Der Fall Jane Eyre

I read this years ago, I think it was back around 2005 or so. I remember liking the book fairly well, even though I'd never read Jane Eyre, and a modest part of the book's plot touches on that story. But I also remember being irritated at the book. Something made me bristle when I read it. Some elements of the storytelling rubbed me the wrong way. I remember talking to the person who recommended the book to me. I held it book up and said, rather disdainfully. "This is probably really popular, is [...]

I had the same feeling after reading this as I had after reading The Looking Glass Wars. Fabulous idea, terrible execution. I was going to give it one more star than I gave that because it's not quite as badly written. And I liked the idea of door-to-door Baconians and Rocky Horrorized Richard III. But I changed my mind because the more I think about it, the more I didn't like it.It was so smug and cutesy and in need of better editing. And it would have been better served by not being written in [...]

This book may describe my perfect job goal: to be able to enter a book and meet the characters, ensuring they are following the author's original intentions and not "on-the-loose" due to some sort of villain. How amazing would that be? Awesome kick start to this series I read the first 4 then started to get a little disenchanted, but I'll go back one day! All book lovers need to give this first one a chance -- you'll undoubtedly love and hate parts of it!

I've been storing up some venom for this review, so be prepared.First of all, I want to unleash my fury on whoever in the Rory Gilmore Book Club suggested this book as February's pick. To go from such a brilliant read asJane Eyre to this was frustrating to say the least. It highlighted all the amateurish contrivances of Fforde's writing. I rolled my eyes so many times in the first four chapters, that I nearly gave myself a headache. And no, I'm sure it doesn't get better after that, that's just [...]

Have I become a jaded reader? I sometimes catch myself muttering in the middle of a long series of yawns, “Haven’t I read this plot/character/technique before?” Or when the author describes their setting, I will lazily flip through my mental inventory of backdrops until, sure enough, I find an old one that it is a good enough fit to reuse. Then Fforde comes along and throws the literary equivalent of a bucket of Arctic cold water in my face. I found myself having to actually work to keep u [...]

This is so much fun. I want to play too! And, as it happens, I have a surprisingly good opening. So, with the usual perfunctory apologies, may I presentThe Meyre Affair: a Thursday Next storyThe hardest part is telling them they're fictional. After that, the rest is usually easy. - Thursday Next, A Life in SpecOpsI could start this story at any number of points, but I will choose the moment when I knocked on Manny Rayner's front door. Nothing happened, so I knocked again. He opened it.The rest o [...]

I loved this book when I first picked it up and remember giggling the whole way through. (It was passed over to me by the Mum, of all people. We do not, normally, share the same taste in literature.) It has a charming irreverent take on well everything from literature to history. It's set in an alternate reality where literature is, if not kind, at least very very significant.

Buddy read with Jessica, Robin, Catherine, Kristi, Asya and Tanya. I apologize if I missed somebody; in case I did please let me know and I will add you. The book version of mid-eighties England is a fine dystopian society. The literature is a very serious business, time travel is nothing of the ordinary which comes with all the fun and paradoxes and cloning works wonders making people's favorite pets out of these guys:The heroine Thursday Next is a special operative working for literary detecti [...]

This is a thoroughly delightful and brilliant book. I chuckled and chortled all the way through this book; it’s hilarious. There are many interesting characters and I am eager to read the rest of this series. I’m not sure that the successive books will also get 5 stars from me: the clever premise might get a tad old; I’ll have to see. This unusual story is a bit difficult to define. It fits multiple genres: sci-fi, mystery, humor, fantasy, and fiction. And the author manages to create an e [...]

Close the prose portal, the worms are about to start hyphenating!Hey! Everyone! This is a pretty awesome literature nerd's playground. :)I kinda expected something like a UF first-person mystery novel with magical elements where characters jump out of the pages of books and make a mess of things, or vice-versa, where we jump in and make a hash of a perfectly good story, but I didn't expect the novel to have a lot of complicated character elements in our main characters, a nicely complicated plot [...]

Onvan : The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next, #1) - Nevisande : Jasper Fforde - ISBN : 142001805 - ISBN13 : 9780142001806 - Dar 374 Safhe - Saal e Chap : 2001

(Violence alert: The body count is high, plus some grossness factor.)It’s a spy thriller. No, wait — it’s science fiction. No, wait — it’s literary criticism. No, wait — it’s art history. No, wait — it’s historical-political commentary. No, wait — it’s romantic comedy. No, wait — it’s an epic war drama. No, wait — it’s — oh, look — Japanese tourists!While I applaud the spirit of many of the directions this novel takes, you kind of have to wonder if the author co [...]

I didn't enjoy this. It tries too hard to be clever and to cover many different genres (humour, sci fi, horror, detective, literary and more) whilst also being annoyingly silly. After 100 pages I ditched it - something I rarely do.Thursday Next is a woman who is a literary detective in one of several alternative realities round about now. In hers, the Crimean War is still going. Somehow, in her society, manuscripts are stolen and guns are involved; she also manages to get into books and meet cha [...]

Sadly, I found this book to be a major disappointment. I'm huge fan of British comedy and science fiction--Monty Python, Douglas Adams, Dr. Who, Neil Gaiman--and something of an autodidact lit geek, so this novel which promises the exploits of a special agent who has to travel into the novel Jane Eyre in pursuit of a villain sounds right up my alley. So, what went wrong?Let's start with the world building. While Fforde's alternate universe England is quite inventive, it's also tonally weird. Eng [...]

