Book Review: The Eyre Affair
Fifteen years ago I was browsing a bookstore and found an intriguing detective novel in which someone is kidnapping characters from literature. The concept tickled me, but due to some lapse of judgment, I put the book back and went back to browsing.
Then I forgot the title, and since then I’ve been kicking myself for not buying it when I had the chance.
Recently GoodReads recommended to me Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair. This was it! The book! So I nabbed a copy of it and read it over vacation. It was worth the wait.
In a surreal world, the Crimean War is still in full swing in 1985, and militant gangs proselytize that Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare’s plays, and dressing up as John Milton at conventions is the height of cosplay.
Thursday Next is a special operative in the LiteraTec division, which tracks down criminals in the high-stakes world of literary forgeries. When a criminal mastermind Hades Acheron literally kidnaps Jane Eyre from the novel, it is up to Thursday to jump into the Bronte world, and with the aid of Rochester, keep the story from being derailed into nonexistence.
The story is rife with cleverness, but if all it had to offer was a clever premise, the book wouldn’t have been worth the trouble. Fortunately Fford knows how to tell a great story.
"Yes, I named one of the
characters Paige Turner."A veteran of the Crimean War, Thursday has the emotional scars of battle as well as the death of her brother, due to a military blunder for which he is held responsible. Fifteen years later, she is still haunted by the past. She is an exceptional operative, though lately she is craving a quieter existence, so she returns to her hometown. Unfortunately, Hades Acheron has other plans, and soon Thursday is embroiled in tracking him down.
Fford relies on the reader having a certain degree of familiarity with Bronte’s novel, but he judiciously uses only select scenes from the novel rather than trying to cover the entire scope of Jane Eyre. Also, so he can focus on Thursday’s story, he keeps Jane out of the action until the second half of the novel. It’s a smart move that keeps the reader eager for Jane’s eventual appearance rather than jumping too quickly to the novelty of the premise.
There are plenty more books in the Thursday Next series, and from the blurbs, it looks like Fford is eager to explore the breadth of his world rather than repeating the whole literary kidnapping storyline.
Then I forgot the title, and since then I’ve been kicking myself for not buying it when I had the chance.
Recently GoodReads recommended to me Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair. This was it! The book! So I nabbed a copy of it and read it over vacation. It was worth the wait.
In a surreal world, the Crimean War is still in full swing in 1985, and militant gangs proselytize that Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare’s plays, and dressing up as John Milton at conventions is the height of cosplay.
Thursday Next is a special operative in the LiteraTec division, which tracks down criminals in the high-stakes world of literary forgeries. When a criminal mastermind Hades Acheron literally kidnaps Jane Eyre from the novel, it is up to Thursday to jump into the Bronte world, and with the aid of Rochester, keep the story from being derailed into nonexistence.The story is rife with cleverness, but if all it had to offer was a clever premise, the book wouldn’t have been worth the trouble. Fortunately Fford knows how to tell a great story.
"Yes, I named one of thecharacters Paige Turner."A veteran of the Crimean War, Thursday has the emotional scars of battle as well as the death of her brother, due to a military blunder for which he is held responsible. Fifteen years later, she is still haunted by the past. She is an exceptional operative, though lately she is craving a quieter existence, so she returns to her hometown. Unfortunately, Hades Acheron has other plans, and soon Thursday is embroiled in tracking him down.
Fford relies on the reader having a certain degree of familiarity with Bronte’s novel, but he judiciously uses only select scenes from the novel rather than trying to cover the entire scope of Jane Eyre. Also, so he can focus on Thursday’s story, he keeps Jane out of the action until the second half of the novel. It’s a smart move that keeps the reader eager for Jane’s eventual appearance rather than jumping too quickly to the novelty of the premise.
There are plenty more books in the Thursday Next series, and from the blurbs, it looks like Fford is eager to explore the breadth of his world rather than repeating the whole literary kidnapping storyline.
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