There are many bookish amongst us that have thought, “Wouldn’t the world be a better place if the evils of television were abandoned, and we all read the classics?” Perhaps it is true, perhaps we would stop and think, smell the roses, be kinder to our fellow humans.
On the other hand, it could just be a bit zanier, as in Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next books. It is a magic land built on whimsy and knee-biting wit that Fforde gives us, one we would never imagine, yet can scarcely help but believe. This is a land where the original Martin Chuzzlewitz is guarded like a bank vault, a place where political parties hope to sway the Shakespeare vote, a locale where people do not dress up to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but rather Richard III.
The books take the form of mystery novels narrated in first person by the unparalleled Thursday Next. Thursday is a member of SpecOps-27, a branch of the British government devoted to investigations of a literary nature. Most of their work is mundane: inspecting possible forgeries, quelling disputes between Shakespearians and Baconists (those who attribute Shakespeare’s plays to Francis Bacon), and keeping tabs on important books around the country.
Thursday, however, is special; she invites danger into the life of the literary world. In the chronicle of her first adventure, “The Eyre Affair”, Thursday becomes involved in a sinister plot by Acheron Hades to destroy the original manuscript of Jane Eyre, thus affecting all other copies of the book. A frightful villain indeed, Thursday faces him by leaping into the book itself with the help of a Prose Portal, finds love, and even has time to take her pet dodo for a walk.
As if this were not enough, she must deal with more villains, and the end of the world in “Lost in a Good Book”. She also learns more about the ability to jump inside books, and becomes apprenticed to Miss Havisham, the forgotten bride from “Great Expectations.” Miss Havisham assists her on her quest to become an agent for Jurisfiction, the regulatory body for all the books ever written.
The newest book, “The Well of Lost Plots,” joins Thursday on the run from frazzled evil-doers, as she hides out where unfinished plot lines, unpublished books, and vague collections of characters spend their time. Never at rest, Thursday brings prestige to the profession of literary operative, and tries to maintain important bonds of friends and family.
Though books have largely replaced television as pop culture, the world Fforde creates is made more complete with a cast of characters involved in every aspect of this world powered on the word “delightful.” Thursday’s father works in the Chronoguard, who keeps Time in order, her grandmother is proficient in Neanderthal artwork, and her husband fought beside her in the Crimean War. There are also gravitubes, and the hit TV quiz show “Name That Fruit” to fill out the picture.
One thing that one will find odd about the books is that major plot points tend to be forgotten. For example, while reading “Lost in a Good Book,” readers are able to forget on several occasions that Thursday is playing a race against time to save the world from certain annihilation. The reason for such dropped memories isn’t that the plot is bad — it’s good, good like a cake baked just for you with a tall glass of milk — it is the fact that there are just simply more interesting things to worry about. After all, it is not every day in this scientific world filled with “laws,” and “gravity” that one is allowed to read a complete reimagining of what is real that simultaneous lampoons our boring world where dodos were not brought back from extinction.
Sometimes I try to imagine Fforde thinking up this world for his prancing detective novels. In my mind, he is watching “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory,” skipping about his house eating tiny candy eggs, and giggling in a high pitched voice, occasionally managing to say, “Oh I love dodos ever so much;” he stops in front of a mirror, makes a mean face, re-combs his hair, and repeats.
As with so many trendy authors these days, Fforde has a website at www.thursdaynext.com. There, the giddy otherness of Nextian drama continues. One may read sections of the Jurisfiction guidebook, see pictures of grammasites ? parasitic organisms that feed off grammar, and upgrade your old copy of The Well of Lost Plots to v7.3, fixing a fatal error that causes a catastrophic text crash. You may also order Fforde’s forthcoming fourth book, “Something Rotten” with high hopes that the whimsy meter will be pushed to the max.