Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell imagines a Napoleonic era England with ballroom niceties, pendantic scholars…and a history of wild magic some can’t quite forget.
Though the title refers to the two magicians dedicated to bringing back practical magic, my favorite character is one who seems always lurking in the shadows though he never physically appears.
theme: iridescent feathers
The Raven King is a human who came out of Faerie to establish a magical England in a golden age. (Parallel to the Arthurian mythology, I think.)
He is both shadow and flesh, myth and nature. The Raven King, an aspect of the deep, eerie magic of this English landscape. I love the idea, and I had to make a yarn to tribute it.
I’m pretty proud of this one, and it’s a full 300 yards, by devious means I shall be making use of more often…
a cheapskate lazy-kate
Actually, that’s not how I did this one, but I just had to use that picture…
I just finished this yarn after it was a few months in the making–I had to especially buy the black merino roving, which I was able to purchase from my PayPal business money! Yay for selling stuff to buy more stuff–monies is fun.
Lovely yarn, but I’d imagined the Raven King as more greens and purples on black, perhaps. No, having looked again you’re right.
Great book, isn’t it. Have you read ‘The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories’? Amazing stories, and utterly perfect for reading aloud – to one’s self if necessary. She writes with the right rhythms for reading aloud, which very few authors do these days. CS Lewis and JRRT are both obvious examples because they spent time reading passages aloud as they were written, which makes me wonder if Clarke did too.
Actually, I agree with you. But I had this natty red shiny stuff (I do not know what it is) and it was just gorgeous against the black, so I did a full spectrum.
The pictures to show the colors are a little washed out–or you wouldn’t be able to see them well. But I have green and purple.
I’d love to do it again with actually shiny fiber of some kind in green and purple. I also want to create some batts that reflect that cover more, with the aged yellow, and spin that up as well.
I have The Ladies of Grace Adieu…haven’t read more of it in a long time. Thanks for the reminder! I didn’t think of reading it aloud, but you are exactly right about her style.
I added you as a friend on LiveJournal! I’m “anachred” there. ^_^