer sums up as magic is a spurious

system of natural law as well as a fallacious guide of conduct; it is a false science (Frazer 26)

is not applicable to the magical reality of the book as it is very much a reality.

The animistic view of magic, according to which every entity possesses a soul, will be

described as something approved of by Strange but rejected by Norrell in the next section;

here I only want to indicate how it is present in the anthropological theory of mile

Durkheim. He argues that a primitive person , similarly to children, cannot differentiate

between animate and inanimate and tends to endow inanimate objects with a nature similar

to his own (Durkheim 59 my translation). Even though he is criticised for the

inapplicability of his theory to real tribal rites in our world (Evans-Pritchard 67), it suits the

reality of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. Similarly, the view that a magical phase always

precedes religion was heavily debated by actual anthropologists (Evans-Pritchard 30) but it is

the very case in Clarkes novel. That is why I find that theories of primitive religion are

applicable it to the magical discourses in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. I will return to

this point when I discuss the position of fairies and Christianity in the novel.

According to Evans-Pritchard, primitive magic is inherently associated with such

social factors as a closed community, hereditary transmission, and a sense of being obligatory

(Evans-Pritchard 54). These three factors are summed up in the character of Childermass and

in his attachment to the Northern Kingdom13. The North is where devotion to the Raven

King is still very strong as it is part of their cultural heritage to wait for his return. The

Northern English are aware of their status as John Uskglasss own nation that separates

them from all other Englishmen. Marcel Mauss also analyses this social sense of magic. He

13 You are in the north now. In John Uskglasss own country He is in our minds and hearts and speech I am a North Englishman Nothing would please me better than that my King should come home. It is what I have wished for all my life (Clarke 914).

22

argues that magical practices are traditional facts: if the whole community does not believe in

the efficacy, they cannot be magical (19).

The character of the Raven King, the object of devotion, can be identified with

Frazers priestly king theory: In those days the divinity that hedges a king was no empty

form of speech, but the expression of a sober belief kings are often expected to give rain

and sunshine in due season, to make the crops grow (Frazer 24). The ability to control the

weather is exemplified in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by the Raven Kings quarrel with

and banishment of Winter from England for four years which resulted in a continual summer

(Clarke 530-31). His figure is also symbolic, similarly to kings in dualist monarchies where

two kings ruled, one with administrative and the other with ritual and symbolic roles (Frazer

22). There were such positions in ancient Rome (the Sacrificial King) or in Sparta (Zeus

Uranius the heavenly Zeus). The symbolic nature of the Raven King surfaces, for example,

in his lack of a real name. He was called Starling in the land of Fairie and he took to calling

himself by his fathers name John dUskglass and he had other names like the King, the

Raven King, the Black King, the King in the North but he did not have a proper name, which

positions him outside the limits of average people and makes his figure symbolic (Clarke

641). He is also identified with a totemic animal, the raven, which is used in his magic and in

his iconography: The books all turned into ravens He used it often, you know that chaos

of black birds (Clarke961). The raven as a totemic animal appears in John Uskglasss arms

the Raven-in-Flight (properly called the Raven Volant), a black raven in a white field

(Clarke 672). This totemic quality is identified in Durkheims theory as the basic form of

primitive clan cults as well. He writes: there has to be another, more elementary, more

primitive cult which ethnographers call totemism (89 my translation). If we consider the

raven as the totemic animal of the North, it is important to see what characteristics are

endowed upon it. Consulting Szimblumtr by Jzsef Pl and Edit jvri, I found that the

raven is seen by the Greeks as an exceptionally clever bird and possessor of the ability of

divination and it is also the emblem of initiation in the cult of Mithras (Pl and jvri). The

23

raven appears also in Native American mythology as a trickster figure but I will discuss the

presence of the trickster in Clarkes novel later in my paper. These aspects of the raven, as

found in Szimblumtr, can be linked to magical knowledge and initiation in the case of the

Raven Kings magic.

