The Eyre Affair

Rating:
Summary: Clever concept veiled in an average debut novel
Review: Jasper Fforde's EYRE AFFAIR was a much-anticipated read on my very long list of books. By the time I had decided to pick up a copy, my expectations were great to say the least. Having read it with some difficulties (which I will explain further), I can say without hesitation that it is an overhyped debut.

While the concept is clever and original, the novel suffers from several deficiencies, for lack of a better word:

* It is simply too long--the author spends many pages boring the reader with extraneous details that do not propel the story or this reader's interest. I was some 60 pages into it when the story's pace quickened, only to have it fall flat at about page 150!

* I'm not a Jane Eyre scholar, so the author will forgive me for not remember my high school English classes where we read the original novel. Since some 20 years have passed, I have only a vague memory of the characters to which Mr. Fforde makes frequent and very specific references. I didn't pick up Eyre Affair, only to think "Gosh, I should go read Jane Eyre again, then I won't feel lost in this book!"

* The ending was contrived, protracted and rather insipid. Like a souffle this novel collapsed the last 30-odd pages. It was quite a struggle to finish it.

For lack of anything better to say, I shall leave the reader of this review with one final word of advice:

SAVE YOUR MONEY!

Rating:
Summary: Eyre Be Well
Review: This novel is a fun romp through an alternate reality that is topsy turvy in some unexpected ways. Thursday Next is a heroine that exhibits some of the independence and quirkiness of Anita Blake and Merry Gentry, even if she doesn't degenerate to violence quite as quickly.

The premise lays the groundwork for leaps into great works on literature across the ages.

This is a great book for summer. Find a nice shady spot and spend a few hours getting away from it all.

Rating:
Summary: Brit-Lits and Bibliophiles, this is a must-read!
Review: Finally, a fantasy novel where the world described is actually a literal fantasy of mine! A world where novels have replaced sports, movies, and television as the most popular form of entertainment: where proselytizers knock on your door and ask if you've found Sir Francis Bacon, schoolchildren trade Austen and Bronte playing cards, and "Richard III" is staged weekly as an audience-participation cult favorite a la "Rocky Horror". I LOVE this world, and all its quirks: 1980s England, in the midst of a 131-year war with Russia, where time-travel, vampirism, and jumping in and out of books are all commonplace.

Thursday Next is the name of the reluctant heroine of this book, dragged into a first-class mess when it's discovered that she once rebuffed the future villain Acheron Hades in college. After he's turned to a life of crime, *no one* can resist Hades (who has several other supernatural powers), so when it's suspected he's stolen a first edition Dickens manuscript with the intent of causing harm to its characters, Thursday is brought in to help stop him.

A host of secondary characters make appearances, from Thursday's mad-scientist Uncle Mycroft, to the wickedly delightful Acheron Hades, to the helpful and mysterious Edward Rochester from the eponymous book (also in peril) himself. The witty use of names and puns is always lighthearted, rarely dragging (as similar Douglas Adams jokes tend to be) and they never obscure the main plot. The in-jokes are numerous, but if you haven't read the books they're based on you won't really miss anything.

If you love literature, you MUST read this book - at the very least to escape to a world where everyone shares your passion.

Rating:
Summary: Eccentric and whimsical, but I loved it :)
Review: In order to save your time and money, if you don't like books that require you to suspend your disbelief, don't buy this book. On the other hand, even if you are one of those who generally don't enjoy books that require the reader to use his imagination, you can enormously enjoy this book. So I guess it all comes down to whether or not you are willing to risk it...

The plot is pretty strange. Fforde takes us to a surreal version of Great Britain, in the year 1985. We can recognize some aspects of his world, but not all of them. For example, in the author's world, technology is much more advanced (it is acceptable to clone extinguished animals and to have them as pets), the Crimean War didn't stop and everybody loves literature. It could be said that literature is for them what sports are to us: a national passion. Anyway, in that kind of world, that is already beginning to sound weird (but in a nice way), there is a Special Operations Network that was created in order to "handle policing duties considered either to unusual or too specialized to be tackled by the regular force". Most of the operatives are rather peculiar. There is a saying that explains that more clearly: "If you want to be a SpecOp, act kinda weird...".

Miss Thursday Nexts is a Spec- Op 27 who loves literature and specializes in problems related to literature, like all Spec-ops 27. She is intelligent and capable, strong but also vulnerable, and she was a sense of humor I found delightful. Thursday is more or less bored with her job, due to the fact that she finds it too routinary. After all, how many book forges can you detect before getting bored?. However, something is going to happen that is going to change her ordinary tasks. Someone discovers a way to "jump" into books, and as a result a criminal mastermind has a strange idea: he devices a way to kidnap a character of one of the most beloved books.

