Throw in a sub-plot involving a lost and now found Shakespeare play (the legendary 'Cardenio'), shifty Whig politicians, warring literary figures, woolly mammoth migrations, Neanderthal art (as in they painted it and hung it in a gallery) and you have the makings of one seriously fun read. Confused yet?
You bloody well should be.
As you may have guessed by now, the universe which Thursday Next inhabits is not quite right. Well, not by comparison to ours that is. It's a universe where woolly mammoths, dodos and even Neanderthals have been re-engineered. A world where the Crimean War never quite ended. A world where time travel is quite possible, and where there are portals into great novels, accessed simply by knowing how to read them properly. A world that is disquietingly close to George Orwell on acid.
I am getting a headache trying to summarise a plot that quite frankly defies any attempt to do so. Simply get your paws on a copy as soon as possible and read it. This book is a lot of fun. Not simply because of the multi-layered and self-referential plot strands (which are a hoot), but because Fforde is a great writer. The dialogue is witty, the gags are well paced and polished. His observations are cutting without being eccentric, and ironic without being sarcastic. The characterisation is a joy. The sheer eccentricity and manic, haphazard twisting and turning of the ever expanding plot is just plain wonderful.
In addition Fforde uses his other-dimensional world to make shrewd observations about our rather more prosaic world - much in the same way that Terry Prattchet has been using his Discworld to poke fun at the idiocy of the real planet Earth for many years. Most notable is the depiction of the ubiquitous Goliath corporation. It's Microsoft, Intel, General Electric, the CIA and Tesco rolled into one, effectively controlling everything that a citizen does, from the food consumed to the TV watched. This world, like ours, is one where people are not citizens, but merely consumers.
In one particularly funny scene, Next is interviewed for a highly rated TV show. The entire interview is overseen by an array of shifty, slimy company spin-doctors who interrupt at every available opportunity, censor her, rule things undiscussable and render the whole situation a medieval farce. Eventually she is left with nothing to discuss other than the finer points of how she likes her toast done. The odious mannerisms and farcical language of the Marketing types that Next has to deal with are expertly observed, and it's her complete refusal to play ball and be a "company man" that makes her so appealing. We can only assume that Jasper Fforde's previous career in the film industry dealing with the Louis Walshs and Don Simpsons of this world gave him plenty of experience in this type of thing.
To the ranks of the other great cult meta-fictional writers such as Flann O'Brien, Douglas Adams and Robert Rankin we should welcome Jasper Fforde...
© Damien DeBarra 2002