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Loading... The Eyre Affair (2001)by Jasper Fforde
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Great fantasy. Fforde makes me believe how books could come alive. I'm really not a fan of the absurd, or of puns; I really am not the audience here. It would be much better for fans of Terry Pratchett, which I am sad to say, I am not, not for lack of trying. How can one properly describe Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair? A lighthearted novel filled with mystery, suspense, romance, and science fiction, this is a humorous tale of Special Operative Thursday Next (of the literary detection division) who is on the trail of a dangerous criminal, a man who has the ability to pull out characters from literature, risking the very stories booklovers have come to treasure. In a world where the debate of who wrote Shakespeare’s plays is a common argument and time travel is not impossible, Mr. Fforde introduces readers to colorful characters, both real and imagined. Classic booklovers will enjoy the touch of literary humor that Mr. Fforde uses to bring his story to life. Suspension of disbelief is a must when reading this book and easy to do as the reader gets pulled right into the book. The Eyre Affair is an enjoyable book, one I highly recommend to other booklovers who are looking for something different. I look forward to reading more about Thursday Next’s adventures! This is a re-read. Probably a re-re-read. One of my favourite books of all time, I guess I read it originally before I joined Goodreads. This reverential and yet irreverent romp through literature is set in an England that is contemporary but different. The Crimean war still rages, people travel long distances in blimps, and people actually read books. Not just read them, but revere them. Thursday Next is the intrepid heroine, defending the integrity of classic literature against Acheron Hades, a villain for all time. The reader (and the heroine) are introduced to the concept of book jumping, in which people and characters can move between their real and fictional worlds. There is very little dead weight here—it is almost uniformly clever, mind-bending and entertaining. Of the many devices at work, my favourite occurs on pages 309-311 of my edition (chapter heading “The People’s Republic of Wales”) in which the bookworms begin “farting out hyphens and ampersands” and “belching out large quantities of unnecessary capitalizations,” and the physical text reflects this phenomenon. It is a little distracting (natch) but so funny that I laugh out loud with every reading. The most significant impact that this book had on me was that I had to go read Jane Eyre after reading this, since I hadn’t read it before and didn’t know which was the real ending. Happily, it is the first in a series. I was going to put my toe in and then go back to original readings, but I might just have to carry on now!
Fforde wears the marks of his literary forebears proudly on his sleeve, from Lewis Carroll and Wodehouse to Douglas Adams and Monty Python, in both inventiveness and sense of fun. Fforde delivers almost every sentence with a sly wink, and he's got an easy way with wordplay, trivia and inside jokes. ''The Eyre Affair'' can be too clever by half, and fiction like this is certainly an acquired taste, but Fforde's verve is rarely less than infectious. A good editor might have trimmed away some of the annoying padding of this novel and helped the author to assimilate his heavy borrowings from other artists, but no matter: by the end of the novel, Mr. Fforde has, however belatedly, found his own exuberant voice. THE EYRE AFFAIR is mostly a collection of jokes, conceits and puzzles. It's smart, frisky and sheer catnip for former English majors....And some of the jokes are clever indeed. Dark, funny, complex, and inventive, THE EYRE AFFAIR is a breath of fresh air and easily one of the strongest debuts in years. Belongs to SeriesThursday Next (1) Is contained inWas inspired byHas as a studyHas as a student's study guideAwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
There is another 1985, somewhere in the could-have-been, where dodos are regenerated in home-cloning kits and everyone is disappointed by the ending of Jane Eyre. But in this world there are policemen who can travel across time, a Welsh republic - and a woman called Thursday Next. No library descriptions found. |
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![]() GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.92Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 2000-LC ClassificationRatingAverage:![]()
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