From that point onwards, the reader will accompany agent Next in her bizarre investigation. I can guarantee something: you won't be bored. The plot has a high degree of unpredictability, and some characters are not only atypical but also mystifying. As a result, "The Eyre Affair" has a dreamlike quality I consider enchanting and very appealing. You might be puzzled sometimes, but you will relish that feeling.

I would like to highlight the fact that the author makes lots of literary allusions, but that is only to be expected, due to the fact that in Thursday's world literature is extremely important. An small example?: so many people change their names in order to have the name of a famous author, that they need to be also identified with numbers, to avoid confusions. From my point of view, the constant evident or implied references to literature (books and characters) was charming. I probably didn't catch all the allusions, but I caught enough of them in order to be interested and pleased. I don't think you need to be an "expert" in order to enjoy this book. Even if you don't have a high degree of knowledge regarding literature, you are bound to appreciate it... And who knows, you might end up learning a bit, as I did.

Fforde style is eccentric and whimsical, but I loved it. This book was certainly something different, that made me think several times, and laugh a lot. I will continue reading the series, because I value a good book that is original, and Fforde is decidedly capable of writing them. On balance, I highly recommend this book to you. Enjoy it as much as I did !.

Belen Alcat

Rating:
Summary: Very fun book, but not his best...
Review: Well, I did it again. I didn't get into "Star Trek" until "Star Trek III". The first Star Wars movie I saw was "Return of the Jedi", followed by "Empire Strikes Back". I read "Life, the Universe, and Everything" first in the Hitchhiker's Trilogy (of what, 5 books now?) I picked up "Lost in a Good Book" at the recommendation of a friend, even though I was unable to get "The Eyre Affair" at the same bookstore (it was showing in the database, but not on the shelves... oddly appropriate for the series).

What this reinforced was the following:

A) "Lost in a Good Book" was an _excellent_ novel.
B) "The Eyre Affair" is merely a very good one.

It seems that Jasper wasn't quite sure of the writing style he wanted to use in "The Eyre Affair", and while he doesn't do it often, there are switches to 3rd person viewpoints involving people not near the usual 1st person protagonist. These are somewhat jarring as I prefer a book to stay in the same voice throughout. The overall tone is a bit more serious also than his second book, and I found I much preferred the breezier style in "Lost in a Good Book".

Nevertheless, "The Eyre Affair" is a wonderfully fresh and unique style that isn't categorized easily. Alternate history, time travel, detective thriller, humor, romance elements, horror, are all present. The fun part of it all is that even someone who hasn't read the books/poetry referred to in the story can still somehow understand what the 'inside jokes' might be (warning, spoiler in the next part):

*SPOILER*
For instance, Thursday Next changes the ending of Jane Eyre by her actions within the book itself. Well... she changes it in _her_ world, with camps falling into "The change was for the better" or those who despise her because of it. In actuality, she changes it to match with our reality. Yet, even never having read Jane Eyre, I somehow got the impression that that's what happened.
*END SPOILER*

Simply put, in spite of some growing pains for the series, this is still a quite fun novel which can be enjoyed on a variety of levels.

Rating:
Summary: Harry Potter for adults?
Review: The concept of parallel universes is a powerful literary contrivance. It allows an author to indiscriminately devise characters, circumstances and mechanisms not allowed in mainstream fiction. Inventive abilities are the only restraining element. Fforde fully displays his inventive talents in this fantasy of a world dominated by literature and its characters. Setting the story in a alternate 20th Century Britain, he provides a familiar scene. The familiarity is disrupted by unusual events - like a "temporal anomaly" appearing on a country road. British imperialist ambitions haven't been shed, but they're confined to the Russian Crimea where a war has peristed for over a century. All this becomes necessary background in a story of a LitCop striving to protect the reputations and products of British writers.

Literature is held in high regard in this tale - that alone should recommend this book. Authors are memorised in this society. Books discussed and debated, characters assessed, true authorship is argued over when the merest hint of alternatives presents itself. Inevitably, the issue of who actually wrote Shakespeare's works consumes substantial space in this book. Societies form to debate the issue, taking to the streets or vandalising when milder forms of assertion fail. As a SpecialOps agent, Thursday Next is caught up in much of this, but her true role is that of combatting Evil. Evil, of course, is personified in a former teacher of Thursday's, Archeron Hades - "a lech". Thus, with one phrase, the protagonists are identified and innocent womanhood is threatened by male dominance. Even Harry Potter tales don't portray as starkly as this. But Harry Potter is written for children - who are more critical.

