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    The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel
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    The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel
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    The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel
    Ebook415 pages6 hours

    The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel

    By Jasper Fforde

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Meet Thursday Next, literary detective without equal, fear or boyfriend

    Jasper Fforde’s beloved New York Times bestselling novel introduces literary detective Thursday Next and her alternate reality of literature-obsessed England—from the author of The Constant Rabbit

    Fans of Douglas Adams and P. G. Wodehouse will love visiting Jasper Fforde's Great Britain, circa 1985, when time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously: it’s a bibliophile’s dream. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection. But when someone begins kidnapping characters from works of literature and plucks Jane Eyre from the pages of Brontë's novel, Thursday is faced with the challenge of her career. Fforde's ingenious fantasy—enhanced by a Web site that re-creates the world of the novel—unites intrigue with English literature in a delightfully witty mix.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Group
    Release dateFeb 25, 2003
    ISBN9781101158517
    Unavailable
    The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel
    Author

    Jasper Fforde

    Jasper Fforde is the internationally best-selling author of the Chronicles of Kazam, the Thursday Next mysteries, and the Nursery Crime books. He lives in Wales. www.jasperfforde.com Twitter: @jasperfforde Instagram: @jasperfforde  

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    Reviews for The Eyre Affair

    4/5

    236 ratings271 reviews

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    • 4/5
      A government operative who investigates literary crimes gets pulled into a top-secret case involving a criminal who is invisible to cameras, can assume the appearance of anyone, and who is impervious to bullets. The alternate universe is divertingly multi-faith: there's steam-punk, the supernatural, time travel, historical and literary interference, corporate totalitarianism, a little film noir...The Eyre Affair is great fun to read. It's less of a "take classic literature, add steam-punk and shake" than it is an homage to the written word in general, including as many references to classic and popular culture as possible. You get the feeling Jasper Fforde reads his books after they're published, and laughs at his own jokes. And he should! They're quite funny.
    • 4/5
      This was really fun – an alternate history literary police procedural in which the world is generally enthralled with literature. What more can you ask for really? I don’t usually go in for mysteries, but I really enjoyed this. High English literature references abound. The dialog is snappy and silly. The characters are not extremely well formed, but enough to run you through a quick book. I can see reading the rest in this, Thursday Next, series when in need of a lighthearted, fun read.
    • 4/5
      In an alternate 1985, literature detective Thursday Next is battling an evil master criminal who is threatening great works of literature by kidnapping characters from within them. I loved the premise, and I thought the characters were great, but the plot seemed a little loose and choppy at times. I couldn't work out the significance (if any) of the vampire, for example; at least the temporal distortion on the M1, which initially struck me as unnecessarily convoluted, did make sense in the end. (And temporal distortions cause such a terrible mess in a book if they're not used properly. Mind you, indiscriminate vampirism in books is not precisely tidy either: getting the blood out of the pages is a pain in the neck.) (Sorry. Some puns are just too bad to resist.) I found the first half of the book slow-going, although the second half drew me in more. Summary? I liked it but didn't love it, and as someone who dabbles in fantasy rather than wades in deep, I found the weirdness quotient entertaining, rather than, um, too weird.
    • 2/5
      Though I love the idea of this book I feel that the author tried way too hard to the point of absolute campiness. I wish I cared what happens next to these characters but I don't. I was never completely drawn in.
    • 4/5
      In an alternate 1985 in England, Special Agent Thursday Next of the Literary Division of Special Operations is called upon to try and rescue Jane Eyre (yes, that Jane Eyre) when Jane is kidnapped. Time travel, literary references and allusions and puns flying fast and furious are just a tiny bit of what makes this book a scream.
    • 4/5
      This book was just wildly entertaining. I can't believe I just started reading this series.
    • 3/5
      I found this book quite hard to get into initially. It has taken me 3 weeks to read which is highly unusual as I usually plough through at least 2 books a week. I found it a bit slow to begin with and a little confusing at times. The last 3rd was great though, I started to enjoy the characters more and it felt like the book had picked up the pace. I have a few others in the series but think I'll have a rest before I start the next one!
    • 5/5
      The concept appeals so strongly to me. Even though this is the weakest book in the series I must love it for the dodo, the numerous Shakespeare jokes, the alternate history. It's a series that makes a lot of jokes about cheese and has professional croquet and airships. And, of course, the classic public domain novels we all love.
    • 5/5
      If time travel were possible, could we recover the DNA of the dodo and recreate them? And if travel through books were possible, could someone rewrite the pages of Jane Eyre? Look for answers to these and other exciting questions in Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair, as you follow agent Thursday Next and ponder the possibility that our reality's possible not the most exciting one.Aggressive reporters work for Toad Network News, a bad guy is “differently moralled” rather than mad, literary detectives follow the tracks of forgers of poetry, and “Midsummer Night’s Dream with chainsaws” will surely not catch on. Suffice it to say, this novel all ends up making a thoroughly odd sort of sense, and lovers of Bronte will be suitably satisfied by the ending.Lovers of literature and fantasy will probably be satisfied too, and also eager for more. I need to read more!Disclosure: Just the titles in this series were enough to hook me.
    • 4/5
      "Somehow ‘Fucked up’ made it seem more believable; we all make mistakes at some time in our lives, some more than others. It is only when the cost is counted in human lives that people really take notice."

