Susanna Clarke: Friend of Jane
Susanna Clarke’s magnum opus, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell, has been compared to Jane Austen (as well as J.R.R. Tolkien and J.K. Rowling), but in an interview with the Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin), Ms. Clarke says that her favorite author is indeed Jane Austen.
However, Clarke is quick to note that her starting point has always been her favorite author, Jane Austen. That’s why “Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell” takes place in the early 1800s - it’s Austen’s time period - and that’s why the novel often reads more like a comedy of manners than a sweeping epic about the fate of magic in England.
Jane Austen’s writing also helped Clarke understand the social details that govern her characters’ world. She freely admits that even though she was writing about magic, she often borrowed observations, characterizations and precise behaviors from Austen’s writing. In many ways, using Austen as the fixed point in her compass was a good idea, she said. An American journalist once told her that the world of Jane Austen is as foreign as a fantasy novel to modern readers.
To most readers, perhaps, but we dare say not so much to the readers of AustenBlog. 
In the interview, Ms. Clarke also says that she found inspiration in the work of Charles Dickens, Patrick O’Brian, and Ursula K. LeGuin (Jane Austen Book Club reference! Ha!)
November 28th, 2005 at 10:47 pm
[…] f Jane, redux
Filed under: F.O.J. (Friends of Jane) — Mags @ 10:47 pm
We previously posted about Susanna Clarke, author of the (wonderful) Re […]