The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next, #1) in Overdue Podcast

Dec 30, 2010 Carlos rated it it was ok

Shelves: read-2009

Sadly, I found this book to be a major disappointment. I'm huge fan of British comedy and science fiction--Monty Python, Douglas Adams, Dr. Who, Neil Gaiman--and something of an autodidact lit geek, so this novel which promises the exploits of a special agent who has to travel into the novel Jane Eyre in pursuit of a villain sounds right up my alley. So, what went wrong?

Let's start with the world building. While Fforde's alternate universe England is quite inventive, it's also tonally weird. Eng Sadly, I found this book to be a major disappointment. I'm huge fan of British comedy and science fiction--Monty Python, Douglas Adams, Dr. Who, Neil Gaiman--and something of an autodidact lit geek, so this novel which promises the exploits of a special agent who has to travel into the novel Jane Eyre in pursuit of a villain sounds right up my alley. So, what went wrong?

Let's start with the world building. While Fforde's alternate universe England is quite inventive, it's also tonally weird. England has been locked in the Crimean War all the way into the present day (circa 1985), with no end in sight, and the government appears to be controlled by a large corporation dubbed (unsubtly) the Goliath Corporation. OK, so this is some sort of dystopia, right? But wait, thanks to cloning, scientists have been able to bring dodos out of extinction, and it turns out that they make great pets! Like, OMG!, is that cute or what? The Eyre Affair may be the only dystopic novel I've read in which the Breads and Circuses are intended as much for the reader as for the regime's subjects. (Oh, if only Big Brother had thought to provide everyone with messenger owls, 1984 could have been a much more amusing novel!)

Second, there's the use of names. As Roger Ebert once said, "Funny names, in general, are a sign of desperation." I'd like to amend that slightly to say, it's really a bad idea for a novel to feature characters whose names are vastly more interesting than their personalities. Heroine Thursday Next gets a pass, as does main baddy Acheron Hades, but I can't think of anything funny about Paige Turner, Victor Analogy or Alexandria Belfridge.

Oh, and let me just say, Acheron Hades' motivation to engage in villainy for no reason because pointless wickedness is the purest form of wickedness? I know it's supposed to make him seem particularly evil, but it just makes him seem arbitrary. I kept expecting the revelation that he was an escapee from a second-rate potboiler.

The biggest failure, though, is how panderingly The Eyre Affair wields its metatextuality. Dead British authors are like celebrities in Fforde's England. People change their names to John Milton out of devotion. Robo-Shakespeares quote the bard from every corner. Surrealists somehow manage to spark riots. (This joins with the whole Crimean War aspect to give the sense that England is terribly stagnant. None of the authors that inspire devotion ever saw the 20th century. And surrealism is controversial enough to spark riots? Really, how very quaint.)

The scene that really put me off, and which should have inspired me to quit the novel, was the performance of a Rocky Horror version of Richard III, after which a couple of the characters discuss how much they love classic literature. There's something a little jarring about seeing a camped up production of Shakespeare held up as an expression of deep love, as if the Thursday Nextiverse (or even Fforde himself) completely misses the point of camp. Does Fforde think people bring cutlery to midnight showings of The Room because they feel Tommy Wiseau is an auteur?

It may be hyperliterate in its use of references, but the effect often feels superficial. In the action revolving around the titular novel, Jane Eyre is reduced to a damsel in distress and Rochester to a straightforward hero, the complex characters I so loved in their original context reduced to cardboard cutouts. Fforde is like a lobotomized Borges, finding ways to dumb down the literature he loves instead of finding new and interesting depths.

So, sorry, just did not enjoy this novel. I have to confess though, if I ever got a hold of one of those devices to travel into literature, you know the first thing I'd do? Carpet bomb Fforde's England with copies of every major modernist and postmodernist work from the last century. I'd like to think I'd be treated as a liberator. ...more

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Jun 18, 2012 Kate Sherrod rated it really liked it

Could have used a better editor -- not proofreader, but a serious edit, of the kind that forces the author to rethink his too-omniscient first-person narrator and to change her narrative voice to suit certain situations. Would you really say things like "he said admiringly" in an official report to your (angry) superiors, for instance?

Nonetheless, lots of fun. Lots. When is the winter of our discontent? ...more

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Jun 19, 2021 Casey rated it it was amazing

What a fun and wild ride. The Eyre Affair is a speculative fiction novel, about the adventures of Thursday Next who is a Litera-Tech agent in the British government, dealing with crimes involving literature. When the dastardly Acheron Hades steals the original manuscript of some famous literature, thereby changing every copy of the book it's up to Thursday to outwit this villain and save Jane Eyre.

I really enjoyed this book. There was lots of great world building, and alternative fiction going o ...more

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Jun 24, 2009 Liesl rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: well-fed-head, overdue, series, 2009

Fun, amusing and unique, and filled with loads of clever wordplay and references. However, a bit too quirky at times, and it was disappointing that despite the title, Jane Eyre wasn't integral to the plot of the book until more than halfway through it. ...more

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