The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

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.

I couldn't get in the spirit of the “literary slapstick” style as one incisive friend put it. Oh well, you might like this if you're a Bronte and/or Dickens fan and do OK with “look how clever I'm being!” humor.

Overall this was a pleasant book, but I shy away from putting it at the same level as an Asimov mystery novel. This is a 2,5 stars. If I read through the end, I kind of liked it.

This is probably a book for those who love English literature, Shakespeare, Keats and others. The authors creates an alternative reality where books really matter, so much that there is a very active Spec-ops crime division, where our heroin Thursday Next works.

Some of the occurrences that are somewhat common in this world:

- literary forgeries, where books are slightly, but significantly rewritten to better suit the forger views of how the story should really have happened. They sometimes go through great lengths, even writing original manuscripts, signing it as a famous author. Only a very trained Literary Tech can spot the differences between the real thing.

- close to religion fights among different literary legends followers, such as Baconians and Shakesperians. Jehovah witness? Try some people going door to door, spreading over developed theories of how it wasn't Shakespeare that wrote any of his plays!

- Time traveling is somewhat common, even though heavily policed.

The plot is slowly developed along the book. The real plot only starts somewhat by the end of it. The villain appears at the start of the book, and then at the end again. He has some super human powers that are never explained, and our heroin is the only one that can resist them for whatever reason.

There are are many subplots that are nowhere connected. There is a 100+ years war going on between England and Russia going on. There is a whole chapter of a fight with a vampire. Yes, it did have an impact latter on, but it didn't play well for me. It added color to the story, but added to the lack of cohesion of the book.

I liked the villain. He is described as being pure evil, he delights himself in wickedness. He actually wrote the book “Degeneracy for Fun and Profit”. He is a mastermind criminal and he has superhuman powers (close to immortal, ageless, super strength). Because of that, I would expect a better end for him.

The book has a very standard happy ending, which did not sit well with me. I like unusual things, and the plot gave ample leeway for for that.

But again, for those who love English literature, who have read and liked Jaine Eyre, it must have had an special feeling to wonder how it would fell like to interact with the characters, to change the story, to fear for the integrity of its plot, for its very existence!

I love the Thursday Next series, although I hadn't read The Eyre Affair in a long time. In rereading it, I realized that while I still enjoyed it and it's important for world-building, I don't love it as much as some of the later books in the series. The first half is darker and more intense than I remembered, and then the end of it wraps things up a bit too quickly. But I do love how deep this book goes into Jane Eyre, and I do just love Thursday Next.