Author: Jasper Fforde
Length: 362 pages
Genre: Speculative Fiction
Publisher/Date: Viking Penguin, 2011
Source: Library copy
About the Book
Jasper Fforde’s exuberant return to the fantastical BookWorld opens during a time of great unrest. All-out Genre war is rumbling, and the BookWorld desperately needs a heroine like Thursday Next. But with the real Thursday apparently retired to the RealWorld, the Council of Genres turns to the written Thursday.
The Council wants her to pretend to be the real Thursday and travel as a peacekeeping emissary to the warring factions. A trip up the mighty Metaphoric River beckons-a trip that will reveal a fiendish plot that threatens the very fabric of the BookWorld itself.
Once again New York Times bestselling author Jasper Fforde has a field day gleefully blending satire, romance, and thriller with literary allusions galore in a fantastic adventure through the landscape of a frisky and fertile imagination. Fans will rejoice that their favorite character in the Fforde universe is back.
My Thoughts
This was a fun read that brought me back to the days when I first encountered The Eyre Affair
Here is written Thursday’s advice to her understudy, who will be handling the readers of her books while she is off traveling around BookWorld (even venturing for a few hours into RealWorld) solving the mystery of the real Thursday’s disappearance:
In any event, keep your interpretation loose, and don’t telegraph. Let the readers do the work. If you’re going to explain everything, then we might as well give up and tell everyone to stick to television and movies.
The understudy then nervously asks what to do about Skimmers, as apparently “all rookies feared Dippers, Skimmers and Last-Chapter-Firsters.” After hearing the reply, she asks, “And students?”
A breeze. They’ll pause at the end of each sentence to think quasi-intellectual deep thoughts, so as soon as a full stop looms, you can be off dealing with someone else. When you get back, they’ll still be pondering about intertextuality, inferred narratives and the scandalously high price of the subsidized beer in the student union.
Need I say more??
Note: This is Book #56 of my 2011 Reads (master list here).
I'm a mom with Asperger's raising an amazing son with autism, which means I'm basically the case manager/advocate/cheerleader/chauffeur. The rest of the time, you can usually find me with my nose in a book!
