Great Britain circa 1985: time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. Baconians are trying to convince the world that Francis Bacon really wrote Shakespeare, there are riots between the Surrealists and Impressionists, and thousands of men are named John Milton, an homage to the real Milton and a very confusing situation for the police. Amidst all this, Acheron Hades, Third Most Wanted Man In the World, steals the original manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit and kills a minor character, who then disappears from every volume of the novel ever printed! But that's just a prelude . . . Hades' real target is the beloved Jane Eyre, and it's not long before he plucks her from the pages of Bronte's novel. Enter Thursday Next. She's the Special Operative's renowned literary detective, and she drives …
The Eyre Affair
Great Britain circa 1985: time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. Baconians are trying to convince the world that Francis Bacon really wrote Shakespeare, there are riots between the Surrealists and Impressionists, and thousands of men are named John Milton, an homage to the real Milton and a very confusing situation for the police. Amidst all this, Acheron Hades, Third Most Wanted Man In the World, steals the original manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit and kills a minor character, who then disappears from every volume of the novel ever printed! But that's just a prelude . . . Hades' real target is the beloved Jane Eyre, and it's not long before he plucks her from the pages of Bronte's novel. Enter Thursday Next. She's the Special Operative's renowned literary detective, and she drives a Porsche. With the help of her uncle Mycroft's Prose Portal, Thursday enters the novel to rescue Jane Eyre from this heinous act of literary homicide. It's tricky business, all these interlopers running about Thornfield, and deceptions run rampant as their paths cross with Jane, Rochester, and Miss Fairfax. Can Thursday save Jane Eyre and Bronte's masterpiece? And what of the Crimean War? Will it ever end? And what about those annoying black holes that pop up now and again, sucking things into time-space voids . . . Suspenseful and outlandish, absorbing and fun, The Eyre Affair is a caper unlike any other and an introduction to the imagination of a most distinctive writer and his singular fictional universe. Next up in the Thursday Next series: Lost in a Good Book. Read more about it at thursdaynext.com.
Content warning
Lots of hints at spoilers. Possibly you should read the review after the book.
This is a clever and very silly book which I've just finished re-reading and got more out of it this time (not least chapter 13). So many bits of business like the names, especially of minor characters like Paige's surname or Mr Bight's nationality.
Lots more of this to come over the next few books too ...
I can understand the comparisons to Wodehouse and Douglas Adams. It's a literal book-within-a-book, extremely meta, well-crafted farce. A little bit too self-conscious, a little bit too clever. Twenty year old me would have loved it. It makes me want to read more Jeeves or a Pratchett really, but probably need something else a bit more serious before then.
I was recommended this book as something I might enjoy, and the premise seemed very interesting, so I picked it up gladly and with excitement.
I very quickly realized this is not what I expected, and as the book went on it became more and more obvious it's not for me.
The world building is whimsical, inconsequent and tongue in cheek. The world is basically our own, with a few twists, like for example that people are much more worked up about literature than in our world, for no apparent reason. There's several cults about the authorship of Shakespear's works, for example.
This is a work of literature wherein literature is inexplicably very important to people, and whose main premise revolves around one of the classics; it's just so self-indulgent.
The characters are walking collections of clichés. The villain, especially, is a caricature, perhaps trying to evoke one dimensional villains …
I was recommended this book as something I might enjoy, and the premise seemed very interesting, so I picked it up gladly and with excitement.
I very quickly realized this is not what I expected, and as the book went on it became more and more obvious it's not for me.
The world building is whimsical, inconsequent and tongue in cheek. The world is basically our own, with a few twists, like for example that people are much more worked up about literature than in our world, for no apparent reason. There's several cults about the authorship of Shakespear's works, for example.
This is a work of literature wherein literature is inexplicably very important to people, and whose main premise revolves around one of the classics; it's just so self-indulgent.
The characters are walking collections of clichés. The villain, especially, is a caricature, perhaps trying to evoke one dimensional villains from old works of literature, and ending up with a hollow shell that feels more like plot device than person.
And the names. Ah, the names. I expect they are supposed to be funny, in a sensible chuckle sort of way, but they did not land with me. There's a character whose name is Jack Schitt, who, you guessed it, is an antagonist. There's a LiteraTec (ie literature police) whose name is Paige Turner. And so on.
