1: Which authors or books have influenced your work? How have they influenced you?

2: What one book has changed you as a reader or a writer? Why?

3: Which of your favourite literary characters inspired or influenced the character of Thursday Next?

4: Many reviewers have tried to classify the genre(s) of Lost In a Good Book. How would you describe this novel?

5: Much of Lost In a Good Book's success is its development of literary characters outside their original plotlines. How do you choose which characters will play a part in Thursday's stories?

6: Unlike many novels published today, Lost In a Good Book has a clever, light hearted quality that challenges the reader with literary allusions and wordplay. How is this different from other novels written today? Why do you think this quality is important in what you write and what we read?










1: Which authors or books have influenced your work? How have they influenced you?

Probably the 'Alice' books by Lewis Carroll as they were the first books I remember choosing to read of my own volition. (Important, I think; the first fifty or so dowdy reading primers are chosen for us. It is a 'learning to walk' moment when you have the power to read, and, critically, choose to do so) I must have been seven at the time and was swept away by the Alice's madcap escapades and respectful irreverence of established nursery characters and situations.

On subsequent readings I enjoyed it even more - truly a multi-layered book from which you can either just enjoy the story or, on a deeper level, understand the subtleties of the White Knight's 'names of names' metalanguage. It is no accident that many of the characters in my books originally appear in Alice - The Cheshire Cat, the Red Queen, the King and Queen of Hearts. I think the mix of highbrow and nonsense greatly appeals to me; Lewis Carroll was an extremely intelligent man and could make humorous connections in his writings that are as fresh, full of genuine charm and as delightful now as they were in the late nineteenth century.

But for all that Grade-A nonsense there is a strong and very logical construction of Alice's world. Everything that happens is entirely reasonable given the framework that Carroll creates. Alice herself is only mildly curious about growing larger or smaller, feels only timidity meeting Humpty Dumpty and will quite happily assist Tweedledee and Tweedledum to do battle. This 'compassionate observer' of all that is weird and wonderful and unexpected is something that I try to reflect upon Thursday. There is little that surprises or fazes her - she just shrugs and gets on with the job in hand; an unflappable guide to lead us about a fantastic place.

2: What one book has changed you as a reader or a writer? Why?

To be truthful, I am influenced by almost everything I read or see or hear. I sometimes think that all the books I have ever read were each just a single chapter in something very much larger; a colossally big 'Allbook' that contains the very best of human imaginative outpourings and that sadly, I will never finish. All my books relate to some plot device or other I have read or some snatch of dialogue I have heard - how it could be anything else? A good case in point is the whole Crimean War subplot that runs throughout the Thursday Next books. I was reading an excellent account of the Charge of the Light Brigade entitled 'The Reason Why' written by Cecil Woodham-Smith. In it she outlines the stupidity and wastefulness exhibited in this particular war and all of a sudden I wanted to include a modern Crimean charge in my book. I thought this a bit tricky but liked a challenge and created the 132-year-old Crimean conflict to accommodate this rather curious desire. The Crimean episode opened the doors to a whole 'alternate history' subplot that now includes the Welsh Socialist Republic, a Republican England and time travelling French revisionists.

3: Which of your favourite literary characters inspired or influenced the character of Thursday Next?

Strangely, I'm really not sure where Thursday comes from - perhaps she is the Ffordian ideal of womanhood - intelligent, driven, passionate. There is undeniably a bit of Miss Marple and Richard Hannay about her, although as character models I have always drawn on women aviators from the Golden Age of Aviation. These extraordinary people (Bennett, Earhart, Markham, Coleman, Johnson) had not just a great passion and zest for life and adventure but also an overriding sense of purpose. In a word, Spirit.

4: Many reviewers have tried to classify the genre(s) of Lost In a Good Book. How would you describe this novel?

I always describe my novels as 'The Swiss Army Knife of books' as I was trying to have something for everything within the covers - a trans-genre novel that I hoped would find a broad readership - perhaps even introduce a reader from one genre to the joys of another. As it turned out I have been embraced by readers from Science Fiction, Fantasy, Crime, Horror, Romance, Thriller - and now, (and least expected) by academics, the last people on earth I would have thought might embrace it. They enjoy it for its: 'post constructional demodernism' ....or something.

5: Much of Lost In a Good Book's success is its development of literary characters outside their original plotlines. How do you choose which characters will play a part in Thursday's stories?

For the jokes to work, the characters have to be familiar. What I am doing here is tapping into that rich mine of collective memory and turning old ideas around and trying to make them fresh and exciting again. The more established and literary the character is, the more fun it is to subvert them. A lot of the classics are -quite wrongly- now regarded as study texts and little else. Having Miss Havisham drive a sports car and being aggressively anti-men is funny not just because we have become used to a 'traditional' Miss Havisham but also because there is an element of 'sniggering at the back of the English class at school' which I think we should certainly do more of. Edward Rochester is another good case in point. All those glowering looks and moodiness hide a far more amusing character - I always thought so and apparently, so do quite a few other people. The important thing is to be true to the characters themselves. These people are very familiar even if they are fictional, and my 'extended knowledge' of what happens to the characters when they are not in their own book just adds to the fun. What did Heathcliff do to earn all that money before returning to 'Wuthering Heights'? Read 'Lost in a Good Book' and find out!

6: Unlike many novels published today, Lost In a Good Book has a clever, light hearted quality that challenges the reader with literary allusions and wordplay. How is this different from other novels written today? Why do you think this quality is important in what you write and what we read?

The important thing here is to make it fun. Have fun with writing it, have fun with reading it. I tend to write the main story first, then go through it again and add the allusions, silly names and dreadful puns, mixing (I hope) a bit of highbrow with silliness and outright farce. There are many facets to Readers characters and I am always hoping that with the multitudinous types of jokes and references I will be able to hit that button of shared memory and collective experience. My editor once said to me: 'Jasper, this reference to 'Painted Jaguar' is a bit obtuse. Can we leave it out?' My reply was: 'Well, not many people will get it, I agree - but the ones that do will know it was just for them!'



Jasper Fforde May 30th 2003, for Bookmarks

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