One of Our Thursdays Is Missing

Thursday is here at last!

Way back in 2001, buzz rippled through the American publishing industry for a British debut novel, The Eyre Affair. It was this country’s introduction to two unlikely-named characters: Jasper Fforde and Thursday Next. We’ve had a decade to get to know them now, and they haven’t worn out their welcome yet. On the contrary, Fforde ffanatics long for Thursday’s return, as she has not made an appearance since 2007’s First Among Sequels.

One of Our Thursdays is Missing is Fforde’s sixth novel in the series. There is always danger of a continuing series growing stale, but Fforde manages to keep things fresh in a variety of ways. First, he rotates the Next novels with those in two other series. Also, there show more was a bit of a paradigm shift in the last book, as Fforde moved the action of the story ahead by 14 years. Our heroine was suddenly in a very different place in her life.

Now, she’s just in a different place period, and nobody seems to know where she is. Per the title, one of our Thursdays is missing. However, that leaves one remaining. The fictional Thursday has noted her counterpart’s absence, even if no one will own up to it. She’s on the case—which is just as well. Things are getting somewhat contentious in her book.

This volume, for the first time, delves into the real nitty-gritty of what it is to be read day in and day out. We get a lot of new information about the BookWorld, in part because there’s new info to be had. Fforde recreates his creation in the opening chapter. It’s fiction; he can do that. Also new is Sprockett. As literary characters go, this mechanical manservant falls somewhere in the intersection of P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves, Matt Ruff’s electric negroes, and Paolo Bacigalupi’s Windup Girl. He’s a welcome addition to the series.

While Fforde has added several new elements this time around, other familiar aspects are absent. This novel takes place almost entirely in the BookWorld. I quite missed the cast of RealWorld (or Outland) characters, but as I became more engaged in the story being told, I missed what was left out less. The Next books are beloved for their unique and affectionate brand of literary satire. That’s very much in evidence here. In addition to lampooning the classics, there are plenty of playful references to Fforde’s contemporary peers. But on top of that, it’s not a half-bad mystery plot that Mr. Fforde has penned.

The one thing we can count on from any Fforde offering is the author’s trademark wit and humor. His idiosyncratic cleverness is abundantly on display, so I’ll leave the last words to him:

“Budgetary overruns almost buried the remaking before the planning stage, until relief came from an unexpected quarter. A spate of dodgy accounting practices in the Outland necessitated a new genre in Fiction: Creative Accountancy. Shunned by many as ‘not a proper genre at all,’ the members’ skills at turning thin air into billion-dollar profits were suddenly of huge use, and the remaking went ahead as planned. Enron may have been a pit of vipers in the Outland, but they quite literally saved the BookWorld.
Bradshaw’s BookWorld Companion (16th edition)” show less

In this installment of the extremely unpredictable Thursday Next series, the titular protagonist is missing! At least, that is the suspicion of the actual protagonist, the written Thursday. After many years of portraying Thursday in print, the written Thursday barely knows her namesake, but receives a tip from a mysterious man on a train that something nefarious is going on.

Although her jurisfiction colleagues won't admit that Thursday is actually gone, no one is certain of where exactly she is. The written Thursday is soon on a semi-authorized investigation to discover the real Thursday's whereabouts before her presence is missed at an extremely important political meeting.

Along the way, the written Thursday will visit the real world, show more meet ghosts and villains, and enlist the help of countless bizarre allies in her pursuit of the real Thursday. But the more she investigates, the more she begins to wonder about her own identity. Is it possible that she's the real Thursday who has suffered some crippling accident that has rendered her delusional?

Okay, I'm saying it: this one might be too meta! Although I love Mr. Fforde's writing, this one was so insular and self-referential, I was occasionally lost. I think part of it is my general weariness around the Mystery genre, but I still enjoyed this journey enough to be fully satisfied. show less

One of Our Thursdays Is Missing is the sixth novel in the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde, and unlike many series, it is absolutely essential for the reader to have read the previous five volumes if one hopes to have a glimmer of a clue as to what is going on. That said, anybody who loves literary fiction, absurdism along the lines of Flann O'Brien and jaw-droppingly funny puns, allusions and other forms of written humour will, I hope, have already discovered the mad genius that is Mr. Fforde's written world. It's not really possible to describe what this book is about, other than to say it takes place mostly in BookWorld, the island world located inside a sphere in which all of the characters of written works live and from which show more they act out their lines whenever someone in the real world is reading their book. BookWorld is only one of many such realms, but we are concerned primarily with Fiction Island and its islets, where a Genre War of epic proportions is about to break out, and only Thursday Next can stop it. But the real Thursday is missing, so it falls to her fictional counterpart to do her best, even knowing that her best is nowhere near good enough....Jasper Fforde is easily one of my top 3 or 4 authors, and while I will never again have the joy of experiencing his fiction for the very first time, every single new volume from him is a cause for celebration. I cannot recommend this series highly enough, but I do caution that you must read the whole series, starting with The Eyre Affair and proceeding in order of publication. If you love good writing and inspired creative lunacy, you will be very glad to discover Jasper Fforde. show less

I have a confession: I read this half hoping to hate it so I could make some space on the physical library shelves. Alas, there is no way I could consign it to "the narrative doldrums of the suburbs." The reading references are too clever, the mystery too intriguing and the character-building too well-done. Don't tell Friday, but I think I might have to toss 'Something Rotten' instead.