      This book was a recommendation that arose from a discussion about a non-fiction book about extinction. I have a slight obsession with dodos and had to read The Eyre Affair because of it.

      "I had been with Boswell and SO-27 for eight years, living in a Maida Vale apartment with Pickwick, a regenerated pet dodo left over from the days when reverse extinction was all the rage and you could buy home cloning kits over the counter."

      And, yes, I want one.

      "I used the time to get up to date with some reading, filing, mending the car, and also – because of the new legislation – to register Pickwick as a pet rather than a wild dodo. I took him to the town hall where a veterinary inspector studied the once-extinct bird very carefully. Pickwick stared back forlornly, as he, in common with most pets, didn’t fancy the vet much. ‘Plock-plock,’ said Pickwick nervously as the inspector expertly clipped the large brass ring around his ankle."

      However, inconceivable as it may sound, there is much more to enjoy in this book, because as it turned out, this is not a book about dodos, but about a world in which time travel is possible and - hold on to your hats - where it is possible to enter books and physically meet characters. With great power, comes great responsibility, and there even is a special police unit that deals with works of literature - and the misuse and mistreatment of manuscripts and characters.

      And why would you think such a unit is required? Because some villain might take it into his mind to hold the world at ransom and kidnap a beloved character. So, this is where our heroine, Thursday Next, comes in to save the world from the destruction of literature and life as we love it.

      It is shocking and distressing to even think about such villainy, so best to soothe the mind with another quotation about the adorable Pickwick:

      "I left Chester’s owner and the official arguing together and took Pickwick for a waddle in the park. I let him off the lead and he chased a few pigeons before fraternising with some feral dodos who were cooling their feet in the pond. They splashed excitedly and made quiet plock plock noises to one another until it was time to go home." >
    • 4/5
      I was somewhere between three and four stars for this, but I thought I'd be generous. The main problem with it is it's completely obvious that it's the author's first book - some of the writing is clumsy, and the ending is totally rushed and a little too neat. However, there's a lot to love in this book.

      I really liked Thursday - she was tough and good at her job and independent, without being a cliche, a robotic-type, or generally lacking in empathy. She made mistakes and she did a bunch of stupid shit, but she was essentially a good person. I don't know why, but too often writers fail to make their female characters seem human - they're either too stereotypically feminine, or to earnest in their struggle against that archetype. Points for that.

      The plot is in places cartoonish, but I'm fairly sure that was intentional, given the subject matter. Acheron is a total pantomime baddie, but it fitted perfectly. Books within books and the subject of the thin divide between fantasy and reality - whether played out like it is in this book, or otherwise - is one of my favourite tropes and I really enjoyed the way it played out in this.

