The Eyre Affair

Author: Jasper Fforde
Genre: Surrealism/Science Fiction/Alternate Reality
Grade: A

A surrealistic journey into a world where literature is king, cloning is a possibility and time travel is making a mish mash of quite a bit, this charming book gives us a new take on old favorites and opens a door to a truly interesting, if sometimes befuddling, world.

The novel begins with Thursday Next encountering her father, a time traveler out running French Revisionists (the pests keep trying to rewrite history in their favor) and accelerates from there. Thursday, a detective with the literary division, is recruited to investigate the theft of the original manuscript of Charles Dickens's "Martin Chuzzlewit" because she is one of the few people able to identify the thief, Acheron Hades. Acheron is an amazing criminal -- able to appear and disappear seemingly at will, doesn't get captured on video, and can completely disguise himself at a moments notice-- he has proved unstopable, unkillable, uncapturable. Thursday comes as close to capturing him during a stakeout as anyone ever has but is badly injured, saved only by a copy of Jane Eyre that stops Hades' bullet and by a mysterious stranger staunching the blood flow from her wound until the paramedics arrive.

Thursday then sees herself in the hospital and is told by said self to go to Swindon. She does and this is where she continues her adventures with Acheron, the mysterious stranger and Landen Parke-Laine, Thursday's former fiancee -- though her heart still has trouble with the former nature of the relationship.

Thursday is a fantastic heroine. She is exactly the kind of action oriented character I love -- she has training to explain her skills and the wit to go with it. She is compassionate but not a bleeding heart, righteous but not self-righteous. She grows and learns throughout the book.

The mysterious stranger is also a pretty cool character (Wink).

My one regret is that we don't get more of Landen. And did I miss an explanation of what Acheron actually is?

I wouldn't recommend this book to someone who doesn't like classic British literature and doesn't have at least a passing knowledge of Jane Eyre. I have to say the Wall Street Journal said it well in their jacket blurb:

Filled with clever wordplay, literary allusion and bibliowit, The Eyre Affair combines elements of Monty Python, Harry Potter, Stephen Hawking and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But its quirky charm is all its own."

I look forward to my next Next novel.