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A review by mediaevalmuse
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
3.0
Probably closer to 3.5 stars.
I received this novel from a friend as a gift, her rationale being it's one of her favorites and we have similar literary tastes (especially our love for Jane Eyre). As a whole, I enjoyed it. The premise is clever and it's a fun sort of detective-story for literary enthusiasts. There are some pitfalls that rubbed me the wrong way, but it's a light read and the shortcomings don't completely overwhelm the reading experience.
Things I Liked
1. It's a Book About Books: I love books about books. They’re some of my favorite things, and Fforde’s novel is definitely in that category. The world he builds is one in which people love literature - it’s every English major’s dream, really, that people are so passionate about reading. Not to mention that the author also explores the thin lines between fiction and reality in ways that make me want to jump into books myself.
2. Humor: Fforde’s novel is delightfully funny with punny character names and clever ways of twisting literary events so that they fall in line with his own story. It was so much fun to follow a crime story while also laughing at some of the plays on words and Baconians going door-to-door to argue about who was the real author of Shakespeare’s plays.
3. Premise: While I initially had my doubts about the whole jumping-into-literature stuff, I found that actually, Fforde managed to pull it off quite well and creating high stakes that was more than just “the book might change.” Imagine weaponizing a device that could allow you to jump into books and bring things back to your world - pretty scary, yeah?
Things I Didn't Like
1. Pace: As fun as this book was, the pace was way too quick. There were some moments I wished had been more fully explored or given weight for their seriousness/effect on the plot or characters. Instead, I felt like I was moving too fast and had a hard time rooting myself in the world Fforde had built. Furthermore, when we do get to the Jane Eyre stuff, it comes at 100 pages from the end of the novel (not enough time, I think). There’s a lot of sitting around at this point - Thursday waits weeks while she’s in the book to nab the villain.
2.Character Depth: Thursday is a delightful character, but I didn’t feel connected to her in any way. Despite the first-person narration, readers can't always identify with her emotions because they came up too quickly and then went away. There's little interiority. For example, readers don’t know if she’s mad or upset until she has an outburst at someone else.
3. Excess Stuff: I’m not sure how else to describe this. Fforde built up a really interesting alternate world, but he also seemed to delve too much into these aspects instead of developing his plot. There’s time travel, vampire hunting, near-immortal villains, werewolves, and cloning - but these things seemed to get in the way of the main events of the plot. Yes, the time traveling father was fun and I actually kind of liked him, but he served very little purpose in the book (as did the vampire hunting, the pet dodo, etc.)
Recommendations: Read this book if you're a literature enthusiast, English major, or all-around fan of science fiction, fantasy, crime, or Jane Eyre. You may also enjoy this novel if you liked Cornelia Funke's Inkheart.
I received this novel from a friend as a gift, her rationale being it's one of her favorites and we have similar literary tastes (especially our love for Jane Eyre). As a whole, I enjoyed it. The premise is clever and it's a fun sort of detective-story for literary enthusiasts. There are some pitfalls that rubbed me the wrong way, but it's a light read and the shortcomings don't completely overwhelm the reading experience.
Things I Liked
1. It's a Book About Books: I love books about books. They’re some of my favorite things, and Fforde’s novel is definitely in that category. The world he builds is one in which people love literature - it’s every English major’s dream, really, that people are so passionate about reading. Not to mention that the author also explores the thin lines between fiction and reality in ways that make me want to jump into books myself.
2. Humor: Fforde’s novel is delightfully funny with punny character names and clever ways of twisting literary events so that they fall in line with his own story. It was so much fun to follow a crime story while also laughing at some of the plays on words and Baconians going door-to-door to argue about who was the real author of Shakespeare’s plays.
3. Premise: While I initially had my doubts about the whole jumping-into-literature stuff, I found that actually, Fforde managed to pull it off quite well and creating high stakes that was more than just “the book might change.” Imagine weaponizing a device that could allow you to jump into books and bring things back to your world - pretty scary, yeah?
Things I Didn't Like
1. Pace: As fun as this book was, the pace was way too quick. There were some moments I wished had been more fully explored or given weight for their seriousness/effect on the plot or characters. Instead, I felt like I was moving too fast and had a hard time rooting myself in the world Fforde had built. Furthermore, when we do get to the Jane Eyre stuff, it comes at 100 pages from the end of the novel (not enough time, I think). There’s a lot of sitting around at this point - Thursday waits weeks while she’s in the book to nab the villain.
2.Character Depth: Thursday is a delightful character, but I didn’t feel connected to her in any way. Despite the first-person narration, readers can't always identify with her emotions because they came up too quickly and then went away. There's little interiority. For example, readers don’t know if she’s mad or upset until she has an outburst at someone else.
3. Excess Stuff: I’m not sure how else to describe this. Fforde built up a really interesting alternate world, but he also seemed to delve too much into these aspects instead of developing his plot. There’s time travel, vampire hunting, near-immortal villains, werewolves, and cloning - but these things seemed to get in the way of the main events of the plot. Yes, the time traveling father was fun and I actually kind of liked him, but he served very little purpose in the book (as did the vampire hunting, the pet dodo, etc.)
Recommendations: Read this book if you're a literature enthusiast, English major, or all-around fan of science fiction, fantasy, crime, or Jane Eyre. You may also enjoy this novel if you liked Cornelia Funke's Inkheart.