Marc Blochs Les Rois Thaumaturges (The Royal Touch: Monarchy and Miracles in

France and England) provides a link between Frazers theory of primitive magic and the rites

related to the healing ability of medieval kings (Bloch 96-97). This link is important because

it shows that Clarkes novel fits into a more recent European tradition of magic and also

because this kind of priestly-kingly magic can be identified in the character of the Raven King

as well. Bloch writes that Henry II was capable of curing the plague by touch and he did use

his power regularly as a duty for his people (Bloch 87). It is interesting how Jonathan Strange

and Mr Norrell plays with this tradition: the Raven King was a contemporary of Henry II but

John Uskglass overshadows Henrys simple form of healing. He built a mystical tall black

tower which protected the Northern Kingdom against the Black Death (Clarke 531). The

Raven King realised the ultimate way of healing ability while almost mocking the tradition of

non-magician kings.

In The Myth of the Magus, E. M. Butler creates a framework of the duties of the tribal

magician which recalls the duties of Norrell and Strange. They are requested to perform

for the benefit of the tribe or community by means of magic (Butler 4), that is, to use their

magic in the wars with Napoleon. However, apart from certain pieces of magic14, Mr Norrell

prefers to give long, difficult explanations of why something was not possible (Clarke 223).

Similarly, it is Strange who dares to participate in the Peninsular war while Norrell stays in

England. The fact that magic can be used in war is explained by E. E. Evans-Pritchard in

Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande. He argues that the moral nature of the

14 Such as ships made of rain to scare the French (Clarke 131) or the interrogation of the figurehead of a ship

(Clarke 138).

24

more important medicines15 is generally a condition of its use, i.e. if used out of spite it may

kill its owner (Witchcraft 406). Magic is considered good or evil on moral grounds, on the

basis of motivation; thus good magic may be destructive, even lethal, but it strikes only at

persons who have committed a crime (Witchcraft 388). This is applicable to the crime of

being the enemy of England in Clarkes novel. Butler attributes further significance to tribal

magicians: they are supposed to wield power over life and death (Butler 6) which, in fact,

both Norrell and Strange do16. They also control nature17 and have knowledge of future or

distant events (Butler 6-7)18. Their usefulness in the community points to Mausss theory,

according to which magic is performed by specialists (25): in the novel magic is a decent

profession in England (even if only it is magical theory in most cases) and it is so for Strange

at first who searched for a decent profession before choosing magic19. Apart from practical,

useful magic, tribal magicians also performed for the sake of display, as mere manifestations

of power (Butler 5). Both Mr Norrell are frequently asked to do magic as entertainment at

social gatherings: while Norrell usually refuses to do so, Strange would generally oblige the

company with a shew of one of the minor sorts of magic. The most popular magic he did was

to cause visions to appear upon the surface of water (Clarke 328).

A final feature of primitive magicians is mentioned by Evans-Pritchard: they can be

critical and sceptical, and even experimental, within the system of their beliefs (Evans-

Pritchard 29). First Jonathan Strange astonishes Mr Honeyfoot, another theoretical magician,

with his bold use of magic: Good God! cried Mr Honeyfoot. Do you mean to say that

practically all this magic was your own invention? (Clarke 276). Strange also expresses his

views to Mr Norrell: Come, Mr Norrell, he whispered. It is very dull working for Lord

15 Medicine is any object in which mystical power is supposed to reside and which is used in magic rites (Witchcraft 9). 16 Norrell resurrects Lady Pole (Clarke 115) and Strange brings seventeen dead Neapolitans back to life (Clarke

422). 17 For example, Strange changes the channels and shoals in Spithead, Portsmouth by turning the shoal into horses

(Clarke 353). 18 The two magicians use a silver basin to divinate. According to Norrell, a magicians needs nothing but a silver basin for seeing visions in (Clarke 136). 19 Prior to fixing on magic, Strange thinks he might seek out a destitute poetic genius and become his patron; he thought he would study law; look for fossils on the beach at Lyme Regis (Clarke 244-45), etc.

25

Liverpool Let you and me do something extraordinary! Clarke 956). Even Stranges

first piece of magic done for Norrell is individualistic, it lacks theoretical background20. He

cannot explain his acts either: I have only the haziest notion of what I did. I dare say it is just

the same with you, sir, one has a sensation like music playing at the back of ones head one

simply knows what the next note will be (Clarke 295).

