Jasper Fforde “Lost in a good book”
I finally finished the second book of the Thursday Next series. I read “The Eyre Affair” while I was in New Zealand and liked it quite a bit. But it seemed to take me forever to get into this one. I don’t know why that was, but the first half of the book dragged on interminably. Only when Ms. Havisham was introduced did the pace pick up a bit and I finally got interested in the story. Or maybe I just wanted to get it over with.
Which is a shame, because I really appreciate the fun and weirdness of the world Fforde has invented. I love the dodos, the mammoths, Thursday’s father, the eccentric names, Jurisfiction, the library, the cat and whatnot. And of course the idea of travelling into books is just fantastic.
All these are great ingredients and in the first book everything was moved along by an interesting and well-crafted plot. This last thing seems to be sadly missing in this volume, though. At least in the first half of the book.
There are just way too many seemingly random and unconnected things happening at first, so I got totally confused as to where the story might be going. As a result of that I couldn’t bring myself to care about any of them. Once some things are explained it gets a little easier to follow the plotline, but that doesn’t necessarily make it more interesting.
One of my more general problems with the books is that I know most of the books that are mentioned in the story only by their name and have never read them. So when there is a character from, say, “Sense and Sensibility” or “Great Expectations” apprearing in the story it is usually totally lost on me – if I don’t get told. I guess, all these literary in-jokes are a lot more fun when you are familiar with all the books and their particular characers. Will that get me to read more Jane Austen books in the future? Highly unlikely.
Another problem for me is that I don’t like Thursday very much. I can’t even say why, I just don’t find her in the least interesting. There are lots of other characters in the book which I would much rather read about (Agent Spike Stoker comes to mind – and not only because he reminds me of Buffy…). But instead it’s Thursday all the time.
Will I ever try to read “The Well of Lost Plots”. Probably. Not because I care a lot about what happens next to Ms. Next, but because I like her world, I feel comfortable in it and I’m curious to hear a bit more about the Great Library (my idea of heaven, if there is one) and Ms. Havisham and the Cheshire Cat.
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