I don’t know if you find this but books are like people you meet: there are some with whom you connect straightaway; there are others that you tolerate begrudgingly; there are those that you like but you can leave; and there are others that are so unlike you that you take the mickey out of them when they’re not around.
I would put Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair up there as one of the best books I’ve read in the last couple of years. I have a feeling that I have read something by him before but it may have been before I started writing reviews of the books I read so I’m unable to reflect convincingly on what I thought of it and how good it was. It’s fair to say it probably wasn’t that memorable.
But this one? Very memorable indeed! Oh, I did love it! Where to start? Well, it’s about a literary detective for one which, if it were an actual job, would be one that I would consider myself a candidate. Told in the first person by LiteraTec Thursday Next (yes, that is her name – her name! Yes, a strong female protagonist, another thing in this book’s favour!), we follow Next as she seeks out her formidable enemy, Acheron Hades, who really is despicable in every sense of the word and when the original manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit goes missing, Hades is suspect number one. But what on Earth could he have planned?
This is a book brimming with imagination, so much so that I could hardly contain my appreciation while reading it. I marvelled at Fforde’s vision firstly but then this was complemented by the humour that pervades every page, whether it’s in the action that’s happening on the page or in the names that he chooses for his characters – I’m itching to reveal more of them here but as it is part of the joy of discovering the book, I’m going to hold off, although it’s difficult to contain myself! And his storytelling is just smooth and the plot is daft and incredible but works and there’s romance and inventions and skulduggery! I mean, what more could you want in a fiction?
Oh, and so many literary references, I glowed with delight. And Thursday has a dodo as a pet.
Vibes of Pratchett abound but this is something all of its own too.
Loved, loved, loved it!
Rachel Rating:
Scuffed Granny 