      Like I said, it has its problems - some storylines are completely dropped (what the hell happened to Spike?) and the ending is a bit too... quick. He could have played out the real-life Jane Eyre parallel a little more subtly, I felt, but it didn't ruin it. Also, knowing that this is the first in a series, it makes sense that some things would be left behind. I AM glad that Forde didn't try to have the romance dragged out over a bunch of books - that will-they/won't-they idea has been done to death, so I guess that makes up for it feeling... rushed?

      Overall, it was probably more like 3.5 stars, but I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, and will likely read the next one at some point.


      EDIT: Also, for some reason, the idea of having a dodo as a pet, and the noise it makes being "plock-plock" is absolutely adorable. Not entirely sure why.
    • 4/5
      Could have used a better editor -- not proofreader, but a serious edit, of the kind that forces the author to rethink his too-omniscient first-person narrator and to change her narrative voice to suit certain situations. Would you really say things like "he said admiringly" in an official report to your (angry) superiors, for instance?

      Nonetheless, lots of fun. Lots. When is the winter of our discontent?
    • 3/5
      Well, so... this book is okay. Not really my cup of tea, though I could see how it could touch lots of pleasure points in other readers. I saw which bits were supposed to be humorous, but mostly I read them and thought, "Oh, yeah, that's supposed to be funny." Not my kind of funny, which probably says more about me than it does about the book. If you like and know the big classics, then there are little nuggets of reward in here. That's fun enough. The epigraphs are interesting and add to the story (which is more than many epigraphs do, in my experience....). The main characters are enjoyable.So what's the source of my "meh" reaction? This book just doesn't do what I read for. Not a lot of character development, all plot. It's a fun plot, but in the end I don't feel like I've got a lot to reflect on. Was it fine? Yup, it's fine. I liked it well enough.
    • 4/5
      Thursday Next is a special operative charged with policing literary crimes in an alternative 1985, where a variety of super powers exist and a whole other timeline churns up the history you know. The supervillain she is chasing has devised the crime of kidnapping characters from famous novels. Prior to this novel, do read Jane Eyre first. Martin Chuzzlewit and Richard III are optional assets, and Lewis Carrol references are thick on the ground.Thursday is quick on the trigger and clinical in her descriptions. She can also move between the real world and worlds of fiction, travel through time, etc. That's not even describing what the villain is capable of. You'll also encounter pet dodo birds, werewolves, impossible inventions ... there is literally nothing that cannot appear or happen in the course of this story, so the logical part of my brain had to throw its hands up in despair and walk offstage. The quick pace and fun literary references partly save it (these people argue about books more than religion), and the hard-boiled elements bring enough serious edge to avoid childishness - people get shot, people get killed. Thursday Next manages to feel like a real person, despite unlikely lines such as "I had written it off as the product of an overactive imagination." Can you really? In THIS book?? It was all a bit much for me, but it had its (several) moments.
    • 4/5
      Book nerds rejoice. If you like mystery, old British literature and warped reality this is the book for you. Well written and refreshing. And it's only the beginning.
    • 3/5
      Very unusual premise that was well written
    • 3/5
      I have to admit that I've never read 'Jane Eyre.' I only got around to reading 'Wuthering Heights' not too long ago, and found it to be both unimpressive (stylistically) and annoying (plotwise) (Heathcliff was NOT romantic, he was a right bastard) - so I don't maintain high hopes for her sister's book, especially considering what I've heard of the story (Rochester sounds like another cut from the same cloth).
      However, while there are definitely elements of 'The Eyre Affair' that will be found much more amusing by those who are reasonably familiar with 19th-century English literature, it's not really necessary to have read anything else to appreciate this book.
      Basically, it's a mystery set in an alternate-world England.
      The Crimean War has raged on for over 130 years, there are all kinds of Spec-Ops divisions in the government - including one for time travel - and technology has progressed rather stragely, resulting in a mix that we might find both oddly Victorian and futuristic. Most significantly, however, in this alternate world, the British (and, seemingly, everyone) are obsessed with art and literature. Gangs riot over the virtues of classicist painting vs. surrealism, and political groups can be based on opinion over who wrote Shakespeare's plays. In this milieu, it's no surprise that there's a need for the LiteraTec division of Spec-Ops, which deals with literary crime. Usually this has to do with forgery and such, but when our book opens, agent Thursday Next gets dragged into a mystery - Acheron Hades, the third most evil man on England's 'Wanted' list has stolen an original manuscript - and, unfortunately, thanks to a device invented by Thursday's mad-scientist uncle (who's been kidnapped) has the ability to reach into that manuscript and grab - or kill - characters, irrevocably changing all versions of the book forever. The first manuscript Hades steals isn't of prime import - the obscure Dickens work 'Martin Chuzzlewit' - but when he gets his hands on the beloved 'Jane Eyre' straits are dire indeed.
      Can Thursday apprehend Hades, rescue her aunt and uncle, and preserve 'Jane Eyre'?