Further examples of the actual practice of magic mirror the system of primitive magic,

described by Frazer, concerning the laws of similarity and contact (Frazer 26). These are also

connected to Strange and not to Norrell. The metaphorical, homeopathic kind of magic is

present when Mr Segundus21 enters a garden where Jonathan Stranges magic is already in

progress. He suddenly starts seeing images or representations of people and places

everywhere: he realized that what he had taken for a friend was in fact was only a shadow on

the surface of a rose bush. The mans head was only a spray of pale roses and his hand

another the place was only a chance conjunction of a yellow bush, some swaying elder

branches and the sharp, sunlit corner of the house (Clarke 271). These images become

elements of magic, even though they are not used in the practice of magic in a strict sense:

they are representations of magic itself.

The metonymic, contagious type of magic is exemplified by the scene when Jonathan

Strange revives dead Neapolitan soldiers during the Peninsular War. He cuts his own arm and

when he had got a good strong spurt of blood, he let it splash over the heads of the corpses

(Clarke 423) When Strange realises that the revived Neapolitan speaks only a dialect of Hell,

he pulled open its jabbering jaws and spat inside its mouth. Instantly it began to speak in its

native, earthly language (Clarke 424). By sharing pieces of his living body (blood and

saliva) he affects their life by the law of contact.

Perhaps the most important respect in which Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

resembles primitive magic concerns its system: primitive religion (and magic in this sense)

20 It involves running his hands through his hair, clasping the back of his neck and stretching his shoulders and

so, as the result of these, a book and its reflection in a mirror change place (Clarke 294). 21 Mr Segundus is a theoretical magician with an unexpected sensitivity to real magic.

26

does not have creeds or dogmas (Evans-Pritchard 53). Magical books rarely put down rules or

regulations, they describe the practice instead. In magic and religion the individual does not

reason, or if he does his reasoning is unconscious he has no need to reflect on the structure

of his rite in order to practise it, as Marcel Mauss argues similarly (75). Gilbert Norrell

confronts this tradition: his aim is to establish such dogmas and this places him a different

discourse.

4. Magic as institution

In terms of its cultural role, it is possible to identify Gilbert Norrells magic in terms of

alchemy rather than primitive magic, that is. Ivn Fnagy in his A mgia s a titkos

tudomnyok trtnete draws attention to the difference between primitive spiritual magic and

the science-magic-religion of alchemy. In primitive cultures, as we have seen, entities are

considered alive and a soul is attributed to them. In alchemy it is the matter, the material that

lives a life and its magicality is also material (Fnagy 185). Furthermore, alchemy is heavily

characterised by secrecy. Alchemists themselves worked in secret, especially after Pope John

XII prohibited alchemy for ecclesiastical and secular persons as well (Fnagy 137), but even

the books written by and for alchemists were obsessed with secrets: while a printed book

means that it can be copied freely and it can reach anybody without the control and consent of

the author, these books generally are written in a manner of a private, whispered conversation

between the author and the reader (Fnagy 178).

These two characteristics of alchemy are found in Norrells discourse of magic. It

conceptualises magic as something inherently rational, controllable, almost materially earthly.

Norrell rejects the Raven King, fairies and the animistic, magical status of entities. He

exclaims: Mystical ramblings about stones and rain and trees! This is like Godbless who told

27

us that we should learn magic from wild beasts in the forest. Why not pigs in the sty? Or stray

dogs, I wonder? (Clarke 154)22.

The second characteristic, that is, secrecy, is closely related to the institutional nature

of Norrellite magic. He desires to realise magic as a secret available only to those initiates

inside the limits of his institution. Gilbert Norrells desire is to keep the authority over magic

to himself by various means. For him magic (and the history of magic) is a firm institution

with clearly defined functions such as education. Teaching Jonathan Strange, however deep

their special attachment becomes over time, basically means imposing his ideas on his pupil.