Archeon is the archetypical - whell, not "mad scientist" - let's say "mad scholar". There's a bit of "world domination" in his thinking, but mostly he's interesting in pulling off the coup having the most impact. After a rehearsive heist of one manuscript, he goes after The Big One, the Kohinoor of British literature - Jane Eyre. If he scores this, he can manipulate every copy of the book ever printed. Then what? Enter the other giant figure - Goliath Corporation - which, like all powerful businesses in today's world, has lost sight of the dividing line between commerce and government. The Crimea has become THE icon of British power and must be retained. What could two such monumental forces of Evil not achieve working together? Especially given that Goliath's representative is named Jack Schitt.

Thursday, who has lost a brother in the Crimea and a fiance to her work, opens the story by losing two colleagues to Hades in a botched arrest attempt. Hades has "special powers" granting him the ability to steal undetected and escape in a variety of disguises. For a resident of a society supposedly steeped in literature, some of Thursday's gaffes are more than just perplexing. Examples abound that she might draw upon, but it would curtail the tale. She perserveres, and the path to the climax isn't overly complicated. The solution to overcoming Hades' bizaare powers is jarring in its irrelevancy, but we have to forgive Fforde for running out of inventiveness here. He's used up so much getting to this point.

Fforde's literary knowledge is impressive. He works in many points and debates, even if they have to be inserted forcefully. He pushes people into text and pulls them out into "reality" with real aplomb. If you're not into Victorian Literature, Fforde kindly weaves plots and characters from it into this story. Thursday recounts "Jane Eyre" for her distracted partner, and the Shakespeare debates are given full airing. Fforde's style makes the presentation tolerable, which reading the original cannot. It is that ability with language that overcomes what might be serious shortcomings in this book. Don't read it to pick apart the implausible events or stereotyped characters - read it to enjoy Fforde's talent as a writer. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Rating:
Summary: Funny and inventive!
Review: Ever read a book where you like the author more than the main character? That's how I felt about Jasper Fforde's scifi/sleuth novel, THE EYRE AFFAIR. While the protaganist, one, Thursday Next, is not particularly remarkable in any way, the strangely skewed world into which she is placed is full of surprises and surreal moments. Dodos not only exist, they're available as household pets in several different versions. There are thought police and time cops, and a large force of "literatecs" who specialize in solving literary crimes.

Next has to juggle the inevitable fractured love interest with battling archvillain Acheron Hades and Jack Schitt of the huge corporate comglomerate, Goliath in her quest to thwart the kidnapping of characters from MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT and JANE EYRE, as well as her eccentric aunt and uncle. Fforde, who loves a good pun and has a real sense of the absurd, throws the reader into all sorts of historical scenarios which never were, but could have been, if history had been just a little different.

A fun read!

Rating:
Summary: FUN !! A Weird and Wonderful Alternate Universe
Review: Surreal ! This is a literary adventure in a parallel universe; Great Britain in 1985, the year perhaps chose to leave no doubt that this is science fiction of the "almost might have been" variety rather than the speculative type which fantasizes about "one of many possible futures" . The Crimean war still has Russia and England facing off as adversaries after 130 years, air travel is by "gas bag", the border between England and the People's Republic of Wales is sealed, and occasional rents in the space time continuum are repaired by the Chronoguards (SO-12). (In fact, Tuesday's father is a renegade member of the Office for Special Temporal Stability, but in fact perhaps I need his help since I seem to have gotten ahead of myself.) The Special Operations (SO) network has been formed to handle specialized and unusual police matters, with the thirty departments being denoted by a number in reverse order to their secrecy and hierarchal rank. When we are introduced to Thursday Next (the enjoyable heroine of this tale), she is a Literatec, that is, an SO-27, an operative in the Literary Detective Division. However, she is about to be temporarily assigned to SO-5, a department so secret that its name cannot be revealed but is attempting to trace the mysterious disappearance of the original manuscript of MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT.