      Fforde pays just a bit too much attention to his own cleverness, and not quite enough to the plot and background (who is Hades? Why is he so invincible and evil?) - but the story is definitely original - and a great deal of fun. I've added the 'Next' two sequels to my wish list.
    • 4/5
      3.5 starsI have had this book on my TBR list for a few years, but every time I looked at the synopsis and saw “time travel” and “science fiction” I just didn’t think it would be the book for me. So it took a book group challenge (read a science fiction book) to get me to finally tackle this book. I’m glad I did.Fforde has created an England that is both familiar and completely different. It is 1984, but the Crimean War is still being waged; Wales is England’s enemy; the dodo has been cloned and is a popular pet. Thursday Next is a Special Ops 27 member – i.e. a LiteraTec. SpecOps 27 is a fairly low-level branch of the secret police (the lower the number the high the security requirement). Thursday and her fellow LiteraTecs go after plagiarists, fake first editions, and other “literary” crimes. Her father has been a member of SpecOp, too. In fact, he is a ChronoGuard – guarding time, and able to time travel. He’s now on the outs with the government and considered a rogue and wanted man. Her uncle is a sort of mad inventor, and his latest invention is desperately wanted by the government – or more accurately the major conglomerate (Goliath) which basically runs the world). When a nefarious evil doer – Acheron Hades – takes it into his head to kidnap Jane Eyre for ransom, Thursday is the obvious person to get involved. The action moves quickly and there are many little literary references and plays on words (Ms Paige Turner; Mr Millon de Floss) which add to the enjoyment (or detract from the plot, depending on your point of view). I was completely charmed and enjoyed the read, but it’s not a great book. The dialogue is frequently awkward. And the whole love interest bit at the end seemed just tacked on. Still, I’ll read a least one more in this series.
    • 2/5
      What a disappointment. I was so intrigued by the premise on the jacket that I read the entire book hoping for it to get better. Fford has an amazing imagination, but it was violent, there were too many things going on in this alternate history type story (I was easily able to keep track of it all, but it was a distraction from the story I thought it was going to be), and the villain was too over the top. I wasn't interested in adding vampires, etc, into the mix. Most of the characters weren't particularly convincing, either.
    • 5/5
      Diese und weitere Rezensionen findet ihr auf meinem Blog Anima Libri - Buchseele

      Vor Jahren wurde mir dieses Buch zum ersten Mal empfohlen. Ich muss aber ehrlich zugeben, dass mir die Story mit 13 irgendwie doch etwas zu hoch war. Jetzt bin ich aber vor kurzem über die Neuausgaben der ersten fünf Bände der Serie gestolpert und habe mich dann doch noch einmal an „Der Fall Jane Eyre“ und damit an den ersten Band von Jasper Ffordes Kult-Serie gewagt.

