The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel Author: Jasper Fforde | Language: English | ISBN:
B000OCXHC2 | Format: EPUB
The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel Description
The first installment in Jasper Fforde’s New York Times bestselling series of Thursday Next novels introduces literary detective Thursday Next and her alternate reality of literature-obsessed England
Fans of Douglas Adams and P. G. Wodehouse will love visiting Jasper Fforde's Great Britain, circa 1985, when time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously: it’s a bibliophile’s dream. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection. But when someone begins kidnapping characters from works of literature and plucks Jane Eyre from the pages of Brontë's novel, Thursday is faced with the challenge of her career. Fforde's ingenious fantasy—enhanced by a Web site that re-creates the world of the novel—unites intrigue with English literature in a delightfully witty mix. Thursday’s zany investigations continue with six more bestselling Thursday Next novels, including
One of Our Thursdays is Missing and the upcoming
The Woman Who Died A Lot. Visit jasperfforde.com.
- File Size: 510 KB
- Print Length: 400 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books (February 25, 2003)
- Sold by: Penguin Group (USA) LLC
- Language: English
- ASIN: B000OCXHC2
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #42,705 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
Jasper Fforde has a rich imagination that moves in wacky directions, an off-the-wall sense of humor that never quits, and a deep knowledge and love of literature which give shape and substance to this hilarious "thing" he's created. Not really a mystery, sci-fi thriller, satire, or fluffy fantasy, this wild rumpus contains elements of all these but feels like a completely new genre. Fforde combines "real" people from the "historically challenged" world of his plot with characters from classic novels, adding dollops of word play, irony, literary humor, satire--and even a dodo bird--just for spice.
With "real" characters who can stop time or travel back and forth in it, hear their own names (the names here are really terrific!) from 1000 yards away, appear in duplicate before themselves to give advice, travel inside books, and change the outcome of history, the reader journeys through Fforde's looking glass into a different and far more literary universe than the one we know. Thursday Next, a SpecOp-27 in the Literary Detective Division of Special Operations, is looking for Acheron Hades, who has stolen the original manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit and killed one of the characters in it, thereby changing the story forever. Thursday and the Literatecs are trying to prevent him from getting inside Jane Eyre and committing further murders.
If you have not read Jane Eyre recently, your pleasure in this book will be greatly enhanced if you look up a brief plot summary on-line before proceeding too far--the ending of Jane Eyre as we know it is different from the ending of Jane Eyre as Thursday Next knows it, and the differences themselves become a delightful part of this plot.
With the first page of this book, Fford caught my attention and held it fast until the last. I hated to see it end, but I was very happy to discover that it was only first in a series featuring Spec-Ops agent Thursday Next. Fford has created a blend of mystery, science fiction, and fantasy that is similar to Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently series. Fford's books even have the same irreverently sublime silliness, but with a decidedly literary bent.
The books are set in an alternate universe, one where England is the world greatest super power, but is held under the control of a shadowy mega-company called Goliath. The year is 1985, but it's unlike any 1985 you or I might remember. Technology is both far advanced and far behind. The Crimean War still drags on and the world's biggest superstars are authors. A special crime enforcement unit has been formed to deal with crimes that fall outside the usual boundaries of police jurisdiction. Thursday Next works for Spec-Ops 27, the Literary Division.
When the world's third most wanted criminal, Acheron Hades, finds a way to jump into the original manuscript of Dicken's MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT and assassinates Mr. Quaverley (a character you will only remember if you read the book before 1985), Thursday is assigned the case. It turns out that the assassination of Mr. Quaverley was only an example of what he was capable of, and when he jumps into JANE EYRE and kidnaps the title character, it's up to Thursday to save the beloved heroine...and the book.
I'll warn you now that you'll have to suspend belief while reading this book. It should be read as a fantasy first and foremost. It deals with time travel (Thursday's father is a Spec-Ops agent as well, but in the Chronoguard), cloned dodo's (Thursday's marshmallow loving pet Pickwick, version 1.
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