Also, he would like to write a book on the topic of education entitled Precepts for the

Education of a Magician which he apparently does not manage to complete before the end of

the novel. Apart from writing books, he also collects books in an authoritative manner. As it

has been discussed before, he intends to keep knowledge for himself while producing truth

from the framework of his institutions of power. Furthermore, as a similar means of creating

margins for magic, Norrell intends to establish the legislative framework for magical

practices, that is, he would like to restore a court called the Cinque Dragownes (The Five

Dragons)23. This form of institution would be part of the extensive process of codification he

wishes to impose. Finally, Norrell imposes his authority over the power of media as well. He

publishes a periodical titled The Friends of English Magic and it is explicitly declared that he

is aware of the authoritative nature of media: Mr Norrell wished The Friends of English

Magic first to impress upon the British Public the great importance of English modern magic,

secondly to correct erroneous views of magical history and thirdly to vilify those magicians

and classes of magicians whom he hated (Clarke 146).

As it has been stated, Mr Norrell always seeks a single, declarative Truth, that is, a

single official representation of magic and magical history, and the whole process of

institutionalisation indicates this wish. However, the problem with this is more complex as he

22 Thomas Godbless is an Aureate magician, follower of John Uskglass, whom Mr Norrell also detests. 23 This court dealt with magical crimes throughout the active ages of magic.

28

does not only reject other representations of the history of magic but the represented itself as

well. For him the represented is not only absent but desired to be completely lost and

forgotten. Even though he, as a young man, desired to meet the King, the disappointment that

followed made Norrell give up his hopes. This is how Norrell formulates his intentions

concerning the future: Magic cannot wait upon the pleasure of a king who no longer cares

what happens to England. We must break English magicians of their dependence on him. We

must make them forget John Uskglass as completely as he has forgotten us (Clarke 539).

29

III. The dichotomy of Nature and Culture

1. A Rousseauian text

The difference between Stranges and Norrells attitude to magic can also be read in

terms of the dichotomy of Nature and Culture. In Of Grammatology, Jacques Derrida applies

deconstruction to the texts and thinking of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. For Rousseau there is a

binary opposition between an ideal, ancient, natural state and corrupt human culture; between

speech and writing, presence and absence. Derridas analysis shows that Culture, as a

supplement, is not added to a complete and self-sufficient Nature but fills a void in Nature

when being added to it: there is lack in Nature and because of that very fact something is

added to it (Derrida 149). Thus, Culture cannot be removed from Nature in the sense of

nostalgic return.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (especially through the magic of fairies, the Raven

King and even Jonathan Strange) can be read as a Rousseauian text in terms Derridas

analysis. Through Strange the novel expresses a desire of return to Nature and the abolition of

the dichotomy by magic. Fnagy writes that the philosophy that considers body and soul,

matter and spirit as irreconcilable eternal oppositions is rigid and sad (Fnagy 193 my

translation). Neo-Platonist thinking sees the possibility of reaching a certain desired truth or

idyllic state the way gold is separated from slag. Fnagy writes: gold is blended with slag;

first we must wash it out, wash the clear meaning of sentences out from the shades (Fnagy

195 my translation). This symbolises the process of reaching a speech-like true meaning by

removing a writing-supplement. Derrida demonstrates the impossibility of this but while our

reality renders it impossible to return to an idyllic Nature, Clarkes novel introduces the

desired state as something reachable through magic.

30

2. Nature: feared and desired

The distance between Culture and Nature also generates a negative attitude to Nature.

As Derrida writes, the supplement holds it [the presence] at a distance and masters it. For

this presence is at the same time desired and feared. (Derrida 155) In Clarkes novel, as I

have argued, Mr Norrell rejects any connection to Nature as the distant past and everything

related to it, but throughout the novel one can find instances of the fearsome rejection of

Nature-related magic, behaviour and thinking. This shows that the supplement is valued

highly, more highly than the feared and desired presence it supplements.

