Magic Regains RespectInside MagicMagic News Updated Daily for the Professional Magician

?Magic is Not Respectable?

Our Favorite: Kay Engilsh

Susanna Clarke’s bestselling novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, is tearing-up the charts on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. She admits, however, that her opinion of our Art matched the sentiment ?Magic is not respectable.? That was before she began her odyssey of writing the 800 page monster of a great read. Now she respects us; sort of.

We?ve been following Ms. Clarke?s book since it was still in galley-print and we were in England. Initially, the UK press dismissed the early notices of this book: ?A Harry Potter for Adults,? or ?Harry Grows Up and Tells All.? Consequently, the U.S. press considered the book carefully, read every page, considered the greats of literature and their product through the years, and then proclaimed: ?A Harry Potter for Adults,? or ?Harry Grows Up and Tells All.?

We?re not saying the New York Times Book Review or Publishers Weekly are sycophants. We?re just saying they revere their brethren on the other side of that which we call the Atlantic. Which is okay. It was just that they were wrong. It?s a great book and deserves what we call ?respect.?

Heck, it made the list for the prestigious Booker Prize. It was knocked out of the shorter list and the British Press, now a big fan of the book, was outraged.

?Magic is Not Respectable?

Our Favorite: Kay Engilsh

Heck, it made the list for the prestigious Booker Prize. It was knocked out of the shorter list and the British Press, now a big fan of the book, was outraged.

We?ve never met Ms. Clarke. We hope to one day. We?d tell her that we admire her story and her love of magic. She told the press, “I’d been writing all of my adult life but I’d never finished anything,” she said. Frustrated, she decided to give up writing, she said, “because I’d really been working on this detective novel for some time and getting absolutely nowhere with it.”

Ms. Clarke was a cookbook editor for Simon & Schuster during the ten years she labored on the book. Now she has sold her book to New Line Cinema for a reported seven figures and she loves Magic.

If we had any sense, we?d buy a bunch of the books to sell here or at least include a link to Amazon with our affiliate information so we?d make a few bucks every time someone buys a book. We have no sense but we have, now, respect.

Ms. Clarke, as we say on this side of the Atlantic, ?You Go Girl!?