      Und ich muss sagen, das Buch ist der Hammer! Ich fand es etwas schwierig in die Geschichte hinein zu finden, einfach weil die Welt, die Fforde für seine Agentin Thursday Next geschaffen hat, unserer irgendwie ähnelt, gleichzeitig aber ganz anders ist. Und diese Unterschiede sind am Anfang doch ziemlich verwirrend, besonders, da man einfach mitten rein geschmissen wird.

      Nachdem man sich aber einmal mit diesem Paralleluniversum angefreundet hat, mit den seltsamen Namen, die alle Leute dort tragen, den Dodos, Mammuts und Neanderthalern, der etwas ungewöhnlichen Handhabung von Religion und Politik und vor allem der unglaublichen Besessenheit mit Literatur, dann macht es einfach nur wahnsinnigen Spaß sich mit Thursday ins Abenteuer zu stürzen.

      Mit seiner Kult-Serie um Thursday Next hat Jasper Fforde eine ebenso geniale wie abgedrehte Liebeserklärung an die Literatur geschaffen. Durch die wirklich einzigartigen Charaktere, Ffordes fantastische Schreibweise und den spöttischen Humor, mit dem in diesem Buch vieles betrachtet wird, ist „Der Fall Jane Eyre“ eins der besten Bücher, die ich je gelesen habe und ich kann nur jedem, der etwas für Literatur übrig hat, empfehlen sich schnellst möglich eine Ausgabe zu besorgen. ;)
    • 3/5
      I really wanted to like this book. Literary detectives, a mysterious answer to the great Shakespeare authorship debate, prose portals that take you into the worlds of specific novels, a real live Rochester, bookworms that feed on unnecessary prepositions... what's not to love?

      But ultimately the story was too convoluted, with too many different threads and angles and storylines for the overall effect to be satisfying. The book is trying to be too many things, and in particular too many genres, and ends up being all of them in only a so-so way, instead of one of them in a brilliant way. It was also way too long for the type of story it is.

      I had already put the next book in the series on my to-read queue, but now I'm not so sure I'll read it. I'll give this one a while to knock around my mind and see how much of it sticks with me. The author is quite inventive, and that alone may make me willing to try another one. But I doubt it'll live up to what I had imagined the series would be like before I read the first book.
    • 4/5

      It reads as an early, and more middle-class, Robert Rankin with more hotel bars than pubs and more classical literature than wagers on horse.
    • 5/5
      Clever, but warm. I cared about the characters; it wasn't too clever by half.
    • 3/5
      The Eyre Affair is about a world where literature is popular. It's cool. Thursday Next, literary detective, is on the case of the missing Martin Chuzzlewit original manuscript. When it is discovered that the person behind the missing manuscript is none other than Acheron Hades the time is ticking to find a way to capture him. Hades, upon discovering something happened to the Martin Chuzzlewit decides he needs something bigger. Something that will affect the whole nation. Jane Eyre. The LiteraTecs decide they need to act and they need to act now.I had high hopes when I received this book. I was expecting fireworks. After all a book containing vampires, time travel and well known characters from the classics couldn't be boring, right? You'd be somewhat wrong. I enjoy a good book with crime, suspense and some mystery. This, however, turned out to be a bit of a dud firework. The beginning and ending made this story a lot, lot, better than it should have been. The middle fell increasingly flat. As a huge bibliophile I adored the fact that books had such a major role in life, that it was possible to enter the fictional world and explore it.I loved Thursday Next and her excursions through literature. I wanted the best for her. I wanted her to succeed and rooted for her all of the way. She was willing to put herself in danger to try and protect the people she cared most about. Acheron, on the other hand, was a fabulous antagonist. He was destined to be hated. He was evil, unsympathetic and uncaring.The best part of the book was definitely the adventures in "Jane Eyre". The way it was wrote about has made me want to delve more into the classics, particularly Jane Eyre. I found these scenes to be the best written though out the whole book. It wasn't a page turner, due to the disappointing middle, but it was definitely one that left you wondering what would happen next.I found the middle lacked suspense. It was almost as if it didn't add much to the book itself but was there as more of a page filler. The action was dull, the story within it wasn't exciting and overall dragged on. It needed just that bit more action in it. More literary fighting action.I look forward to reading the next book in the series - "Lost in a Good Book" - to see if my opinions can be swayed.
    • 4/5
      The Angus and Robertson Top 100 (2006 - 2008) Book #83This was a totally different and interesting book from what I would normally read (thus the challenge of reading this list of books). It was a lot of fun to read with the inclusion of time travel, Dodo's and jumping in and out of novels. I would recommend this book to someone who was looking to read something a little bit different and out there.
    • 3/5
      A fun summer book. May read the next one, we shall see!
    • 4/5
      An alternate-present sci-fi crime drama with scads of literary allusions. The plot takes a while to get a full head of steam, but it wraps up cleanly and roundly at the end.