One of the fields where this opposition of fear and desire surfaces in the novel is the

issue of being a proper Englishman. Jonathan Strange and the magical events he becomes

more and more involved in are often seen as non-English or non-gentlemanly. In Stranges

wildness one sees this distancing from gentlemanly standards which intensifies after he has

separated from Norrell and starts to search for new (or rather, at the same time, more ancient),

non-Norrellite modes of magic originating in Aureate magic24. Those magicians could, for

example, change their shape and turn into animals, trees or rivers. Upon hearing about this,

Sir Walter25 is surprised and says: But surely, Strange, you would not want to practise it? A

gentleman cannot change his shape. A gentleman scorns to seem any thing other than what he

is (Clarke 684). Butler, in The Myth of the Magus, writes that the Archbishop of Canterbury

declared, in the late 7th century, that transforming into animals was to be punished (Butler

113). This indicates the cutting of connections with Nature and a fear of losing the external

features of social and cultural status26.

24 Aureate or Golden Age magicians were those of the era of John Uskglass, the Raven King. They habitually

employed fairy-servants and their magical abilities were very great. 25 Sir Walter Pole is a government minister. He is a close friend of Jonathan Strange and the master of Stephen

Black. 26 The character of Jonathan Strange (and his approach to culture and nature) can also be read as a representation

of the figure of the Romantic artist: the poetic genius who values highly the wildness, danger and originality of

art. Thus, the contrast between Strange and Norrell can be discussed in terms of a difference between

Romanticism and Enlightenment with Norrell as representative of the latter: respectful of unchangeable ancient

values and achievements, preferring reason to emotionality and traditions to originality.

31

The objection to transformation also reveals a shift of discourses: magic passes from

its own discursive field to another, to the discourse of class. This contrasts with the way

primitive magicians do their magic. Evans-Pritchard writes that Zande ritual acts are

performed with a minimum publicity (424) and in most cases the Azande would not even

admit that they are involved in magic. The fact that Norrell and Strange become social figures

(even if Strange is more successful in his ways with people27) creates a paradox. They both

digress from the marginal, outcast character of the tribal magician and also differ from the

way the Raven King is perceived and therefore judged from the 19th-century perspective on

magic. The representations of John Uskglass show that he is identified with the feared and

rejected aspects of Nature.

The first one can be found in the prologue of Jonathan Stranges The History and

Practice of English Magic. It is an account of his first meeting with Henry I, King of England,

recounting how astonished Henry was when he met John Uskglass. The Raven King was

scarcely civilized. He had never seen a spoon before, nor a chair or and iron kettle, nor a

silver penny, nor a wax candle (Clarke 641). He, only a fifteen-year-old boy at that time,

could speak neither English nor French and his hair was full of lice. This definitely

uncivilised image of the King of the North is considerably milder at the end of the novel when

Childermass meets him. His dark clothes were clearly expensive and looked fashionable. Yet

his straight, dark hair was longer than any fashionable gentleman would have worn it; it gave

him something of the look of a Methodist preacher or a Romantic poet (Clarke 970).

Equating him with Methodism and Romanticism both indicate an Otherness. Methodism

was a revivalist movement at the end of the 18th century which sought to reform the Church of

England. Alongside with Romantic poetry, it symbolises opposing authoritative norms,

rejecting rationalised faith and the science-centred conception of nature. John Uskglass does

not fit into the 19th-century English cultural system. What Rousseau writes about himself is

27 London preferred Mr Strange. Strange was everyones idea of what a magician ought to be. He was tall; he was charming; he had a most ironical smile; and unlike Mr Norrell, he talked a great deal about magic (Clarke 328).

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applicable to his character: I renounce my present life, my present and concrete existence in

order to make myself known in the ideality of truth and value (qtd. in Derrida 142). Even if

he is admired throughout the country, he is celebrated only as a distant entity.

The second, a visual representation of the King of the North appears on a dual painting

of two kings of England: Edward III of Southern England and John Uskglass. While the

Southern king is shown in shining light, the Northern one remains in twilight with stars

around him. Also, the kings are accompanied by different characters: Edward is sitting

amongst heroes and gods in shining armour while the Raven King is surrounded by different

entities: His entourage was composed largely of magical creatures: a phoenix, a unicorn, a

manticore, fauns and satyrs. But there were also some mysterious persons: a male figure in a

monklike robe with his hood pulled down over his face, a female figure in a dark, starry

mantle with her arm thrown over her eyes. (Clarke 442) The representations show that both

kings are related to magical-mystical entities but light and dark are opposed, the civilised,

human, warlike deities with shining armour are contrasted with the magical beasts of a

magical Nature and with those creatures which are in a natural setting in mythology. Thus,

even magic and mythology are internally divided in terms of Nature and Culture.