I haven't read Thursday Next in about ten years, so I wasn't sure how confused I'd be. I remember a lingering sense of enjoying some of the series, but with other parts leaving a strange, vaguely unpleasant aftertaste. Happily, the mechanisms of BookWorld came back to me quickly, and Thursday (the written one) was kind enough to give background, in the show more guise of orienting a new stand-in Thursday, Carmine O'Kipper (you may now groan).

The meta-literary elements included in the story are surprisingly insightful, and frequently amusing as well. There's a moment early on when Thursday explains book detail to Carmine:

"Every novel as only as much description as is necessary. In years past, each book was carefully crafted to an infinitely fine degree, but that was in the days of limited reader sophistication. Today… Most books are finished by the readers themselves."
"The Feedback Loop?"
"Precisely. As soon as the readers get going, the feedback loop will start back washing some of their interpretations into the book itself... readers often add detail by their own interpretations."

It's that kind of insight that adds fun layer to the stories. In this book, BookWorld is rebuilt early on, restructuring the Book Universe along the lines of the Geographic model. It means Thursday will need to travel by physical means to get from one genre to the next instead of the more ambiguous 'reading in' technique. What this means for the reader is a fun little tour through BookWorld as Thursday (the written one) investigates a book accident. After crossing through Thriller, she heads into Conspiracy, where she runs into Sprocket, a robot about to be stoned by residents as a spy.

The written Thursday is very aware of her inadequacies compared to the legendary Thursday Next, but feels she brings emotional depth to Thursday's story. Others might characterize her as "the dopey one who likes to hug a lot." As she investigates the crashed book, she discovers that the real Thursday hasn't been seen in a suspicious number of days. The real Thursday is needed to broker peace talks between Racy Novel and Feminism/Dogma genres who are about to be in a cross-genre war.

The mystery here is fairly--narratively, at least--straightforward. The humor often has me smiling, particularly Agent Square from Flatland as he coaches Thursday (the written one), Sprockett's expressive eyebrow, a devastating minefield, the ongoing joke of keeping track who is speaking when there aren't any conversational markers, and the threat of a 'Bobby Ewing' ending. Despite all that, parts are definitely brainy and expositionary, and so it is surprisingly easy to fall asleep to for a four-star book. That said, it's definitely worth keeping. show less

This is the sixth book in a very unique, bookishly humorous series featuring literary detective Thursday Next, who has jumped into books and brought characters into the real world and back again. When we last left Thursday, she was saving the world by playing croquet and juggling her responsibilities making sure that all is well in the BookWorld. In this story, the real world Thursday takes a backseat to the written Thursday, who from her position in the BookWorld realizes that all is not well when she is asked to investigate the destruction of a book and isn't expected to find anything. When she does find something amiss, she's not sure who to trust except herself – and the real Thursday is missing.

If I can give you any bit of advice show more about these books it's this: Read. Them. In. Order. Don't start with this one; it won't make a lick of sense. They're ridiculous and nerdy at the same time, so you may find you want to space them out and not read, well, the same sort of mix of over-the-top absurdity and cleverness all at once. But if you find yourself laughing when you realize that the transport system is named after a character from Journey to the Center of the Earth and that Hamlet is shocked by how many interpretations to his character there have been over the years (see Something Rotten), then this is the series for you. I rather enjoyed this foray into the BookWorld with the written Thursday taking the front seat, though others may be annoyed by the departure from the expected. Still, I find these great romps when I'm in the mood for something silly and fun. show less

If you happen to be a book nerd who likes fantasy, mystery, satire and a healthy dose of metafiction, the Thursday Next series will be right up your alley. It quickly became one of my favorite series after I read the first five books in a mad rush over the last year. However, after finishing the sixth installment, One of Our Thursdays is Missing, I’m unsure how I feel about the future of the Thursday Next books.

On one hand, One of Our Thursdays is Missing is a reboot with a different viewpoint character, but on the other hand it’s also the most self-referential of the entire series so far, and probably the worst possible place to jump into the series as a whole. Also, because it’s a Jasper Fforde book, telling you that there is a show more new viewpoint character is a huge oversimplification.

If you’re unfamiliar with the series, it’s about Thursday Next, a police detective in an alternate universe who is able to leap into fiction and uses her powers to solve mysteries both in the “RealWorld” and the “BookWorld”. That’s only scratching the surface, however; Fforde overstuffs the books with an insane number of alternate-world details and odd little touches. It makes the books almost impossible to accurately summarize.

