Rating: 
Summary: Enter the Bibliophiles fantasy world
Review: The Eyre Affair is extraordinary! With great writing, and a fantastic plot it is and wonderfully 'out there'. Jasper Fforde sets the book in an alternate universe where books are as culturally relevant (more so!) as the favorite football team in London. Surreal and funny, The Eyre Affair with Thursday as the delightful sleuth and central character is a fun and fabulous read.
Rating:
Summary: Very Clever and Entertaining
Review: This book is great fun. I just bought another copy to send to a friend. It has a wonderful premise, great characters and does not take itself too seriously. I laughed through the whole book. Now I'm waiting for book 2.
Rating: 
Summary: Something for everyone!
Review: Wow! I picked this book up because of the title. I am a great fan of Jane Eyre. I was wonderfully suprised by Fforde's storytelling, and wait in anticipation for the next 'Next' novel. If you are a fan of Jane Eyre, sci-fi, comedy, adventure, history, Shakespere or literature in general, you will enjoy this tale.
Rating:
Summary: "Reality, to be sure, was beginning to bend."
Review: "The barriers between reality and fiction are softer than we think." This statement just about sums up "The Eyre Affair," a bizarre blend of mystery, fantasy, alternate universe novel, satire, and a dash of horror and scifi. With its likeable heroine and delightful plot, this is one that bibliophiles will drool over. It's sort of as if Terry Pratchett wrote mysteries.It takes place an alternate world where the Crimean War has lasted over a century, vampirism and lycanthropy are like diseases, time can be warped, and people can fall in and out of books and plays -- and if it's the original work, it will change all the other copies. Thursday Next is an agent for a special division devoted to literature, and is on the trail of the villainous Acheron Hades after the theft of the manuscript of "Martin Chuzzlewit" by Charles Dickens. (There are a lot of fantastic names in this book) To complicate matters more, her old boyfriend Landen has reentered the picture, and the obnoxious Schitt of the powerful Goliath Corporation is following Thursday. Hades seems to have been killed, but Thursday is almost sure that he isn't. It turns out she's right -- he kidnaps her aunt and "mad as pants" uncle Mycroft Next, who has just made a machine that allows people to wander into pieces of literature. Hades's plot is to use the machine to disrupt literature as we know it. First he kills a minor character from "Martin Chuzzlewit," and then kidnaps Jane Eyre (in this parallel universe, the novel has a very different ending). Thursday Next teams up with the brooding Rochester and an odd bunch of characters to save Jane -- and all the other great works of literature. This is one of the best-conceived and best-executed ideas in recent years. A lot of readers probably won't understand all of the literary jokes and in-jokes (it sounds snobby, I know, but if you don't get something then just skip it), as well as some that anybody can understand (like the invention of the banana). The idea of high art as pop culture is delightfully done, like the guy with the "Hand of God" tattoo, or the door-to-door Baconian missionaries, or geeky John Milton convention. Take a sprinkling of real-life popular stuff, make it art-inclined, and that's what you get. One of the best things about this book is that it overflows with promise for sequels in this universe. Time travel, a chilling scene with a lisping vampire, lycanthropy, and the wealth of literature are all dealt with, but not so thoroughly that it can't be used again. The writing style is spare and fast-moving, sort of like Terry Pratchett's but more detailed. The dialogue is very good, with a lot of good quotables. Thursday Next is a likable female lead, very hard-boiled, tough and smart, but with a vulnerable side. Uncle Mycroft is just delightful, mad as pants! Acheron Hades is one of those villains who loves evil for its own sake (well, with a name like "Hades," what can you expect?), and people who like a complex reason for a person to be bad won't like him. I thought he was fantastic, especially the line "I'm just... well, differently moralled, that's all." And Thursday's dad steals every scene he's in, as the casual time traveller who's always setting things right in history, and stops time when he appears ("My father had a face that could stop a clock"). And who couldn't love Pickwick the dodo? Jasper Fforde's first novel is a slightly frothy, book-hopping, tongue-in-cheek novel. It may not be a work of literature equal to "Jane Eyre," but it's a supremely entertaining and promising one. And from what I've read of "Lost in a Good Book," the sequel is just as good...
