Into the Archive: The Wood at Midwinter

The Wood at Midwinter, by Susanna Clarke [Bloomsbury. October 2024]

“From the bestselling and prize-winning author of Piranesi and Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, an enchanting, beautifully illustrated short story set in the world of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.

'A church is a sort of wood. A wood is a sort of church. They're the same thing really.'

“Nineteen-year-old Merowdis Scot is an unusual girl. She can talk to animals and trees-and she is only ever happy when she is walking in the woods.

“One snowy afternoon, out with her dogs and Apple the pig, Merowdis encounters a blackbird and a fox. As darkness falls, a strange figure enters in their midst-and the path of her life is changed forever.

“Featuring gorgeous illustrations [by Victoria Sawdon] truly worthy of the magic of this story and an afterword by Susanna Clarke explaining how she came to write it, this is a mesmerizing, must-have addition to any fantasy reader's bookshelf.”

-Amazon

I didn’t even know this book existed until the last day of December, and I knew when I saw it that it was my one book for January. I sent off for it then, and it came today. It is a beautiful little book; the picture does not do it justice. The blue and white is wonderfully accented by the gilt lettering and figures, giving it the look of a wintery medieval manuscript.

It is listed at 64 pages; of those, only 50 of those are dedicated to the story, and those are generously illustrated, so the text is really shorter. The afterword is 8 pages long. Clarke explains how the short story was written in 2020 for Christmas broadcast on BBC 4, and how it was influenced by the work of Jorge Luis Borges and Kate Bush.

Though it takes place as the same world as Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, it can be described in one way as the exact opposite of that work; while the other book is a thick tome, this is a wafer-thin little volume. My copy arrived with thin scratches on the cover, not immediately noticeable, just slightly marring its beauty. The shipping and handling cost almost as much as the book itself. Clarke is supposed to be working on a novel-length sequel to JS&MN; I’m beginning to wonder.