So, if you are willing to suspend belief and return to the days of your youth, when the arch villains did battle against the white hats, vampires existed, and reading stories transported you into the worlds of their protagonists, then join Thursday and discover what's Next. This is about clever wordplay and literary allusions, about politics and religion, but primarily about having fun in a wonderful adventure with many interesting twists and turns. You will even be privy to an ingenious explanation of who really was responsible for Shakespeare's plays (a continual question for SO-27 operatives to ponder), as well as experience an hilarious production of RICHARD III. The more knowledge of literature you have, the more you will appreciate the truly remarkable job the author has done of weaving such illusions into the text (e.g., remember that James Boswell wrote the LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHSON), but even without much specific knowledge the author's Clif Notes are provided so that you can appreciate how Thursday's adventures changed the lives of Edward Rochester and Jane Eyre.

When I read the description of the series of which this book is the initial entry, I was not sure that the author would be able to keep my attention while enabling me to engage in the necessary suspension of belief, but he has created a storytelling methodology that fully engaged me. The brief introductory paragraph at the beginning of each chapter (excerpted from various narrative accounts concerning the proceedings), serve to very effectively both convey crucial background information and provide an air of authenticity. I strongly recommend that you read this book when you want to meet such interesting characters as Ms. Paige Turner and the almost immortalized fiend, Felix Tabularasa. The creativeness of Fforde's imagination rivals that of the extraordinary scifi writer Philip K. Dick, except that this is world of exciting adventures and happy endings (at least before the next assignment beckons to Thursday), rather than the stark and often depressing possibilities that Dick's imagination envisioned. I was also impressed with the ability of Fforde to subsequently answer questions which had been raised by certain elements of the narrative and to cleverly tie up several loose ends or unexplained happenings; of course, you have to accept the fantasy of the alternative universe which he creates, but there is internal consistency within the rules of that world.

I have chosen not to reveal too many details of the plot, both in order not to spoil it and also because a brief review could not do it justice. But I believe that you will enjoy entering the world of Thursday Next, and will soon find yourself LOST IN A GOOD BOOK (the sequel). And you will also probably fantasize about which novels you would like to enter and perhaps improve the plot, meet the characters, or experience the action if only you had the ability to engage in book jumping. But you'll have to read THE EYRE AFFAIR to learn how to accomplish that feat, I won't tell.

Tucker Andersen

Rating:
Summary: Incredible imagination. This one is a winner
Review: When a valuable original manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit is stolen, LiteraTec Operative Thursday Next is after the thief--a brilliant former professor of hers who went terribly, terribly bad. Acheron Hades has mysterious powers over his enemies. Bullets bounce off of him. In short, he is just about the most evil man on earth, and soon to be the most powerful. For his plan isn't just to sell the manuscript or hold it for ransom. Thanks to a device invented by Thursday's uncle, Hades can actually kidnap characters from the original manuscript--even kill them--rendering every copy of the novel virtually blank or hideously corrupted.

When the Chuzzlewit manuscript burns, Hades sets his sights on Jane Eyre, kidnapping Jane and causing the novel to end abruptly in the middle. Thursday must chase Hades into the novel herself. Aided by her time-traveling fugitive father, a couple of loyal fellow agents, a corporation bent on world domination, and even Rochester himself, she matches wits with the most diabolical villain I've seen in a long time. But her interference in the novel's fabric has unintended results, which are beautiful to behold as the ending unfolds.

The Eyre Affair is a fantasy novel like none I've ever read. It's set in the recent past (1985) in England, but because of the alternate history established by the author, the setting is hardly recognizable. The Crimean war is still raging after 130 years, time travel and gene splicing are routine, no one has ever heard of Winston Churchill (he died as a child), and people travel by blimp rather than jet. England and Wales are separated by something like the Berlin Wall. And everywhere, people take literature very seriously. Fans of various authors and poets form special-interest groups with political aspirations and sometimes terrorist plots. Literary crimes such as forgery and plagiarism require an entire section of Special Operations devoted to capturing offenders.

Author Jasper Fforde just has an incredible imagination, with delights on every page, well-rounded characters, and even a nifty romance. This is one of the best books I've read this year, and I the others in the series (there are four so far) are on my shopping list.

Rating:
Summary: The best combination - light yet smart
Review: This book was a truly refreshing read - it was light, fun, and interesting while at the same time managing to be very smart, chock-full of literary allusion. As someone who has more than once fallen victim to the fluffiness of chick lit, but always returned to the more fulfilling substance of my Austen and Bronte, this book had it all: it had the exciting adventure, likeable heroine, and a little bit of romance that I crave in a fun read, while managing to stay intelligent and literary.(sorry about that really long sentence!) Bottom Line (I'm so mad they stopped doing that in People): Great book, an Affair to remember, if you will. heehee.