Rating:
Summary: a book that demonstrates its idea
Review: Original. A change from your typical novel. The best part of the book is that he's worked his idea into the actual book. A page is missing...or the words of a page. Now is this intentional or the working of the evil forces who would like nothing better then to delete parts of a story. Since I haven't read any mention to this in any reviews I am assuming many have overlooked this. And so we see toying with words where they are meant to be is a serious crime. Cool book. Maybe we will find out what happened at the church in the next book.
Rating: 
Summary: Very Good and Very Bad at the Same Time
Review: It's not many books that can make you wish that reviewing them were a bit more like grading ice-skating performances. I would really like to split my rating for Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair into two grades - for artistic expression and technical merit. On the first count, The Eyre Affair is definitely a 5. Fforde costructs his alternate universe with an assuredness that is remarkable in a first time writer. His world is instantly believable, both strikingly alien and oddly familiar. Fforde is a master of the tiny details that distinguish a truly superb alternate reality - details like pet dodos, machines that will spout a Shakepearean monologue for 10p., and practically Dickensian feats of naming (it seems hard to credit but Fforde manages to make his protagonist's name, Thursday Next, seem normal). The plot - a master villain stealing characters from beloved books - fits right in this cockeyed universe, and while it is a little thin, The Eyre Affair is so brisk and energetic that you hardly notice. Thursday herself, while hardly a very original character, is quite likable. Unfortunately, Fforde also gets a 0, or possibly a negative score, in technical merit. I realise that, as it is a parody of Jane Eyre (as well as many, many other staples of classic literature), Fforde had to write The Eyre Affair as a narrative in the first person, but that is a style that should only be attempted by professionals, and Fforde only suffers by the forced comparison to Bronte. Or, for that matter, to any half-way decent writer. The Eyre Affair features some of the flattest, most uninteresting prose that it has ever been my misfortune to read. Entire paragraphs run on in sentences of 'I did this, then I did that, then I walked across the room and did that again'. Even worse, the dialogue is atrocious - lines like "You may have might in your back pocket, but I have right in mine." are spoken with entirely straight faces. Most of the time, Fforde wisely allows the plot to sweep the reader along so fast that the deficiencies of the prose go (almost) unnoticed, but during important moments, such as the climatic love scene, one can only groan at his inadequecies. As you can see, rating this book was quite a problem, so I decided to split the two scores. The Eyre Affair is both a very good book and a very bad book, depending on what matters most to you as a reader. If you're capable of overlooking poor writing for the sake of an imaginitive plot, by all means read this book. Otherwise I would avoid it like the plague.
Rating:
Summary: Great idea, but flawed
Review: The premise of this book is fantastic, blending wit, a bit of sci-fi, historical twists, literary plots and a bit of mystery. The protagonist, Thursday Next, is a literary detective in an England filled with book fanatics (instead of religious types going door-to-door pushing their faiths, Baconians [who believed Bacon authored Shakespeare's works] press their doctrines on the unsuspecting folk who open their doors to them. Books and manuscripts are considered national treasures, so when a manuscript disappears it's a major event. Thursday's antagonist is the evil Acheron Hades, who can hear his name mentioned from far away, can dodge bullets, etc - basically pure evil. He doesn't even do evil for money, necessarily, but for the pleasure he gains from being dastardly. He ends up stealing the original manuscript of 'Jane Eyre' and kidnaps poor Jane, and Thursday, in the meanwhile, battles red tape, greedy corporate types, runs into her time-traveling dad repeatedly and wonders about her old love, who she broke up with after her time in the Crimean War (it is 1985, and the war goes on - not to mention the cloning trend [pet dodos, etc]), and tries to recover poor Jane and save the plot of a literary classic via an invention of Thursday's uncle which allows one to enter the manuscript and enter that book's world (which in the Eyre Affair ends with Jane Eyre not marrying Rochester - how does it get set right to Bronte's ending? Read the book). There's a lot going on here, nearly 400 pages worth. It's a fascinating world, one any English major will appreciate, where beautifully crafted words are the craze instead of televisions, etc. The characters, though, aren't the most well-developed. I personally loved what was going on and all of Fforde's details, but I really didn't care about Thursday too much, she just seemed rather cardboard, only worth following because it's 1.) in the first person, and 2.) because that's how you find out how it all ends. That and her very poorly developed romance with Landen (I think that was his name) were basically unneccessary in my book (pun unintended), but other than some stuff that's a bit too stretched for the imagination and underdeveloped characters, there's a lot of fun and wit here that most bibliophiles will enjoy.
