#and speaking of strange & norrell

[ofrabjousnight]

[mysterious old conman flips tarot card after tarot card each depicting The Emperor slowly transforming into the Raven King]

me: is that good

[x]

[thinkanamelater]

Happy Pride to Flora Greysteel who got over her comphet crush, and then pulled said guy's wife 🥰

[magnuspanoptes]

hi i’ve been recently getting into gothic literature and i love your gothic reading of tma so i was wondering if you have any specific reading recommendations!

this is a good ask, thank you! i would ofc recommend everything that shows up in my comparatives, but a general list of works -

fiction

ghost stories, m. r. james

the turn of the screw, henry james

the strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde, robert louis stevenson

titus groan, mervyn peake

piranesi, susanna clarke (jonathan strange & mr norrell is not gothic, it's period fantasy set in england during the napoleonic wars, but i can't not bring it up while recommending clarke so)

matilda, mary shelley

frankenstein, mary shelley (links to the revised 1831 text)

the picture of dorian gray, oscar wilde

the double, fyodor dostoevsky

don't look now and other stories, daphne du maurier

rebecca, daphne du maurier

jane eyre, charlotte brontë

wide sargasso sea, jean rhys

wuthering heights, emily brontë

dracula, bram stoker

carmilla, sheridan le fanu

the vampyre, john polidori

beloved, toni morrison

we have always lived in the castle, shirley jackson

the haunting of hill house, shirely jackson

deathless, catherynne m. valente

the bloody chamber and other stories, angela carter (or 'burning your boats', which collects all her short stories. but bloody chamber is a good starting point)

the tell-tale heart / the fall of the house of usher, edgar allan poe

the sandman, e. t. a. hoffmann

goblin market, christina rossetti

fingersmith, sarah waters (alternatively, the handmaiden 2016 which isn't a direct adaptation but is based on the book)

+ duke bluebeard's castle, béla bartók. there's a good bbc version of the opera here

non-fiction

the aesthetics of fear, joyce carol oates

secrets beyond the door, maria tatar

gothic, fred botting

the sadeian woman, angela carter

perils of the night, eugenia c. delamotte

the female gothic: new directions

gothic incest, jenny diplacidi

the cambridge companion to gothic fiction, ed. jerrold e. hogle

[good--merits-accumulated]

Childermass I need you to unseam Lascelles' head from his wretched little shoulders. right now. let's go. chop chop chop

[alynnl]

Some of my mutuals have talked about it and I saw posts about it here on Tumblr...

So I've finally decided to check out Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell! I waited about two months for it to finally come off hold on Libby, and there's a long line waiting for it (my library really needs more copies!)

This book looks long but the description caught my eye and I just had to read it.

I don't know if I'll finish it in 3 weeks but if I like it enough, I might just buy it to read the rest.

No spoilers, y'all! But I'll be open to discussing the story as I progress through it.

[fluentisonus]

moments that are like. permanently embedded in my mind now

[burnsopale]

This is the first time it has clicked for me that very likely, Childermass sends Lady Pole to Starecross not to fulfil his promised favour to John Segundus, but because he knows that Segundus is as sensitive to magic as himself, and so is bound to notice that Lady Pole walks half in Faerie. Childermass knows that it'll be difficult for him to investigate this mystery himself once the lady is sent into seclusion, so he sends her to Segundus so that he will be tempted to continue to unravel the mystery on Childermass' behalf, although he won't know that's what he's doing. And also, I suspect, Childermass figures placing her with timid Mr Segundus means Childermass will get access to the lady if he wants it later. In that case, he has forgotten that while timid, John Segundus is not spineless.

By the way, how very lucky it is that just when a madhouse is needed, Mr Segundus has a vision that inspires him to open one at Starecross. What an incredible coincidence. Not Childermass' doing at all. Nope. He's never manipulated John Segundus in his life. Doesn't sound like him. Couldn't be.