Wow! I just did a quick scan of the reviews for this book and they are all over the place from one to five stars. Some people (like me) love it to death, others really hate it and some just sit in the middle. I guess you have to enjoy Fforde's particular sense of humour.This was a reread for me but the last time I read it was so long ago the book, when I dug it off my shelf, had turned a yellowy brown colour. This in no way damaged my reading experience. I still loved the premise of the book whi [...]

Buddy read with the ever amazing Jessica, Evgeny, Catherine, Kristi,, Asya & Tanya and running commentary with oOSarahOo and Ashley who announced they are stalking our thread (not very good at stalking since we know they are there) over at Buddies Books and BaublesThink about your favorite book…the one you would live in if you could…the one you would never ever get tired of or want leave. Do you have it firmly in your mind??? Now imagine a world where others love books as much as you and [...]

(The much longer full review can be found at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter].)It's no secret that I'm a big fan of the literary genre known as "speculative" fiction; for those not familiar with it, the genre primarily concerns itself with historical questions of "what if?" What if the South had won the Civil War, for example, or the Nazis World War II? What if computers, robots and nuclear weapons had been invented in the 1840s instead of the 1940s? It is a great [...]

I wanted to like it, it sounded like a good idea, but I didn't.---------------------------------------Okay, I've tried to read this three times before and could never get into it. My wife liked it and so did several others I know so.got the audio this time and I'll try again. ---------------------------------------I can't say I like this book. As noted before I have tried at least 3 times to read it because some of it's fans are so thrilled with it that I keep having it recommended. There are bo [...]

This is not a noir style detective story set in a big city underworld. This is a fun romp set in a Thatcherless Britain complete with time travel, genetically resurrected dodo birds, a Crimeean War that has been going on for more than 100 years, huge zeppelins instead of planes, crazy inventor uncles and lost in time fathers, street gangs made of bookclub members fighting for the good name of their favorite author, costume opera archenemies and about 30 secret police organizations. One of them i [...]

I resisted reading this book for quite awhile, but thankfully, my friend Lisa (LisaVegan), kept bugging me about it! I thought that I would not appreciate it as I have never read Jane Eyre. But, Lisa is right, you do not have to know anything about Jane Eyre to understand this book.I am thankful to Lisa, and to , because I probably would have never stumbled upon this delightful book otherwise, as I rarely visit the SF shelves at the library.I only found one annoyance while reading--"their" is us [...]

The barriers between reality and fiction are softer than we think; a bit like a frozen lake. Hundreds of people can walk across it, but then one evening a thin spot develops and someone falls through; the hole is frozen over by the following morning.In theory, this book is the prefect fit for me and is almost exactly what I look for in urban fantasy--a good mix of sci-fi and fantasy, alternate universe, time travel, a world that heavily features books, plenty of pop and lit references, plenty of [...]

Dear Mr. Fforde,You are a very clever writer, and I’m sure you know it; your plotting, however, leaves something to be desired. I have had some difficulty reconciling the witty, bantering tone of your novel The Eyre Affair with its hardboiled plotline and tendency to shift focus without warning. Also, you should note that just because you inserted exposition into the beginning of each chapter and labeled it as an excerpt from an imaginary biography or memoir does not for one second make it any [...]

What fun! An alternate history universe where people are so invested in literature as to fight over it, such as the damn Baconians saying he wrote Shakespeare's plays when it's obvious that he couldn't have (Thursday cogently argues this at one point.) & whole societies devoted to various authors. There are no planes, just 'gas bags', but there are cars & guns. Other things vary, such as Wales is a separate Communist state & the Crimean War is over a century old & still going str [...]

"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 re [...]

Fun! and I think I am part of the intended audience. I am definitely an Anglophile. I enjoy English literature and humor with that touch of the fantastic. I have no issue with a bit of time travel or people and characters moving in and out of literary favorites. I am willing to suspend my disbelief in service of such a good read. This is definitely an alternate reality, a police state of sorts but with this literary difference.This really was a romp! I enjoy the concept of the flexibility of the [...]

The idea behind the Thursday Nextseries is really fantastic—an alternate universe where the Crimean War still rages, the People's Republic of Wales has achieved a full and socialist independence, and LiteraTecs work to stop crimes against literature—but unfortunately, the execution is lousy. What charm the book has, which is derived mostly from its literary allusions, and a kind of surreal invention that wouldn't look out of place in a Monty Python sketch, is unfortunately undermined by how [...]

This was my third read and first listen, and it's still a five star read for me. Part of it is my love of Jane Eyre but part of it is just that it's clever, witty, occasionally cheeky, touching, fast-paced, adventurous FUN.The parts of the narrative that cross over with Jane Eyre are done with a great deal of love towards that particular book. Because of this, they feel not only real, but like you're meeting old friends in new and unexpected ways. It couldn't have been done better and I had happ [...]

This has been sitting on the shelf for a while, and I finally got around to it. I’m glad I did. A wacky alternate reality tale for literature buffs, The Eyre Affair introduces LiteraTec detective Thursday Next, who must prevent a madman from kidnapping Jane Eyre out of her novel and destroying Charlotte Bronte’s work. Dodos for pets, vampire hunters, hot air balloon transports, time travel, Baconian extremists . . . This book is a wild, eccentric ride. If you liked The Hitchhiker’s Guide t [...]

18.08.2015: I have an urge to re-read this series as it reflects today's world, what with the Cheese Wars and trouble in Crimea.

Reread:Loved it. Still haven't read Jane Eyre, but it's next on my audiobook list and I'm excited :) Also excited to carry on with this series -- I have most of them sitting here waving at me, just waiting to be picked up. Jasper's creativity and wit never fail to enthrall me. I wish I were half as clever.----------First read:I don't know that there was a whole lot about this book that I didn't like -- the names were creative and the writing was smart. I loved the dialogue. I don't tend to jump [...]