Rating: 
Summary: Terrific Premise Wasted
Review: First time author Fforde starts with a wonderful premise and a winningly whimsical tone...and proceeds to entirely botch the execution. If you've read the flap copy you've got the premise: in a rabidly bibliophile alternate universe UK, a new invention allows you to enter original manuscripts of great literature and, well, muck with them. Fforde takes his tone from Douglas Adams and Adams-era Dr. Who, mixed with just enough literary erudition not to alienate anyone who made it though senior year English. Sounds great -- but the book is truly dire. Fforde seems to feel that farce relieves him of all responsibilities in plotting, characterization, and even consistency. He introduces multiple pointless time travel paradoxes, gives us a villain who can stop bullets for no reason at all, and having established his rules for moving in and out of literature, eventually breaks them all. Toward the finish the book becomes so depressingly lazy, developments so random, that one is hard pressed to reach the end. So, no suspense, no emotion, and not even many laughs. While the Eyre Affair is certainly a quick read, it becomes quickly annoying to see such a terrific premise wasted.
Rating: 
Summary: Ridiculous.
Review: I bought a copy of this volume under the (as it turns out, false) impression that it would provide me with some level of entertainment, a mindless nugget between one thing and another. Let me assure you that it is, indeed, mindless. While full marks must go to Mr. Fforde for the admittedly excellent premise (evil overlord wreaks havoc by stealing classic manuscripts and transporting himself into their pages, more or less) and for actually getting the thing published, be warned that it has nothing whatsoever to do with sly winks, "postmodernism played out as raw, howling farce" or, indeed, story or narrative. The antagonist, Thursday Next (a dull play on words, along with most of the other characters, notably Jack Schitt) is completely devoid of character and personality, with a contrived background that would make even the most toad-like of Hollywood hacks wince. Nothing ever really happens in the story - it simply plays out as a jumble of clichéd encounters and undergraduate references to some of the most boring/obscure pieces of literature on the planet, a hodgepodge of puerile jokes formulated by an author with far too many volumes of reference on his shelves, and not nearly enough books. The very thought that I wasted a day reading this rubbish sets my teeth on edge. Only hip posers whose literary backgrounds began and ended when they were forced to read 'Catcher In The Rye' in year nine and now figure that they know everything and can go back to bleaching their hair and learning to roll cigarettes. If the core of the book appeals to you - ostensibly wacky adventures of a private investigator in an ostensibly wacky parallel universe - you'd do far better to read either of Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently books. If you already have, then it's time to move on, because you won't find a shadow of those masterpieces here.
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Summary: Audio performance of a great book flawed...
Review: I absolutely LOVE the book(s) and am addicted to the author's very imaginative website and Fforum. However, I found the Audio version of this book to be a bit dry. I'm not sure if it was the fact that the retrospective chapter headings (which are hysterical and explain what's going to happen in each chapter) were left out, or whether it was Elizabeth Sastre's voice sounding rather monotone. She doesn't differentiate the characters' voices very well. It's difficult to tell the men apart! But she does the women okay. And her accent is affected. Like you never know for sure if she's actually British or not. Sounds a little fake. The endless jokes and sly winks in the book just don't come through in the audio. While reading the book, you get the feeling Mr. Fforde is winking at you, but the audio is flat because she doesn't give the slight pause needed for comic timing. BUT, all this said, for those of us who have very resistant spouses who stare blankly at us while we laugh out loud when we read the books over and over, this is invaluable. It at least makes it possible to open a real dialog about this wonderfully imaginative romp through alternate universe 1985 England. All this said, I will probably still buy the Audio version of the next book, "Lost in a Good Book" just so my husband will quit giving me 'those' looks.
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