[bizarrebazaar13]

gonna try and type up my notes on the intro chapter of purity and contamination tonight :)

[welcomingdisaster]

having one of those "have to listen to audiobook to motivate myself do basic tasks such as getting myself a cup of tea or brushing my teeth" days

[lalottycupcake]

In the process of rewatching the show adaptation of 'Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell'

Wish I still had the book on me

I miss book!Drawlight

[uskglass-mirror-house]

I've always interpreted it as Norrell being paranoid about the harm done through magic and very little else: fairy servants can do great harm via magic and know more than him, ergo dangerous; human servants/ associates are not on his level in terms of magical abilities, ergo they are beneath him and not as dangerous. I think that what illustrates this best is his attitude towards Childermass: he lets him do basically whatever but flips tables when he suspects/ is made aware that he is performing magic and this paranoia is what leads him to choose Lascelles over him in the end.

My theory is that this attitude is connected to the fear of being bested in the one thing he excels at but also to the fact that he relied on Childermass for so long that it doesn't even occur to him that human can harm him in any way.

A thought: Though Mr Norrell is highly aware of the dangers of having fairy-servants, he seems to completely discount the dangers posed by the human beings he chooses to work with (i.e. Drawlight and Lascelles).

[thinkanamelater]

when Lascelles got revealed to be a murderous asshole i was shocked for like a second and then i looked back at him and went "no yeah that makes sense"

[devoutjunk]

"In Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, the figure of the departed Faerie king John Uskglass is both self and other; English and UnEnglish; Faerie and Human. He is one of Strange’s enchanted mirrors, about to dissolve into a road: he reflects back not just his own image, but the gaze of all those who look for him still. John Uskglass is the tide Norrell can’t entirely tame; he’s the dark dreaming wood drowning the city of Venice. He’s the harsh, biting blade of Empire, a conquering King. But he was a nameless slave first.

He speaks for those in the North who’d welcome a different King, fly a different flag, claim a different country (“Other countries,” Sir Walter sighs at one point “have stories of kings who will return at times of great need. Only in England is it part of the constitution.”). The King in the North is the living cypher of all deep, local knowledge and history that cannot be tamed or killed by Kingship or country: rebellion, language, and memory passed down secretly and sideways through nursery rhyme and sleight of hand. The darkness belongs to John Uskglass,  Norrell says, and he fears his magic as much as he longs for it. John Uskglass rode out of England and took the deep magic—the true magic—with him.  He abandoned us, Norrell says. And this is why Norrell hates him, why he calls him dangerous—is it not dangerous to give the past so much power? To believe any golden age long-gone and lost? Is it not dangerous to say: It was better then, and not also ask: better for who? Or maybe the danger of the Raven King is not just of a national myth swallowing a nation and a people whole, but the danger of any belief—that it can be taken away."

--"On Not Looking Back: Some Notes on History and Country in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell" ,Caroline Shea

[magnuspanoptes]

do you have any book/media recs? i love your thoughts on jonelias and as a fan of it (and hannigram/hannibal nbc) im having a hard time finding stuff that scratches that itch 😩

waow what a question i certainly do not have letterboxd and book lists titled 'jonelias intertextuality recs'. never done that.

manhunter (1986) and the silence of the lambs (1991) or just read the thomas harris books.

functionally any bluebeared narrative where the supposedly ingénue gothic heroine masters the patriarch of the gothic manor works for jonelias so: jane eyre, charlotte brönte; rebecca, daphne du maurier (which is jane eyre if it was psychological horror); and phantom thread (2017) (which is rebecca if the second mrs de winter slayed)

deathless, catherynne m. valente which is the same dynamic as above and is also a death and the maiden story.

the bloody chamber, the tiger's bride, and the erl-king - all collected in the bloody chamber and other stories, angela carter

duke bluebeard's castle, béla bartók

candyman (1992) which is based on clive barker's the forbidden. je text of all time. like this is it. gothic romance where union with the lover is only possible through annihilation of the self because the violence is the romance.

