Jasper Fforde

This was Jasper Fforde's remarkable debut novel. It's written in the first person from the viewpoint of a deceptively average-looking woman named Thursday Next, age 36, who's an ex-soldier and literary detective, an expert on classic literature and specialist in Shakespeare. She carries a gun and uses it when necessary.

She lives in England in 1985, whose government seems to share power with the sinister Goliath Corporation.

The Crimean War has been going on since 1854; and, not entirely by coincidence, the People's Republic of Wales has been an independent country since 1854.

She's in love with a man named Landen Parke-Laine, whom she can't forgive for telling the truth about her brother Anton, who died at least 10 years ago in the Charge of the Light Armoured Brigade. She and Landen also took part in the Charge, but survived; Landen lost a leg.

She has a father who constantly travels in time, an uncle who invents impossible gadgets, and a pet dodo called Pickwick, a product of genetic engineering.

She's up against Acheron Hades, a master criminal engaged in sabotaging works of literature. A ruthless and murderous man, he's mysteriously invulnerable to gunfire and has apparently magical powers.

As a matter of friendship, Thursday sometimes helps a colleague who has the dangerous job of hunting vampires and werewolves.

She also has a friendly relationship with Edward Fairfax Rochester, the fictional hero of Charlotte Brontë's novel "Jane Eyre" (1847); occasionally they meet, talk, and try to help each other.

I'm not normally keen on wild fantasy, in which impossible things happen without following any apparent rules. I make an exception in this case because, somehow, it all works.

I think the prime reason why it all works is that Thursday and the other characters take it seriously. They're just trying to get through life as best they can, with all this stuff going on.

The good points of the story are the tireless imagination and inventiveness that run through it, and the vivid and likeable character of Thursday herself, who carries us through it all. The fact that it's a very British book also appeals to me.

One criticism is that the characters other than Thursday are quite lightly drawn: there's not much to them.

I find that I get used to the names. Yes, Landen Parke-Laine sounds like Land On Park Lane (which you might do when playing Monopoly), but that doesn't distract me for long, and after a while it's just a name to me. I think Fforde's decision to give his characters silly names was a bad risk, especially in a first novel, but he must be at least half mad to write a book like this at all, and I suppose it just appealed to him.… (more)

This is a provisional review and rating because I've read the book only once so far.

Good points:

1. Fforde has a remarkable ability to imagine a totally bizarre world and bring it to life in every detail, and he's done it again here. I was impressed throughout.

2. At least at first reading, the story is gripping. Circumstances prevented me from reading it at one sitting, but I wanted to come back to it.

Bad points:

1. The scenario is rather grim and macabre: a world in deep freeze, haunted by nightmares.

2. The characters are varied, but mostly lack positive appeal, and appearances can be deceptive: some apparently nice characters turn out to be bad, and at least one nasty character turns out to be good.

3. The first-person protagonist seems to have a weak sense of sexual identity, and his/her sex isn't well established; for no particular reason, I initially assumed that I was reading about a woman. In Chapter 2, the name 'Charlie' is introduced, which is usually male, but could be a diminutive of various female names. It's unusual to get some way into a book without being sure of the sex of the main character, and it's not clear whether Fforde is doing this on purpose or by mistake.

Although Fforde books always have some element of humour, they tend to be set in more or less dystopian scenarios, and I read them despite this, not because of it. I usually avoid dystopias.… (more)