The Eyre Affair

I love the central premise of this series: that there exists an alternative reality in which books are afforded a level of reverence typically reserved for Taylor Swift or international soccer clubs. In Fforde’s world, Baconians knock on your door hoping to “convert” you to their creed that Bacon wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare, children trade Henry Fielding bubblegum character cards, and drugstores are equipped Will-Speak machines in which Zoltar-like mannequins perform Shakespeare’s greatest hits for a coin. Other ‘altered realities’ – in Fforde’s reimagined world, England and Russia are engaged in a decades-old war over control of the Crimea; Wales is an independent republic; genetic engineering has restored show more Neanderthals and dodos from extinction; people travel via dirigibles; a labyrinthian organization named Special Ops (SO) tackles essential government functions, from enforcing cheese taxes to eliminating rogue supernatural creatures; and a shadowy non-governmental organization named Goliath Corp. seems to run pretty much everything else.

Enter Thursday Next, a respected but relatively low-level Special Ops operative in charge of investigating literary crimes – thefts, forgeries, whatnot. Until a series of events intervene, to include:

• A gleefully evil supervillain named Hades, in possession of technology that allows him to enter novels and interact with the characters, threatens to slaughter Martin Chuzzlewit unless he receives a huge ransom;
• Years of low-level conflict in the Crimea threaten to explode into full-scale bloodshed due to the imminent deployment of a new super-weapon (the Stonk Plasma-Rifle);
• Goliath agent Jack Schitt blackmails Thursday into helping him capture Hades so that Goliath can repurpose his prose portal to their own nefarious purposes;
• Thursday’s Uncle Mycroft, the genius inventor of the bookworm-powered Prose Portal, is kidnapped (and his wife Polly stranded in the text of Wordsworth’s I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud);
• Oh – and Next’s former lover, who she hasn’t seen in 10 years, reappears, triggering consternation.

In between visits from her father (a rogue SO-12 Chronoguard employee, able to move through time), infiltrating a gang of secretive scientists dedicated to intercepting incoming asteroids in catching mitts, collapsing temporal distortion with basketballs, shootouts with psychopathic, face-recycling henchmen, dispatching vampires, and preventing Goliath from plunging the country into a bloodbath, Thursday gradually comes to discover that the boundary between the book world and the “real” world is a lot more porous than she ever imagined. After Edward Rochester shows up to save her life, the book’s denouement features Thursday pursuing Hades into the text of Jane Eyre, a pursuit that inadvertently ends up altering the book’s ending.

As long as you’re capable of suspending your disbelief and accepting that Fforde’s world isn’t supposed to make any sense or abide by any sort of consistent rules, this is a terrific ride! Thursday’s a combination of Jason Bourne and Hermione Granger, which sounds odd but works, and the book is stuffed to the brim with preposterous characters, scathing social and political satire, Monty Python-type silliness, literary references, romance, time travel, monsters, anachronisms, tons of action (car chases, gun fights, Raphaelitist riots), punctuation humor (an underappreciated artform), and puns galore. Just don’t ask me what genre this is, because I wouldn’t even know where to start! show less

It's always good to revisit some old favorites from my 100 Favorite Books list, and this one continues to deserve it's spot on that list. This time I listened to it as an audiobook and Duerden adds an unexpected gravitas to the first person narration of Thursday Next. Having read the many sequels to this book, which inevitably have Thursday juggling 3-4 ridiculous scenarios at once, and I was surprised at how relatively quiet this first book is. Fforde has a lot of world to build in his alternate universe 1985, and he does a great job of establishing it in this book setting seeds for things that get explored more thoroughly in later novels. Ultimately though, this is a great stand alone book with it's mix of alternate universe science show more fiction, detective novel pastiche, literary allusions, and riotous humor. And after all these years, I still want to live in a world where people perform Shakespeare's Richard III in a Rocky Horror Show style, if only for a little bit. show less

The heroine, Thursday Next, lives in an alternate universe where England has been fighting the Crimean War for 137 years, dodos thrive but ducks are extinct (although scientists have determined the animals walked backward and made a noise like "quock"), and croquet is a brutal full-body-contact sport. Thursday works in law enforcement - literary crimes, and in the first novel she takes on Acheron Hades, who had kidnapped Jane Eyre from the pages of the original manuscript and is holding her for ransom. Through the series, Thursday is mentored by Miss Haversham (who has a weakness for fast cars), hunts down The Minotaur (who has fled from Greek mythology and is hiding out a bad Western novel) and saves the world in a croquet sudden death show more shootout.

