The Eyre Affair

The year is 1985, and the place is England. But this 1985 England is quite different from the one the British may remember. History has taken a few strange turns, and as a result, the Crimean War is still going strong, and the British are periodically engaged in fighting the Russian Czar's troops. Also, instead of enthusiastically following the latest pop culture icon, the general population is literature mad. They love Shakespeare, Marlowe, Bacon, and especially Bronte and Jane Eyre.

Our heroine is Thursday Next, an ex-military ex-police Literatec. As a SpecOps officer, her job is to ferret out literature frauds and make sure the guilty are punished. A bit unsatisfied with her going- nowhere, no-opportunity-for-advancement job, Thursday jumps at the chance to aid a more secret branch of the SpecOps in apprehending the third most wanted criminal on the planet, Acheron Hades. Hades is virtually uncatchable. He has all sorts of special powers, one of which is the ability to hear his name mentioned anywhere. He also shows no reflection in a mirror, and cannot be filmed. But Thursday had him as a professor years ago in college, and so she can be of some assistance.

Thursday's first run in with Hades is a disaster. As a result, she goes to her old hometown to rest and recover. While she is there, Hades makes his next move. He kidnaps Thursday's aunt and uncle and the machine her uncle is working on, the Prose Portal. This machine is capable of transporting people in or out of works of literature. Literary characters begin to disappear, first a rather unimportant one, and then, to the horror of the whole nation, Jane Eyre.

Will Thursday be able to stop this madman, and his plan to ruin all the great works of literature?

The first thing that must be mentioned about this book is that it is pretty darned funny. The universe is just so bizarre. Thursday knows people named Braxton Hicks, Paige Turner, and Jack Schitt. There is a sort of running joke about Shakespeare where Thursday meets any number of people from all walks of life, and has the same discussion with all of them: did Shakespeare really write his own plays? Watching her earnestly discuss this with a bartender was comical. There were all sorts of clever little bits to illustrate how crazy about literature and art everyone was.

Then there were the scenes with the characters that had been taken from books. They remained in character, and so the contrast between them and the rest of the people was clear and amusing. Also, various people were always reflecting on what a great piece of work Jane Eyre was - except for the sucky ending. And since Hades is tampering with Jane Eyre, the book undergoes some fairly major transitions before The Eyre Affair is finished. Funny, funny.

The romance between Thursday and her former fiancé, Landen Parke-Laine, was only a small part of the book, but it was still reasonably satisfying. More would have been better, but you can't have everything.

The book dragged a little in the middle, and there were some point-of-view violations. Most of the book was told in first person from Thursday's perspective, and it is a little unclear why. Thursday is a good character, but somehow Fforde's use of the first person failed to deliver the intimacy that usually comes across with this device. And every so often, Fforde would switch to third person. The book would have been less jarring and more effective had it all just been written in third person.

The Eyre Affair felt very fresh and different. I liked the novelty of a world where reality and literature sometimes coincide. From the back cover it appears that this is the first book in a series. I will certainly be looking forward to reading Thursday's further adventures.

-- Rachel Potter

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