Moreover, the book is full of tropes. I seriously have not had such frequent use for TVTropes.org ever before while reading a book. There's examples of:
- Two (!) counts of Stable time loop - Forgotten phlebotinum (time travel, which seems to be rampant but not used to, for example, solve the question of the authorship of Shakespear's works which is seemingly plaguing the world, until the protagonist suggests it out of the blue at the end of the book) - Homemade inventions - Deus Ex Machina
And that's about as many as I have patience to list (mostly because they were the most annoying).
Finally, I understand that the author did not set out to write a serious book and accidentally made it comical: it's meant to be comical. It just did not amuse me at all. If the above sounds like something you could enjoy, by all means, pick the book up as a lighthearted romp full of capers and throwaway literary jokes. For me, though, this is both the first and the last book I ever read in this series.
I wish I could go back in time to tell myself not to bother with this.
For a similar premise, well executed and with characters you'll care about, try H.G. Parry's [b:The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep|42779072|The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep|H.G. Parry|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1556719286l/42779072.SX50.jpg|66538284] instead.
I read this book on my wife's recommendation that it was a fun, clever, easy read. It's definitely no literary masterpiece, but it's entertaining enough to be a quick summer read. If you're looking for a book that you don't have to think too much about and you're a fan of badly on-the-nose puns, you might enjoy it. It might also appeal to Bronte/Jane Eyre fans purely for the novelty factor. The concept is fairly clever, and there are some clever little details like the Baconians and "Hollywood-esque" literary culture, but the overall execution falls flat.
On the down side, there are numerous plot holes, plot elements that seem like they should go somewhere but don't, and plot devices (like time travel) that seem to have been forced in simply because the author wanted them to be there.
This is OK, but it's all a bit knowing and overly clever. Reads as if it were written by an A-level Eng Lit examiner. But why would anyone think that having the heroine marry a would-be bigamist who kept his first wife locked up in the attic and who made his money herding stolen Africans is a happy ending?
I very much enjoyed this book. I like Thursday Next, the twists and turns are interesting. I've already dived into Lost in a Good Book, which has been on my bookshelf for many years.
'The year is now 2016', said Rutter. 'You've been gone thirty-one years!!'
Time travel? Cloning? A world similar to our own but with some strange differences? This could be a Philip K. Dick story but with slightly less dystopia.
The Eyre Affair was very creative in how it presented a standard story. There are many genres mixed together here. There is murder mystery, thriller and science fiction blended up and spread across a straight forward story to make it unique enough that it's fun to read.
My issue with stories like these I want more information on the events or activities that characters find common place. How did the world get the way it is? How did this technology come to be? How are other countries managing? If you can hold off on asking those questions and take the story for what it is then you will enjoy this story. …
'The year is now 2016', said Rutter. 'You've been gone thirty-one years!!'
Time travel? Cloning? A world similar to our own but with some strange differences? This could be a Philip K. Dick story but with slightly less dystopia.
The Eyre Affair was very creative in how it presented a standard story. There are many genres mixed together here. There is murder mystery, thriller and science fiction blended up and spread across a straight forward story to make it unique enough that it's fun to read.
My issue with stories like these I want more information on the events or activities that characters find common place. How did the world get the way it is? How did this technology come to be? How are other countries managing? If you can hold off on asking those questions and take the story for what it is then you will enjoy this story.
I am content with reading just the one story from the Thursday Next series. I likely wouldn't get any answers to the questions I mentioned earlier, and if the future novels continue to lean on popular and beloved stories like they did on this one then I'm probably better off with just this one.
The Eyre Affair is a very enthusiastic book. It must have been great fun to write and it's also great fun to read. The author clearly never thought something would be "far fetched" or "unrealistic". In general I love the approach where the writer comes up with something crazy and then builds a logical world around the crazy. The Eyre Affair has this in spades. Time travel, pet dodos, literary crimes investigation, Shakespeare conspiracy theories, a black hole, surrealist gangs, French revisionist assassins, werewolves, vampires, etc. Really anything goes, and it's all made to make sense. It doesn't take itself very seriously, but it's not a joke either.
It's all made really enjoyable by lovable characters and some solid drama. I did not expect the drama and it's certainly not a major point of the book, but I was happy to find it in the story of Snood and in …
The Eyre Affair is a very enthusiastic book. It must have been great fun to write and it's also great fun to read. The author clearly never thought something would be "far fetched" or "unrealistic". In general I love the approach where the writer comes up with something crazy and then builds a logical world around the crazy. The Eyre Affair has this in spades. Time travel, pet dodos, literary crimes investigation, Shakespeare conspiracy theories, a black hole, surrealist gangs, French revisionist assassins, werewolves, vampires, etc. Really anything goes, and it's all made to make sense. It doesn't take itself very seriously, but it's not a joke either.
