The Unlikely Milliner & the Magician of Threadneedle-Street [Article]

Volume 36 | Number 2 | Issue 132, Spring/Summer Article 23 4-15-2018 The nliU kely Milliner & The aM gician of Threadneedle-Street [Article] K. A. Laity College of Saint Rose Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Recommended Citation Laity, K. A. (2018) "The nlU ikely Milliner & The aM gician of Threadneedle-Street [Article]," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 36 : No. 2 , Article 20. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol36/ iss2/23/ This Special Section is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The nliU kely Milliner & The aM gician of Threadneedle-Street [Article] Abstract Susanna Clarke uses the tarot in her novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell much as she uses history: twisting it to open up spaces for magic and playfulness. She offers modifications on the traditional Tarot de Marseille that accurately predict the narrative events, yet deftly bso cures the outcomes by leading the readers (and the characters) to jump to the wrong conclusions. Laity’s analysis of the Tarot readings performed by Childermas and Vinculus shows that Strange and Norrell enjoy mastery in magic, only to find that that mastery brings great suffering to others and also isolates them from the world as they once knew it. Additional Keywords Clarke, Susanna. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell; Tarot in Susanna Clarke; Magicians; Magic in Susanna Clarke This special section is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol36/iss2/23 H E U N L I K E L Y M I L L I N E R & T HE M A G I C I A N O F T HREADNEEDLE - S TREET K.A. LAITY USANNA CLARKE USES THE TAROT IN HER NOVEL Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell S (2004) much as she uses history: twisting it to open up spaces for magic and playfulness. Her slightly altered version of the Tarot de Marseille (hereafter TdM) plays an important role in recording and anticipating events in the novel. As for all querents who approach the cards, the readers make interpretations fueled by their guesses about connections based on the layout that turns up. Likewise those interpretations are often colored by their assumptions about what the cards mean in both the abstract and relational senses, though things are not always what they seem; after all, Clarke’s deck, the “cards of Marseilles” (hereafter CoM) aren’t quite the TdM (185). Clarke obscures the narrative lens by creating a novel twist: she changes this long-famous deck by having one character make a singular copy of it. This innovation mirrors the effects of her slightly-altered history throughout the tale, leading to alternate interpretations of established ‘facts’ previously known. In short, readers will get things wrong. Characters (and potentially, readers) misunderstand the signs they glimpse, then make errors about their significance. The prophecies conveyed in both words and cards turn out to be correct in the end, but almost inevitably misinterpreted throughout the narrative. The interpretations offered in media res lack knowledge of the ‘big picture’: namely, the truth of the Raven King. The way Clarke uses the tarot echoes her skillful misdirection throughout the novel. This novel is an enormous tome. Though difficult to summarize succinctly for readers unfamiliar with it, it is helpful to say that the two titular magicians come together first as master and student, then as friends and equals, and finally as enemies, only to once more work in tandem at the end to stave off disaster. Mr Norrell embodies everything conservative and fearful, whilst Jonathan Strange personifies everything reckless and creative. As the street magician Vinculus recites from the Raven King’s prophecy, “Two magicians shall appear in England . […] The first shall pass his life alone; he shall be his own gaoler; the second shall tread lonely roads, the storm above his head, seeking a dark tower upon a high hillside . ” (123). Prophecy in this novel is akin to the medieval notion of the term. In much of current fantasy, ‘prophecy’ is an individual’s fortune— marking out a chosen one for greatness, for example—whilst the (sadly understudied) genre of medieval prophecy concerns nations if not the whole Mythlore 36.2, Spring/Summer 2018 215 The Unlikely Milliner and the Magician of Threadneedle-street world. Prognosticators like the 13th century Robert Grosseteste and 12th century Joachim de Fiore sought to understand the divine plan and write it down. Robert E. Lerner, writing about religious dissent expressed in the genre, notes that “much of the content of medieval religious prophecy can be read as the expression of dissatisfaction with the present and hope for the future” (7). For many within the church, prophecy was a call for change. The twelfth century mystic Hildegard of Bingen, for example, concerned herself primarily with the future of the Christian church in Scivias but later in the Liber divinorum operum her apocalyptic prophecies concerned “creation as a whole, and humanity in particular” (Mews 46). Prophecy was meant to see change not just in a life but in the world. In Clarke’s fantasy, the man called John Uskglass, known as the Raven King, received his magical training in Faerie and reappeared in England accompanied by the daoine sidthe, the fairy host. For over three hundred years, fairies were inextricably part of Uskglass’s rule of Northern England. Gilbert Norrell has a particular loathing for the Raven King, hates fairy, and thus has no interest in his prophecy. Dedicated to restoring English magic as a ‘respectable’ undertaking for a gentleman, he hopes to purge it of any association with fairy. After all, he has learned his magic from books since childhood (86). Nevertheless, he is driven to using fairy magic in order to make a splash in London society and to secure the patronage of the government. He summons a fairy (referred to only as ‘the gentleman with thistle-down hair’) who resurrects Sir Walter Pole’s dead fiancée. Norrell’s fame and official status as the English magician rely on this fairy helper and the terrible bargain he makes for half of (the soon to be) Lady Pole’s life. The magician’s private shame hides this secret, though his public excoriation of fairy magic continues. His pupil Jonathan Strange, however, only becomes a magician by accident (as detailed below) when casting about for a profession. Because Norrell has hoarded most of the books of English magic in his own library, the first magical book Strange acquires from his fiancée is Lord Portishead’s A Child’s History of the Raven King which he later calls “one of the most perfect things of its kind” which “conveys to the reader a vivid sense of the eeriness and wonder” of the Raven King’s magic (412). He is eager to learn about fairy magic, until Norrell forbids him that pursuit. From the start of his career, Strange is more sympathetic to Uskglass’s legacy. Yet ignorant of its history when he first hears the prophecy from the street magician, Strange does not figure out its significance for himself. Much of the drama of the overarching conflict between the two magicians relies upon Strange’s obliviousness of what the prophecy signifies and Norrell’s refusal to accept its importance. Once Norrell has a little power, one of his first acts is to petition the government “for the removal of these vagabond magicians” who roam the 216 Mythlore 132, Spring/Summer 2018 K.A. Laity streets of London and other cities, telling fortunes and promising spells (177). Most are chased away by the crackdown, but Vinculus the magician of Threadneedle-street obstinately remains. Mr Norrell sends his ‘man of business’ John Childermass to pose unconvincingly as a milliner in search of a love spell from Vinculus, though he clearly knows nothing about the trade. Norrell has given him spells to employ to chase the street magician from the city, for he cannot bear any competition—least of all the man who claims to see his future. After being exposed as an agent of Norrell, whom Vinculus refers to as “the magician of Hanover-square” (182), Childermass reads a spread of cards, which he calls “the cards of Marseilles” (185), signaling their difference from the TdM. The reading for the street magician contains clues to the rest of the lengthy novel for Clarke manipulates the traditional deck just a little, allowing the small changes to reverberate throughout the story like her changes to the history of the Napoleonic wars and English history in general do as well. While many alternate history narratives rely upon a “point of divergence” (Singles 7) from which history shoots off into the ‘alternate’ direction, Clarke’s novel offers many points of divergence while playfully attempting as much as possible to contain the fantastic within the extant historical record. Her tinkering with the TdM is indicative of her skillful approach to the manifold strands of the novel: the CoM are recognizably much the same as the standard deck, but the small changes have enormous consequences within the narrative.

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