The novels balance on the edge of being sophomoric. The characterizations are not all that great, and some characters seem to exist solely so the author can make bad puns (Alf Widdershaine, Jack Schitt). However the whole thing somehow works, in the same way Monty Python sketches work - everything comes so fast and furious that you have no trouble believing a chorus of Vikings praising Spam, exploding penguins, or a six-foot tall hedgehog pursuing a crime lord. (By the way, the novels have penguins, albeit nonexplosive, and a six-foot tall hedgehog, but not Spiny Norman).

There might be a problem tracking down just where these are shelved. Possibilities are science fiction, mystery, and general fiction. Highly recommended. show less

In an alternate 1985, Crimean war veteran Thursday Next works for Special Operations division 27, also known as LiteraTec. She’s assigned to investigate the disappearance of the original manuscript of Charles Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit, stolen by the amoral and manipulative villain Acheron Hades. It goes very badly, and Thursday decides to move back to her hometown (with encouragement by a visit from her future self). There she has to contend with her judgmental family members, running into her ex-boyfriend, and confronting the death of her best friend/brother in the war 15 years earlier. But Hades’ goal is maximum chaos, so he quickly moves on to the original manuscript of Jane Eyre, harassing Jane via Thursday’s kidnapped show more uncle and his wacky invention that allows people to travel into books.

How do you review a book that feels so formative to your life? It’s a lot more police-y than I remember; Thursday is constantly shooting her gun in crowded areas, even after it’s established that guns don’t hurt Acheron Hades. This book can be read and enjoyed without being familiar with Jane Eyre, but there’s a LOT to pick up on if you are. The wedding scene is obvious, but there’s also the subtler aspects of Thursday fleeing Swindon after a trauma but returning when she gets a mysterious visitation, and Landon having been injured. All of the bits and pieces that I know will thrill me in later books are here already (time travel paradoxes, pet dodos, Rocky Horror Richard III, wacky inventions, ancillary vampires, incredibly goofy character names (I still think of this book every time I hear the words “Braxton-Hicks”), etc.), but they aren’t yet being used to their fullest extent. I still loved it, and that gives me something to look forward to. show less

A 4.5* rounds UP in my book! Given that Jane Eyre is one of my favorite books of all time, I was fully prepared to approach The Eyre Affair with a jaundiced eye! What I found is a book that is delightfully irreverent - Charlotte Bronte has, most-likely, been spinning her grave since the day it was released! In addition to the delightful irreverence, I found it uproariously funny, in parts, and action-packed throughout - thanks to Thursday Next! I found nary a dull moment from start to finish! Highly recommended for those who have a highly developed sense of humor and love surprises!

I chose to 'read' the audio version of this book. Susan Duerden narrated with skill, amazing characterizations and perfect pitch! Brava!

this was a wild and fun riotous ride. i wouldn't have thought i'd like it much, but it turns out i don't necessarily mind vampires and werewolves and time travel and alternate history and magic if they're used just so. normally those things all annoy me (although don't disqualify a book outright) but here it was just fine. the puns and the wordplay all made me laugh instead of cringe (but i'm sure people do cringe instead) and i just found this so fun. i can't think of a book i've found more fun than this, actually. and then it's well written, on top of that, and chock full of (more fun) literary references to authors and characters. that society loves books and knows books the way they do in this version of the world is fantastic. the show more book portal that allows a person to leap into a book is amazing and i loved the whole bit about jane eyre and the alternate "original" ending that i couldn't figure out how they'd change. what a feat this whole book is.

great, great fun.

(one loose end? thursday sees herself being taken out of a building under duress and hides a gun near a car tire so she can use it when the time comes. this never came back. maybe in a future book?) show less

Thursday Next, a SpecOps agent specializing in literary crimes (of which there are many in her alternate-reality Britain), is drawn into confrontation with Acheron Hades, the third most evil man in the world (we're told you don't want to know who #1 and #2 are). She's wounded in the ensuing fight, but everyone tells her that Acheron is now dead. She won't believe it, though, until she has proof. On the advice of her future self, she accepts a transfer to Swindon, her old hometown, just in time to be involved in the theft of the original manuscript of Jane Eyre. Her uncle, an eccentric inventor, has created a Prose Portal that allows people to travel into and out of books, and he is kidnapped along with his invention. It's clear to show more Thursday that Acheron is up to his old tricks. Can Thursday rescue her uncle -- and Jane Eyre -- before irreparable damage is done?

I love Fforde's wacky world-building in this series starter. It's been more than 15 years since I first read it, and I had forgotten a lot of the plot, but remembered how delightful the small details are. I look forward to revisiting the rest of the series. show less