The short version is that Thursday’s adventures were novelized by ghost writers in her world. What this means is that there is a “real” Thursday and a “fictional” Thursday. The fictional Thursday is sort of a cross between an actor and a clone of the real Thursday. Fictional Thursday only has to perform when someone in the RealWorld is reading one of her books. However, readership numbers are dropping and she finds herself with too much free time on her hands. When she hears rumors that the real Thursday may have disappeared, fictional Thursday begins a surreptitious investigation, and almost immediately finds herself in over her head.

Much like her RealWorld counterpart, fictional Thursday is driven to solve this mystery at all costs. However, she isn’t exactly like the real version; in the book series, her husband, Landen, was killed off in the first book to “raise the stakes”, and she finds herself envious of the real Thursday’s family. She also doesn’t consider herself quite as talented a detective, especially since she flunked her entrance exam for the BookWorld police force.

The overall portrayal of fictional Thursday is my main problem with this book. When we were initially introduced to this fictional version of Thursday in the fifth book, she was portrayed as a hippie do-gooder who is too much of a pacifist for proper police work. However, in this book she mostly just behaves like a less confident version of the real Thursday. She tells us that she would probably solve problems by hugging everyone, but it felt like I never really saw the differences in her personality in action. Mostly she just seemed like a diminished version of the real thing. Fforde takes away a lot of the real Thursday’s defining characteristics and doesn’t give us anything truly compelling in their stead.

Also, a word of warning: Fforde really likes to throw in little metafictional jokes. Some of the stuff in this book relies on a fairly thorough knowledge of previous events in the series. It was definitely a huge help that I’d read all of the books in short succession. I’m not sure I would have caught all of the little details that Fforde throws in otherwise. However, even with all of that knowledge, I was occasionally a bit confused by events, and wondered if Fforde knew what he was doing. My best advice is just to try to relax and enjoy the ride.

Ultimately, I have to say that this is my least favorite of the Thursday Next books. A lot of what I love about Fforde’s books is present – his incisive touch for satire, madcap plotting, and crackpot world-building – but it just didn’t have the same heart as the previous installments. I never really warmed up to the fictional Thursday Next as a protagonist. In my opinion, she doesn’t rise above her status as a stand-in for the real deal.

As for the future of the series, I’m not quite sure where it will go from here. The first four books are a sort of loose quartet, and when I finished the fifth it seemed likely that he was setting up another trilogy or quartet. Instead, Fforde made a complete left turn and gave us this book, which doesn’t really follow up on the fifth book and mostly ends up being a bit of a standalone story and/or narrative cul-de-sac. My hope is that Fforde has further adventures planned for the real Thursday Next, or that he at least does more to make the fictional Thursday’s perspective distinct if she returns in future volumes. show less

Jasper Fforde has always come off to me as an author with an abundance of ideas and a desire to throw as many of them out there as he can at any time. His novels tend to be stuffed to bursting with concepts and conceits, and this can play out for better or worse, depending on the balance between whichever ones he’s chosen for a given outing. When we come to the Thursday Next series, I’ve usually found the books more set in the RealWorld, to borrow Fforde’s phrase, with SpecOps and Goliath and croquet and such, more enjoyable than the ones primarily set in the BookWorld with Thursday’s book-jumping Jurisfictional adventures.

When I took a look at the latest entry in the series, One of Our Thursdays Is Missing, then, I wasn’t as show more excited at the arrival of a new Fforde book as I had been for, say, Shades of Gray. Fortunately, however, this run turned out to be very enjoyable. Here, we have the unpopular written version of Thursday Next, a shier, gentler version of the real one from the author-approved version of the Thursday Next series, trying to work out a mystery involving the real Thursday in a totally remade Bookworld, taken from the Great Library model of the previous books to one laid out geographically, with skirmishes and territorial squabbles between neighboring genres, and distinctive cultures within each of the genres themselves.

Over the course of the book, the written Thursday gets to interact with a lot of the characters we’ve seen in the series thus far, along with new characters, such as Whitby Jett, her Designated Love Interest, and Sprockett, a cog-based butler. The mystery takes Thursday all over the island and beyond, and it’s quite well put together and interesting. Fforde’s got a good way of doing these things, and in contrast to the previous book, this one finishes on a more complete note, I find.

The best part of reading this, though, is Fforde’s imagination and wit, ranging from low puns to riffing on fictional conventions and fellow authors to quick takes on classic works of fiction to all sorts of callbacks to previous books in the series. As such, I really wouldn’t recommend starting here; you really need to start with the first book in the series and read through to get a full enjoyment of this one, I think. He also has worked out a new way for the BookWorld to function, within a hollow globe, and it’s quite well fleshed out, too. I didn’t exactly rush out to read this one, but I’m really glad I got around to it, and seeing the written Thursday come into a character in her own right. I’ll be looking forward to the next one, for sure. show less