Reviews TN2 whodunnit.com Review

Let's start with a warning: It might be less confusing if you started by reading Jasper Fforde's first book, The Eyre Affair. I happened to miss that, and dove right in to Lost In A Good Book without knowing what I was letting myself in for! It took me a number of pages before I realized the world Thursday Next inhabits was not our own. In addition, other than that we know she's female, Thursday herself is never described. We have no idea what she looks like. New authors may be forgiven for the error of not explaining or describing their protagonists and their environment, but I blame it on the editor who should have caught such a discrepancy.

Lost In A Good Book is hardly your typical murder mystery - indeed, it's not even a usual mystery book. Jasper Fforde has instead created a world full of paradox, fun, terror, magic, time warps and impossibilities, people with odd names and oddly familiar personalities. Constant references to Jane Eyre simply reinforce a need to read Jasper Fforde's first effort.

We're introduced to Thursday Next as she's about to appear on a TV show to talk about her experiences when she actually entered the novel, Jane Eyre. Presumably, she got into the fictional equivalent of that period through her father's invention called a Prose Portal - although we're not told that until much later in the book. However, due to drastic censoring by the huge corporation called Goliath which owns the show, Thursday is reduced to conversing about her pet dodo instead. Naturally, the Goliath Corporation claims they would never censor anything that goes out over the tube. Sound familiar?

Lost In A Good Book is told in first person, through Thursday's eyes, and revolves around her adventures. These include a hearing for supposed offenses, discovery of a new Shakespearian play, the eradication of Landen (Thursday's intended), and Thursday's pregnancy, plus Goliath's promise that Landen will be returned to her if she brings Jack Shitt back from Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven, where she left him.

Jack Shitt is evidently a nefarious personality, and the Goliath Corporation that desires his return is even more nefarious. However, since she wants Landen back more than anything, Thursday agrees to try; even though she has no idea how to invade books without a Prose Portal, which is not available to her. Then Miss Havisham from Great Expectations, complete with moldering wedding gown, comes to the rescue and takes Thursday on as an apprentice to learn how to get into books without using a machine. It's called bookjumping.

One of Miss Havisham's stipulations is that Thursday obeys all her requests, with no questions; and one of her requests is that Thursday take her to the Swindon Booktastic Closing Down Sale to get a Farquitt boxed set. It seems the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland is also after it, but braving the mob and ensuing fray, Thursday emerges triumphant with the books. It seems this was only a test of her loyalty. Under Miss Havisham's supervision, Thursday now begins in earnest to read herself into whatever fiction she wants to invade.

Meanwhile her landlord is insisting Thursday come up with back rent, so she takes on a job with Agent Spike Stoker to rid the world of another Supreme Evil Being (SEB's as they're called) and winds up in an abandoned church, in an abandoned graveyard, in an abandoned town. The graveyard there is only inhabited by vampires, or the undead. And Spike tells Thursday that the only way to trap the SEB - which has invaded his head - is for Thursday to kill Spike and then vacuum up the spirit of the SEB when it leaves his body. The SEB is captured, and Thursday is able to pay her rent.

Thursday is eventually able to travel to Poe's poem, The Raven, and bring back Jack Shitt. But instead of returning Landen to her as promised, she's imprisoned by Goliath, then rescued by Miss Havisham. Together they repair an error in Great Expectations, then Shakespeare's play is discovered to have been stolen, Thursday manages to circumvent the predicted End Of The World, and finally she hides away to avoid Goliath and everyone else looking for her by becoming a minor character in a book. The original character gratefully takes off to enjoy the environment of another book instead.

Lost In A Good Book is not for everyone. Jasper Fforde writes for his own pleasure alone, and if you're expecting the usual murder with it's attendant grisly details and police procedurals, you won't find it here. I would have placed this book under an 'Adventure' classification, but like the Harry Potter books (which it resembles in some respects) it's under 'Mystery.'

Jasper Fforde certainly rates an 'E' for Excellence in imagination. Asimov gave us a scientific look at future possibilities, Heinlein gave us imagination with a comic religious slant, and others have fictionally tweaked our imaginations to some degree. But no one except Jasper Fforde has opened up the vast possibilities of using characters from all fiction - fantasy, humor, scientific, adventure - whatever - to create such an incredible world as found in Lost In A Good Book.

Alan Paul Curtis