There is another image of magic that bears comparison to that of John Uskglass. When

Gilbert Norrell appears in London he is surrounded by admirers, and a printmaker called

Holland makes an engraving entitled The Spirit of English Magic urges Mr Norrell to the Aid

of Britannia. The engraving shewed Mr Norrell in the company of a young lady, scantily

dressed in a loose smock. A great quantity of stiff, dark material swirled and coiled about the

young ladys body without ever actually touching it and, for the further embellishment of her

person, she wore a crescent moon tucked in among the tumbling locks of her hair (Clarke

139).

This image becomes problematic in terms of gentlemanly magic: here English

Magic is seen as a woman, as the object of gentleman magicians, and she is shown as the

most archetypically sexual female person with the loose hair and loose clothing, crowned by

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the symbol of the crescent moon. Summarising the two representations described above, one

can draw the conclusion that magic is dark, feminine, ancient and mysterious nothing could

be farther from what is perceived as proper English mentality.

3. Fairies: a natural culture

More than the Raven King, more than the madness of Jonathan Strange, fairies can be

considered as the true counterpart of proper, modern English culture. The fairies of Clarkes

novel resemble the medieval conception of the fairy folk which acquired todays form28 only

in the 17th century (Thomas 609). Medieval fairies are neither small nor particularly kindly

but rather highly malevolent who are to be feared (Thomas 606-07). They are valuable

sources of supernatural power (Thomas 608), just like Strange perceives them. Thomas

writes that fairies were sought out for help by magicians, for example William Lilly29 took

part in several attempts to get in touch with the Queen of the Fairies, believing that she could

teach anything one desired to know (608). Clarkes novel presents not only this attitude but

also another significant characteristic of fairy lore: they are always already attributed to the

past, to a certain less civilised state, just as Nature is distanced and deferred30.

Thus, fairies, as related to Nature, embody certain features that are unacceptable by the

standards of Culture. For instance, when Jonathan Strange visits the mad King George he

must face the magic of the gentleman with the thistle-down hair. The King is enchanted and

urged to enter a curious wood that appears magically. The wood no longer struck Strange as

a welcoming place. It appeared to him now as it had at first sinister, unknowable,

unEnglish (Clarke 463). The word unEnglish suggests that the basic characteristic of the

fairy-wood is the negation of Christian Englishness.

28 Fairies are the little people who dance on grass fairy-rings and if provided with food and water, they help in domestic chores (Thomas 609-10). 29 William Lilly (1602 1681), was a famed English astrologer. 30 Elizabethans tended to speak as if fairy-beliefs were a thing of the past yet in the late seventeenth century Sir William Temple could assume that fairy beliefs had only declined in the previous thirty years or so (Thomas 607).

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The difference between fairies and humans surfaces in their mental capacity as well:

men and fairies both contain within them a faculty of reason and a faculty of magic. In men

reason is strong and magic is weak. With fairies it is the other way round: magic comes very

naturally to them, but by human standards they are barely sane (Clarke 299). Moreover,

according to English magicians, they are naturally wicked creatures who did not always

know when they were going wrong (Clarke 17). By making the wickedness of fairies

natural they are irredeemably fated to be like that. This conception of behaviour mostly

resembles theories of criminal pathology of the late 19th century. Fairies, just like criminals,

are doomed to wrongdoing. Even Jonathan Strange shares this opinion: "Wicked, wicked!

And then again, perhaps not so wicked after all- for what does he do but follow his nature?"

(Clarke 810). However, the core of this discourse is that criminals and fairies are like

children in their reduced reasoning capacities. Derrida finds that for Rousseau it was

childhood that makes the supplement appear in nature (Derrida 147), as children

unquestionably need culture for it is indeed culture or cultivation that must supplement a

deficient nature (Derrida 146). This thinking also explains why fairies are depicted as

naughty: if children and fairies gain more power than natural or advisable, they

become tiresome, masterful, imperious, naughty and unmanageable (Derrida 147).

