The Fantastic Mr. Fforde

My father had a face that could stop a clock. I don't mean that he was ugly or anything; it was a phrase the ChronoGuard used to describe someone who had the power to reduce time to an ultra-slow trickle. Dad had been a colonel in the ChronoGuard and kept his work very quiet. So quiet, in fact, that we didn't know he had gone rogue at all until his timekeeping buddies raided our house one morning clutching a Seize & Eradication order open-dated at both ends and demanding to know where and when he was.

[The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2001) Chapter 1, page 1]

And with these words, I was immediately swept up into Thursday Next's world - a world amazingly realized by Jasper Fforde. It's all there in the first chapter; literary detectives, time travelling, the Crimean War, the government taxes on cheese, Goliath, a dodo.... If you're in my bookclub and haven't read the first novel yet - stop now! In fact, stop now if you've only read the first novel - I intend to discuss all the books in the Thursday Next series with this post. July was my month to pick for bookclub and I wanted something entertaining yet still intellectual. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde (one of my favourite books of all time) was the result. I thought I might as well reread the entire series while I was at it, and did so in a matter of a few weeks.

I will limit myself here to discussing the Thursday Next series. I haven't really read the Nursery Crime series all that much, so will remedy that defect and post on it in the future. Fforde's latest book is Shades of Grey, which I read when it came out, and will have to read again before I think I can post on in adequately. I can't wait for the rest of that series.

The first book in the series is The Eyre Affair. It was fun to re-read it for the bookclub - I approached it with fresh eyes and tried to read it as if it were the first time I had read it. It really does draw you in with the opening chapter. You really just have to go with it - to dive in completely to Fforde's world and be completely immersed in his reality. I found Thursday's world amazing and intriguing and was interested in her work with Special Operations as a Literary Detective. However, then she jumped into books and really blew my mind. I had never thought of books and characters like that - as being like actors in a play who act the scenes they're given, but then offstage/offpage have this whole rich and varied life needing to be policed by Jurisfiction! This notion has affected the way I read all fiction books now - I can't help wondering what the characters are doing offpage and what else is going on behind the story.

Basically, the premise for book-jumping is this. All characters in a book are technically "alive". They act out the story as they're being read, but if they are not being read, they are free to act however they wish. There is a whole world inside fiction - the Bookworld. It is policed by characters from books under the auspices of an agency called Jurisfiction. Has anyone ever read a book and then been disoriented and surprised to still be at home once they have finished the book? Well, book-jumping takes that to the next extreme and allows you to cross the barrier between reality and fiction.

The next two books, Lost in a Good Book and The Well of Lost Plots deal with Thursday's life inside books and her training as a Jurisfiction agent. Of the two, my favourite (and I think my favourite book of the whole series) is The Well of Lost Plots. I love seeing inside the world of fiction, and The Well of Lost Plots takes place almost entirely inside the Bookworld. For someone who is as big a reader as I am, the notion that you could travel inside books is immensely appealing. I also appreciate how Fforde pulls together the villain from Lost in a Good Book and continues that plot arc into a satisfying conclusion.

Something Rotten jumps forward a couple of years after The Well of Lost Plots, which is kind of too bad. I would have liked to have read about Thursday's adventures inside the Bookworld during that time. However, her return to real-life and the Literatecs is entertaining too. Fforde has really created two interesting worlds here - the Bookworld and Thursday's everyday world. Both are fascinating, and it would have been interesting to have explored more of Thursday's world before jumping into the Bookworld (which is slightly more fascinating to me). But it's good to be back out in the "real" world and have Thursday interact with all the characters we've been missing since the first two books.

The last book, First Among Sequels, takes place 14 years after Something Rotten, which is almost a mistake. 14 years brings about a lot of changes - especially after the final events in Something Rotten - and those changes almost aren't acknowledged in First Among Sequels. It's almost as if the author wanted to set the book further ahead in time to catch up on technological advances, but didn't necessarily advance the story 14 years on (other than making everyone 14 years older). Too much of the story seems like it would have taken place immediately after the events in Something Rotten, and not 14 years later. It is still better than most non-Fforde fiction, but is probably my least favourite of the series so far.

And, of course, just a quick note on the editions of the book. I love the paperback edition that I have in the first three books (I've lent The Eyre Affair to a friend, which is why it isn't in this photo):

These are the Hodder and Stoughton paperback editions. I like the colours and the nice clean lines of the font and illustration. They are eye-catching without being annoying. Plus, they are a nice smaller size of book.

Sadly, Something Rotten and First Among Sequels are completely different....

I bought Something Rotten as soon as it came out, so this is not the paperback Hodder and Stoughton edition; I believe it is the "hardcover" edition. (Although my copy is a soft cover) So I suppose that's my fault for jumping too early and not waiting for the paperback. However, I don't think I can get the nice paperbacks anymore as Hodder and Stoughton seems to be re-releasing the books with new covers similar to First Among Sequels, above. I don't like the art on the cover and the scuffed-up book look. I like the more abstract nature of the paperbacks. Plus, both Something Rotten and First Among Sequels are taller than my other 3 books, which makes them hard to keep all together on a shelf and look nice.

All griping about looks aside, the Thursday Next series is a great series for people who love books, reading, mysteries, time-travel, and dodos. I hope I've made you curious to go pick up the book and read it for yourself. Finally, if one day I quit posting, you'll know I've succeeded in my quest to bookjump. Keep an eye out for me in Austen!