ravenous (1999) has cannibalism as colonial expansion, which the podcast is also doing at times in its themes of consumption as power. jon and elias could naturally do boyd and ives.

amc interview with the vampire. loustat, hannigram, and jonelias are all the same ship dynamic about the dual gift/curse of being fated together with a really awful blonde man. i think this has some very smart writing re consumption and race wrt louis and lestat's relationship as black and white men/vampires during jim crow, and is also a thoughtful narrative of abuse which is set to end in a reconciliation, so pitching this as jonelias but if they were vampires feels reductive. but it's jonelias if they were vampires. if you've been here long enough you know i don't choose to differentiate between avatarhood and vampirism.

opening of dracula, bram stoker. jonathan harker trapped within dracula's castle is literally what happens to my guy jonathan sims in the podcast. speaking of which. nosferatu (2024) was kind of mid to me and my reading of it leaned more towards a csa narrative, but that can definitely co-exist with a romantic interpretation of orlok and ellen. didn't interest me very much but might work for you.

gone girl, gillian flynn and the 2014 fincher adaptation. jon will be amy in this scenario. you understand.

whiplash (2014). trust me.

rope (1948)

crimson peak (2015)

for a similar dynamic but with themes of incestuous enmeshment, see the winter prince, elizabeth wein and dead ringers (1988)

stoker (2013). this would be more of interest to someone who liked abigail and hannibal's relationship, not will and hannibal per se. but i did say i see teen!jon as abigail.

jonathan strange & mr norrell, susanna clarke is a very odd recommendation because it's not gothic, not horror, and not romance, it's a whimsical period fantasy piece. there's a lot more happening in this book but the two titular characters have a relationship founded on mutual academic respect which goes through bit of a schism because they subscribe to different schools of thought. exactly the kind of nerd shit i enjoy and strange & norrell's friendship is very dear to me, close to how i picture regency jonjonah.

didn't watch all of house of the dragon but daemon and rhaenyra over there came close to capturing how i feel about jon and elias. also incest. but i wouldn't recommend this unless you're already moderately into the a song of ice and fire books.

i've never read the phantom of the opera but given what i know through osmosis it has got to be the same type of thing.

the picture of dorian gray, oscar wilde - everyone says jonah is dorian gray coded but that's not right. jon as the corruptible gothic protagonist is the dorian here with elias assuming the role of both basil and lord henry.

annihilation, jeff vandermeer, nothing in this is jonelias adjacent, it's just really good cosmic horror and what happens to the biologist is what should've also happened to jon.

[alynnl]

From what I’ve read in Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell so far…

Norrell is really talented but doesn’t seem to like anyone at all. He’s a professional hater

Childermass is a Menace and I like it that way

Drawlight is very sus to me and I can’t put my finger on why. Maybe it’s the way he’s more or less pushing Norrell into society but only his parts of society. And let’s not forget the necromancy

Lascelles seems sus too because he’s supposed to be the skeptic but he’s riding Norrel’s coattails just like Drawlight

I have a feeling I would understand this book a bit more if I read about the real history of the Napoleonic Wars

I wonder if the murder of the girl with ivy in her hair will get touched upon again?

Susanna Clarke said she reread LotR before writing this book and I feel like that explains a lot (about how verbose this book is)

That being said, the pacing does pick up after a certain point and I’ll just have to see where it goes.

[critical-quoter]

'If I were you, Mr Lascelles,' said Childermass, softly, 'I would speak more guardedly. You are in the north now. In John Uskglass's own country. Our towns and cities and abbeys were built by him. Our laws were made by him. He is in our minds and hearts and speech. Were it summer you would see a carpet of tiny flowers beneath every hedgerow, of a blueish-white colour. We call them John's Farthings. When the weather is contrary and we have warm weather in winter or it rains in summer the country people say that John Uskglass is in love again and neglects his business. And when we are sure of something we say it is as safe as a pebble in John Uskglass's pocket.'

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke