Fforde's first book in the Thursday Next series, welcome to an alternate England where there's a division of the local police dedicated to making sure that people don't publish erroneous copies of classic literature, charlotte bronte's home is a major tourist attraction, and the major debate in society is over who wrote shakespeare's plays (as opposed to religion, politics, etc). Thursday's father is in the Chronoguard and no one ever knows when he's going to show up or how old he'll be. Her uncle is a famous inventor named Mycroft who develops a machine that lets people travel inside books and Thursday's job gets much more interesting. Someone uses the machine to get inside the original manuscript of Jane Eyre and kidnaps, well, Jane! Thursday has to get her back, battling psychopaths and evil corporations in the meantime, before Bronte's masterpiece is destroyed forever.I love Fforde's writing. he's hilarious and makes the reader feel like she's in on the joke - the books are full of references to literature of all sorts and Thursday's full of snarky comments. the sequels are great fun as well, though i think this first is still my favorite. and cricket is the most popular competitive sport. of course. shoot em up action adventure with austen and dickens references. and rocky horror style renditions of king lear.
1 comment:
I tried reading that book, but then realized that I wasn't understanding as much as I should since I hadn't read Jane Eyre . So ended up reading Jane Eyre, which got be on to other Victorian novels... needless to say, I never got back to the original book. Reading your review makes me want to try it again.
Thanks! :)
K.
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