Thus, fairies need cultivation and control again, in the discourse of 19th-century

imperial colonial theory. The lack of this control leads to the current state of the land of

Fairie: while in England only magic is in decline but reason-based culture is flourishing, in

Fairie everything is falling apart for magic is the essence of the land. Mr Norrell remarks: I

assure you, Mr Strange, nowhere is the decline of English magic better understood than in the

Other Lands (Clarke 300). Fairies have always lived like half-savages and have always

needed human beings to rule over them in order to make their kingdoms function. For

instance, Stephen Blacks arrival to the castle of Lost-hope generates an enormous change in

the appearance of the land. His rule marks the beginning of a more reasonable and peaceful

era. That Culture is seen as something that can and must master Nature is what Derrida

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suggests: supplement will always be the moving of the tongue or acting through the hands of

others (Derrida 147). This concept of necessary control is the self-legitimising image of the

coloniser who justifies his actions with projecting every negative feature to the nature of the

colonised. It is most ironical, however, that the coloniser is black in this case.

In the sense of naughtiness, fairies can also be identified with the figure of the

trickster. American Indian Myths and Legends provides a thorough description of tricksters in

Native American mythology which recalls the for fairies in Clarkes novel. The trickster, for

American Indians, is not simply a lowly, small and poor figure who plays tricks on the

proud, big, and rich but at the same time imp and hero the great culture bringer who can

also make mischief beyond belief, turning quickly from clown to creator and back again

(Erdoes and Ortiz 335). The fairy of Susanna Clarkes mythology is similar: although fairies

are despised and considered as lowly by, for instance, Norrells way of thinking, Strange

would never deny their importance. Most of the North American tales bear witness to his

cleverness alternating with buffoonery, his lechery, his craft in cheating and destroying his

enemy (Erdoes and Ortiz 335). These aspects of the trickster are identifiable in the fairy

gentleman with the thistle-down hair. Even though it is mostly he who praises himself, he is

indeed clever, for example, when he finds out Stephen Blacks real name which was lost

when his mother died31: now you will observe with what cleverness and finesse I traced

the passage of each part of her through the world (Clarke 945). However, he can be a fool

occasionally, mostly when he cannot understand the mechanisms of society that is why he is

constantly trying to make a king out of Stephen: Let you and I go immediately to the King of

England. Then you can put him to death and be King in his place! (Clarke 942). The lechery

of the fairy is less explicit in the novel, it is more Victorian, but when compared to the

average English gentleman he can be considered as lecherous: You and I, Stephen, know

how to appreciate the society of such a woman. He [Strange] does not (Clarke 797). Finally,

31 It is possible only by finding certain items magically related to her mother: With the ashes that were her screams and the pearls that were her bones and the counterpane that was her gown and the magical essence of

her kiss, I was able to divine your name (Clarke 948).

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he loves fighting and destroying his enemies: But then you see I am very adept at killing all

sorts of things! I have slain dragons, drowned armies and persuaded the earthquakes and

tempests to devour cities! (Clarke 949). Also, tricksters (and fairies as tricksters) represent

some primordial creativity from our earlier days , the potency of nothingness, of chaos, of

freedom Erdoes and Ortiz 335) they are closely related to the ancient present, to Nature.

4. Magic and Christianity

There is a significant distinction between fairies and humans with respect to their

connection to Christianity. Human beings are called Christians by fairies, as a common

name for our race. Their not being Christians, however, is not limited to names. The Church

has very strict doctrines concerning fairies which can be found in one of the footnotes already

quoted. Fairies (as everybody knows) are beyond the reach of the Church; no Christ has

come to them, nor ever will and what is to become of them on Judgement Day no one

knows (Clarke 17). There are numerous examples that somehow magic and religion are

incompatible and necessarily hostile to each other. For example, Strange claims that he cannot

do magic in the vicinity of the Host (Clarke 774), and it is related in the novel how the pages

of the Bible, belonging to a certain Scrope Davies (a friend of Lord Byrons), protected some

letters of Byron, regarding Strange, from Norrells magic. Though he [Davies] was entirely

ignorant