Continuing with my resolve to read more popular and contemporary
books which everyone else in blogland has already read ages ago, I took on The
Eyre Affair. I've heard and read a lot about it and mostly good things. I've also heard Fforde compared to Douglas Adams and even the Monty Python crew, but
such comparisons do them all a disservice.
The only common ground is a certain irreverence that comes through in
all their works. Anyway, back to The Eyre Affair. It’s a bit of a genre-defying
variety show and you’ll enjoy it a lot better if you don’t go in with any preconceived
notions.
The Eyre Affair is set in an alternative reality where
literature is taken very seriously and Jane Eyre ends very differently. Politics
revolves around the ongoing Crimean War and England is almost entirely ‘managed’
by the Goliath Corporation. The heroine, Thursday Next, is a literary detective
who is on the trail of evil mastermind Acheron Hades. Hades has stolen the
manuscript of Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit and is threatening to kill its
central character. What follows is a madcap adventure that defies time, logic,
reality and even fiction.
Based on everything I had heard about it (mainly the
constant comparisons to Adams) I expected it to be more Laugh Out Loud funny.
It wasn't. It was a fun book, but the humor is not as in- your- face as I had
thought it would be. I’m probably not explaining this very well; just don’t expect
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I’m
not complaining though. I thoroughly enjoyed the world Fforde has created here.
Which reader wouldn't? It’s a world where there are coin operated machines that
dispense Shakespearean soliloquies and Mr Rochester walks in and out of Jane Eyre.
What’s not to love? It’s the perfect adventure/fantasy for a bookworm like me.
I am eager to read Fforde’s The Big Over Easy. Anyone read
any of his Nursery Crimes books? Any good?
I think it's impossible to explain the Thursday Next books in any coherent way. But I will say the others in the series are much better (and funnier) than the first one. Especially The Well of Lost Plots, which is my favorite.
ReplyDeleteI've read the 2 Nursery Crime books (which are a spin-off of either the second or third Thursday Next book) and they're both very funny. And surprisingly good mysteries.
I think I will keep going with the Thursday Next books for awhile and then move onto the Nursery Crime books. Glad to hear that they are good mysteries, The Eyre Affair wasn't really a mystery in any way was it? Good fun though.
DeleteI wouldn't call the Thursday Next books mysteries but the Nursery Crime ones are. Same sort of absurd literary humor but detective stories nonetheless.
DeleteI have this on my maybe list for a long time. Good to see you liked it
ReplyDeleteA 'maybe list' is a nice way of putting it :)I have a list like that in my head too.
DeleteI started this series a while ago and would like to pick it up again (I read the first two books). I enjoyed both, and thought the second book was taking the series to interesting places. Though I agree it's not always laugh-out-loud funny, the first book still made me smile a lot, and I liked the literary references and tongue-in-cheek humor.
ReplyDeleteHmmm, I don't get the Douglas Adams comparison other than it's another example of British humour. I loved this book when I first read it years ago but I think the following two are even better. The series is set into three trilogies although they are all connected and the second trilogy is probably my least favourite. I have the latest one to read which I am looking forward to.
ReplyDeleteI read the first of the nursery crimes books and I wasn't all that impressed. Much prefer the Thursday Next series.