Beyond Selidor

Thirty Day Book Meme Day 5: Doesn't belong to me

Technically there are a lot of books on my shelves both virtual and physical that don't belong to me, because when Matthias and I moved in together we brought together our two collections of books, which we've obviously continued to add to in the years since. And our Kindle libraries are connected, as well, so we can share ebooks if we want to.

I'll go today with Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke, because it's one of my favourite books, and I don't really talk about it all that much.

It's a book that rewards rereading, digging back through the footnotes scattered throughout, revelling in the gorgeous, gorgeous language and just all around strangeness. But my favourite part of the book is the pervading sense of melancholy and the uncanny, hovering slightly off the page, or banished to cryptic footnotes — that sense of a larger, creepier story lying submerged, known by all the inhabitants of Clarke's imagined world, but only alluded to, because for them it's their history, and common knowledge, but only understood imperfectly. I love above all the character of John Uskglass, and the way he stalked through the pages of the book, haunting it from the margins, and the eerie mythology underpinning the story. It's a book I always come back to.

( The other days )