Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

I recently finished reading Susanna Clarke's novel Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and I must confess I feel largely unsatisfied. This is not to be confused with lack of closure, as I feel sacharine, tidy endings are generally the most unsatisfying, and this certainly wasn't one of those. On the whole I don't regret reading the thing, however, much like the case of Neal Stephenson's trilogy The Baroque Cycle, I know of people who only got partway in before abandoning the book and I honestly wouldn't be comfortable arguing they made the wrong choice. The story was certainly better than the vast majority of dreck published these days, but I doubt I'll be pushing a copy into anyone's hands anytime soon, nor can I really ever see rereading it.