It's all made really enjoyable by lovable characters and some solid drama. I did not expect the drama and it's certainly not a major point of the book, but I was happy to find it in the story of Snood and in the Thursday–Anton–Landen.
It has a heavy literature element, but that should not scare anyone. I haven't read many classics and it was still fine. I looked things up on Wikipedia and learned enough that I would get most of the clever jokes in the book.
I'll read the next one too! ([b:Lost in a Good Book|27000|Lost in a Good Book (Thursday Next, #2)|Jasper Fforde|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1419889476s/27000.jpg|1918119])
What an awesome book! I'm so glad I picked it up. It was a friend mentioning they loved this author that made me give it a go, and I'm fully in the Fforde camp now. You've got to love a book which features a person called Mr Schitt (say it out loud!). Also Mycroft Next was adorable, as were his inventions. My particular favourite was the one that could create a pong-print of a person.
Strong ideas and a good sense of humor (typical of Fforde). But the characters are thin and the plot is a mess. I'm willing to forgive a lot, though, because this was Fforde's first book and I know he got a lot better. I'll continue reading more in the series.
UPDATE: I re-read this book recently because I had just re-read the actual Jane Eyre and I had fonder memories of this book than my rating would indicate. It's still a mess, but it's a lot of fun. I've updated to 3 stars.
Pros: 1. It's a quick and easy read (you need that sometimes!) 2. It's funny! I actually laughed out loud a few times. 3. It's clever. It's counterhistorical and the book is littered with interesting details of the alternate present. 3. The intertextual and metatextual play between Thursday Next's plot and the plots and themes of classic literary works was a real pleasure; I imagine anyone with even a passing interest in the classics would appreciate this.
Cons: 1. Most of the time the novel's in 1st person from Thursday's perspective. There are a few spots where suddenly, it's not. Given that a significant portion of this book is explicitly concerned with the practical limitations of 1st-person narration and what is required of the writing to overcome those limitations, I'm not thrilled with this stylistic choice. 2. I get that Landen and Thursday's relationship is supposed to mirror …
3.5 stars.
Pros: 1. It's a quick and easy read (you need that sometimes!) 2. It's funny! I actually laughed out loud a few times. 3. It's clever. It's counterhistorical and the book is littered with interesting details of the alternate present. 3. The intertextual and metatextual play between Thursday Next's plot and the plots and themes of classic literary works was a real pleasure; I imagine anyone with even a passing interest in the classics would appreciate this.
Cons: 1. Most of the time the novel's in 1st person from Thursday's perspective. There are a few spots where suddenly, it's not. Given that a significant portion of this book is explicitly concerned with the practical limitations of 1st-person narration and what is required of the writing to overcome those limitations, I'm not thrilled with this stylistic choice. 2. I get that Landen and Thursday's relationship is supposed to mirror Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester's relationship, thus the rather sudden reunion and marriage at the end of the book, but frankly it seems so out of character for Thursday and out of place in a modern context.
I'll definitely give the next one in the series a try.
First book of the Thursday Next (that's the name of the heroin) series. It is set in a parallel universe where the Crimean War is still being waged, people travel by dirigible, cloned dodos are pets and classical litterature enjoys a huge popularity. There even exists a division of the police (the SpecOps) that takes care of literary crimes - stolen manuscripts, forged manuscripts and the like. Thursday is part of this division, and gets involved in the pursuit of Acheron Hades, who starts by killing off a minor character of Dickens' Martin Chuzzlewit and ends up kidnapping Jane Eyre (from the eponymous Brontë's novel).
I liked it a lot. It was silly enough to make me laugh, but not so silly as to make me lose the thread of the story. I liked the universe and the cast of characters, and it made me want to re-read Jane Eyre. …
First book of the Thursday Next (that's the name of the heroin) series. It is set in a parallel universe where the Crimean War is still being waged, people travel by dirigible, cloned dodos are pets and classical litterature enjoys a huge popularity. There even exists a division of the police (the SpecOps) that takes care of literary crimes - stolen manuscripts, forged manuscripts and the like. Thursday is part of this division, and gets involved in the pursuit of Acheron Hades, who starts by killing off a minor character of Dickens' Martin Chuzzlewit and ends up kidnapping Jane Eyre (from the eponymous Brontë's novel).
I liked it a lot. It was silly enough to make me laugh, but not so silly as to make me lose the thread of the story. I liked the universe and the cast of characters, and it made me want to re-read Jane Eyre. And to read the next Thursday Nexts :)
