What are you reading and book reviews

[volospian]

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

Well.... not sure what to make of this book... it's a fantastic (as in, it's full of fantasy) and rather surreal story about SpecOps LiteraTec operative Miss Thursday Next and her fight against the ArchVillain Acheron Hades.

My initial thoughts are...

Characterisation
The main character, Thursday Next, isn't really well fleshed out. I'm nearly half way through the book and I still feel no real connection with her. No reason to care if she lives or dies, and this seems to be the same story for the other characters. Too many come and go, with minimal descriptions and little in the way of endearing features. Hades seems to be about the best character so far, but that's only through the attitude expressed by the character in the narrative, not through any kind of connection with the "person".

Plot
The core plot is a good idea, and has a lot of potential (I won't give anything away ). The issues lie, for me, with the fantasy world in which Miss Next inhabits. This is no Narnia or Middle Earth. The novel is set in England in the 80's, but Fforde has just gone wild with his imagination. It's like he has picked up every "real world" fantasy idea ever created, poured the lot into a bucket, mixed well and tipped the lot straight into the book. This world has a myriad of alternative timelines, mega corporations controlling the governments, warewolves and vampires, time travel, impossible science fiction inventions, you name it, it's in the book. Indeed, the only thing you'll recognise about this world is the place names.

Sadly, it's all a bit like making a cake and throwing in everything you can find in your kitchen cupboards. The outcome could certainly be described as a cake, but I'm not sure it would taste that good.

style
Hmmm, style... well, the book is quite well written for the most part. I prefer a bit more description of people and events while Fforde tends to focus on the fantasy elements and describes the unusual, leaving the rest to your imagination. This is fine for the most part, but when later narrative relies upon those mundane details, the initial lack of information seems sloppy. He has also written the book with an odd mix of British and American terms and images. The cars seem to be largely American offerings, areas are referred to as "blocks" and so on. I'm not sure whether the intention is to suggest that in this fantasy world, England is, or has been, part of the USA, or the book has just been written to try and sell in an American market. Whichever, I find it annoying and distracting from the narrative.

Conclusion
I bought the book because a lot of reviews said that "if you like Pratchett, you'll love Fforde". Well, I do... and I don't. All this fantasy sort of spoils it for me. It's just a bit too crazy. The world is so far away from reality that I find myself wondering why he bothered to set it in the "real world" at all. Also, Fforde is not funny. There are, as far as I can see, no jokes in this book. The only real link between the writers is the fantasy setting, and for me, the discworld works, while Ffords world doesn't quite hit the mark.

Very slowly I am picking my way through the forest of fantasy and deciphering what is relevant to the plot, and what is just embellishment. The plot is there, the characters, while weak at the moment, do show some promise and some of the fantasy elements are essential to make the plot believable.

I just think that if Fforde had managed to rein in his imagination a bit, and kept the dictionary to one side of the atlantic, the book would be an easier read, and more enjoyable for it.

Rating
6/10