      If you have read Jane Eyre recently, I recommend waiting a bit. I had halfway forgotten Jane Eyre's plot so the elements of Eyre in The Eyre Affair seem to fit neatly and smoothly.
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed parts of this book very, very much. Like the people dressed up for Hamlet (I think it was Hamlet) like it was Rocky Horror. It was very witty and original, but not enough for me to read more Jasper Fforde. Can't really give a real reason for my apapthy toward it.

      PS it was Richard III which is even more hilarious.
    • 4/5
      This is the first book in the Tuesday Next series, and boy, am I excited to continue with it! Thursday Next is a 30-something LiteraTec for the SpecOps department in London, meaning she investigates all literature-related crimes. Thursday lives in w world where the Crimean War has been going on between England and Russia for the past 130+ years, ChronoGuard members (like her father) pop in and out of time, and dodos have been brought back from extinction. Oh, and Thursday's uncle invented a device that allows people to enter the world of any book they choose. All these details, plus many more where that came from, are what help to make this book a really fun and clever read, chock full of literary references. Fans of Jane Eyre (especially those who hate the ending) will definitely get a kick out of this book, although you do not need to have read the book for this one to make sense (I have yet to read Jane Eyre, and I was not lost at all). Highly recommended!
    • 3/5
      This was a fun read... once I got into it and felt like I understood what was going on. I'm not sure if the blurb was misleading, or if the British style was more complicated than I expected, but when I first opened this book, I was thoroughly lost! I felt as if I was walking into the middle of a fully developed series in which I'd missed the previous books. Between references to wars that I didn't know (or perhaps didn't exist!), and unexplained job descriptions, this world is fully developed and it's not until about 100 pages in that it becomes comfortable.

      From then on, I loved it! Thursday is spunky, and the way she does what needs to be done, in spite of the rules, gives her this heroic, rebellious feel that makes the reader root for her even more! The othet charcters are fleshed out just enough to give you a sense of who they are, but with enough leeway to let the reader's imagination run rampant. And the names! Beyween literary references (Oswald Mandias, aka Ozzie Mandias, as in Ozymandias...) and names like Jack Schitt (say it aloud, I dare you), how can you not love the character names?

      On the downside, the charcters are a little superficial. Like I said, they're just fleshed out enough to not be totally two dimensional. Plus, there seem to be too many! Characters that seem important just kind of fade away (Spike) or get killed off (Styx), while new characters are introduced every few pages.

      The plot also meanders a bit. Sometimes key plot developments rumble past at lightning speeds, and then later we go on a wild chase on a completely unrelated tangent.

      Let us not forget the shifting temporal events: Thursday's father showing up at random moments to ask her history questions and her answers are constantly changing as history changes... This alone could confuse a reader who is not paying attention. Plus it has no relevance to the storyline except once, when her father's appearance stops time at a very convenient moment.

      Is this book enjoyable? I think so. But it's not exactly something I'd recommend for a beginning reader, or someone who isn't used to thinking critically while reading. For those who always read in depth, this is a light, semi-brainless read, as in, don't overthink it or you won't really like it! Just read it for the quirky aspect. Enjoy the puns and literary references. But don't take it seriously or you might just go mad...