The Eyre Affair
Registered by Helly77 of Preston, Lancashire United Kingdom on 8/16/2005
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
7 journalers for this copy...
Tbr !!!
Amazon.co.uk Review
Pirouetting on the boundaries between sci-fi, the crime thriller and intertextual whimsy, Jasper Fforde's outrageous The Eyre Affairputs you on the wrong footing even on its dedication page, which proudly announces that the book conforms to Crimean War economy standard.
Fforde's heroine, Thursday Next, lives in a world where time and reality are endlessly mutable--someone has ensured that the Crimean War never ended for example--a world policed by men like her disgraced father, whose name has been edited out of existence. She herself polices text--against men like the Moriarty-like Acheron Styx, whose current scam is to hold the minor characters of Dickens' novels to ransom, entering the manuscript and abducting them for execution and extinction one by one. When that caper goes sour, Styx moves on to the nation's most beloved novel--an oddly truncated version of Jane Eyre--and kidnaps its heroine. The phlegmatic and resourceful Thursday pursues Acheron across the border into a Leninist Wales and further to Mr Rochester's Thornfield Hall, where both books find their climax on the roof amid flames.
Fforde is endlessly inventive: his heroine's utter unconcern about the strangeness of the world she inhabits keeps the reader perpetually double-taking as minor certainties of history, literature and cuisine go soggy in the corner of our eye. The audacity of the premise and its working out provides sudden leaps of understanding, many of them accompanied by wild fits of the giggles. This is a peculiarly promising first novel. --Roz Kaveney
The Times
'The reader is catapulted in and out of truth and imagination on a hectic, humorous and neatly constructed chase’
Amazon.co.uk Review
Pirouetting on the boundaries between sci-fi, the crime thriller and intertextual whimsy, Jasper Fforde's outrageous The Eyre Affairputs you on the wrong footing even on its dedication page, which proudly announces that the book conforms to Crimean War economy standard.
Fforde's heroine, Thursday Next, lives in a world where time and reality are endlessly mutable--someone has ensured that the Crimean War never ended for example--a world policed by men like her disgraced father, whose name has been edited out of existence. She herself polices text--against men like the Moriarty-like Acheron Styx, whose current scam is to hold the minor characters of Dickens' novels to ransom, entering the manuscript and abducting them for execution and extinction one by one. When that caper goes sour, Styx moves on to the nation's most beloved novel--an oddly truncated version of Jane Eyre--and kidnaps its heroine. The phlegmatic and resourceful Thursday pursues Acheron across the border into a Leninist Wales and further to Mr Rochester's Thornfield Hall, where both books find their climax on the roof amid flames.
Fforde is endlessly inventive: his heroine's utter unconcern about the strangeness of the world she inhabits keeps the reader perpetually double-taking as minor certainties of history, literature and cuisine go soggy in the corner of our eye. The audacity of the premise and its working out provides sudden leaps of understanding, many of them accompanied by wild fits of the giggles. This is a peculiarly promising first novel. --Roz Kaveney
The Times
'The reader is catapulted in and out of truth and imagination on a hectic, humorous and neatly constructed chase’
this book drove me nuts!!!
I had such a hard time reading it, with all the clever plays on words and stupid names like "Braxton Hicks" and my personal favourite.... "Paige Turner".
Unfortunately I dont even think that the ending was worth the effort. The Idea was great, just not done in an especially good way :(
Going to nimrodiel as part of the BookRelay YBS#8
I had such a hard time reading it, with all the clever plays on words and stupid names like "Braxton Hicks" and my personal favourite.... "Paige Turner".
Unfortunately I dont even think that the ending was worth the effort. The Idea was great, just not done in an especially good way :(
Going to nimrodiel as part of the BookRelay YBS#8
Journal Entry 3 by Helly77 at in a YBS in a RABCK, By Mail/Post/Courier -- Controlled Releases on Saturday, October 22, 2005
Released 18 yrs ago (10/22/2005 UTC) at in a YBS in a RABCK, By Mail/Post/Courier -- Controlled Releases
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
RELEASE NOTES:
off to the US as part of the relayers YBS :)
off to the US as part of the relayers YBS :)
This came in todays mail :)
Thabks for marking it a YBS book :)
Thabks for marking it a YBS book :)
It took me a bit to really get into this book, but once I started it I couldn't put it down. I'm exited to start Lost in a Good Book soon.
Book went out in a box with Lost in a Good Book to aceofhearts today.
received from Nimrodiel as part of a swap
Jasper Fforde has written a devilish clever novel. It is partly sci-fi, partly mystery and partly speculative fiction.
Thursday Next lives in an alternate world where the Crimean War still wages and England is not an empire but just a country and Wales is a Leninist state.
The villian, Acheron Styx, is as evil as they come and has stolen an original manuscript of Dickens and is holding the characters up for ransom. When this Machiavellian plan goes awry, Styx moves on to Jane Eyre. Thursday pursues Styx outside and inside the novel in order to fight this evil.
There are a lot of play on words, maybe too many but still fun to catch and chuckle about. This book was okay. Will I read another in the series. Yes, but. I just can't put my finger on what I didn't like but to say it was a little bit too much. As a side note the reader does not have to have read Jane Eyre but it will increase the enjoyment if you have.
Thursday Next lives in an alternate world where the Crimean War still wages and England is not an empire but just a country and Wales is a Leninist state.
The villian, Acheron Styx, is as evil as they come and has stolen an original manuscript of Dickens and is holding the characters up for ransom. When this Machiavellian plan goes awry, Styx moves on to Jane Eyre. Thursday pursues Styx outside and inside the novel in order to fight this evil.
There are a lot of play on words, maybe too many but still fun to catch and chuckle about. This book was okay. Will I read another in the series. Yes, but. I just can't put my finger on what I didn't like but to say it was a little bit too much. As a side note the reader does not have to have read Jane Eyre but it will increase the enjoyment if you have.
My mom, AceofHearts, passed away from breast cancer on September 17, 2013. Aside from being one of the best people I know, she was an avid reader and took immense pleasure in Bookcrossing, her book club, and reading many great books.
Before she passed, she showed me all of her owed books and the books she wanted to give away as RABCKs, making sure that I would send everything on should anything happen. This book was marked for BooksnBeer as a RABCK.
Sent today.
Before she passed, she showed me all of her owed books and the books she wanted to give away as RABCKs, making sure that I would send everything on should anything happen. This book was marked for BooksnBeer as a RABCK.
Sent today.
THANK YOU!! OMG - I did get a little scared when this book showed up at my house - I was thinking I made contact with the otherside!! Seriously, I feel honored that Ace thought of me - I will remember her when I read this book.
I am passing this forward - this will be going to the ABC books beginning with E bookring. Enjoy.
Arrived with Iwillrejoice's ABC (Alphabet) Bookring - US version - Books Beginning with the Letter E (Link)
I won't be choosing it, so it will continue on to the next participant!
I won't be choosing it, so it will continue on to the next participant!
I chose this from the bookring. I've read it, but have a friend who might like to read it. Thanks!
On the sandwich board in front of Hathaway's Diner in the Carew Tower building. Enjoy!
