Most helpful customer reviews
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4.0 out of 5 stars
The Chuzzlewit Caper?, Oct 31 2009
For the first half of the novel, one might have asked if it had the wrong name, but by the time the book ends, one can probably agree that "The Eyre Affair" is at least as good a title as any. "The Eyre Affair" is Jasper Fforde's first novel, which was published in July of 2001. Fforde creates an alternate world, with many similarities to go with some glaring differences, keeping the reader off-balance, yet strangely at home at the same time. Combining alternate reality, with spy thriller, with mystery, with some literary classics, this unusual book makes for a most unique and enjoyable experience. As I have not, as of yet, read any of the sequels in the series, I cannot speak for how well it holds up, but I can easily recommend this one.
The setting of this novel is in a world very much like our own, but with some bizarre twists. In no particular order, this would include recreating Dodos and cloning them for pets, never-ending discussions about who wrote Shakespeare's plays (of course this happens in our world, but not to this extent), Wales as a socialist republic, and an ongoing Crimean War. Our heroine is Thursday Next, a Literary Detective (SO-27) one of 30 departments of Special Operations to handle various areas of police work. The top 20 departments are restricted, i.e. they are known to exist, but only in a few cases do people know what they actually do.
In addition to the alternate reality, there is an unusual family and personal life to deal with. Thursday's father was a Colonel in the ChronoGuard, but had turned rogue and is being chased by his former colleagues. He has a habit of dropping in on Thursday and halting time when he does so. Her uncle likes to invent things, including a device which allows people to enter works of literature (this has happened accidentally to some people, including Thursday, but this allows the person to pick the time and the place). Her brother, like Thursday, was in the Crimean War, but unlike her, he was killed. The man she loves, Landon Parke-Laine, who gave testimony which led to her brother being blamed for a mistake which caused a tremendous loss of life during an important battle.
Thursday is temporarily assigned to SO-5 to deal with a super-criminal, Acheron Hades, a man she had the misfortune to meet many years ago, and she is one of the few to have ever seen him in person. He is known to have special powers, including the ability to avoid being seen on camera, and he is able to confuse even Special Operations agents to the point where he is able to escape, usually after killing the agent whose trust he has gained. Thursday has been called in because Acheron is believed to have stolen the original manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit. The story follows Thursday as she follows, sometimes officially, sometimes unofficially, Hades and it takes her through time paradoxes, kidnappings, government bureaucracy, the war and peace movements, and of course into Jane Eyre
With all the strange inventions, and odd plotlines, it was somewhat disappointing that the end was rather predictable, but it was still very fun to read. Thursday and her family make for wonderful characters, and Hades was a great villain. Many of the other characters are somewhat two-dimensional, but one needs a few normal people to play against. This novel is far from perfect, but if you are in the mood for some crazy adventure and have run out of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett, this is one you may want to give a try.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Loving affair, Feb 24 2007
"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. 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, 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 a John Milton convention. Take a sprinkling of real-life pop culture, 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 vaccines, 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'm just... well, differently moralled, that's all."
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.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
A Review Of The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, Jan 5 2006
This is Fforde's (yeah, two "F"s) first published novel and the first one I've read of his, and I think I'm hooked. It's a novel that has characters named Thursday Next and Jack Schitt; where fictional characters become real and the real can step into fictional stories; where there exists Special Police Forces for Literary Detectives, Neighbourly Disputes, Temporal Stability, and other troublesome matters. It's a silly, literary story written with a Douglas Adams twist: science-fiction, fantasy, thriller, and humour that only hose mad about books may appreciate.The plot involves Thursday Next, a LiteraTec, investigating the disappearance of the original Martin Chuzzlewit manuscript, which leads to the theft of the original Jane Eyre manuscript. The story has elements of murder, espionage, war, romance, vampires and werewolves, time travel, and off-the-cuff humour, such as:
"Why is a raven like a writing desk?"
"Because Poe wrote on both?" Hahahaha! Then there's some dialogue like:
"Haven't I seen your face somewhere else?"
"No, it's always been right here on the front of my head." Well, all of it isn't that corny, and although I didn't laugh out loud, it did cause some grins. Highly recommended for those with a literary background, who appreciate off-the-wall humour, and who don't take reality seriously.
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