While the structural tragedy of the ending is no great surprise, from the lip pursings of dry academians to the mythological anarchy of ancient faerie, two worlds of Victorian "magic" combine ambitiously to satirize human folly in a wittily gruesome yet wistful way. Susanna Clarke's writing is an entertainment (in a good way) and her ideas provoke beyond the tropes of genre fantasy. I really havn't enjoyed a book as much as this one in a long while.