Weekly Reader Thursday Next Series Edition: The Eyre Affair (The Thursday Next Series Vol. I) by Jasper Fforde; The Start of A Great Series with A Brilliant Protagonist and a World Every Reader Will Love

Weekly Reader Thursday Next Series Edition: The Eyre Affair (The Thursday Next Series Vol. I) by Jasper Fforde; The Start of A Great Series with A Brilliant Protagonist and a World Every Reader Will Love

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers: I am trying a new experiment this year for my Weekly Readers. I am devoting one article each week to books in the same series. Right now I am reviewing two of my all-time favorite series: The Thursday Next Series by Jasper Fforde and soon I will also begin reviewing The Plantagenet and Tudor Court Series by Philippa Gregory. One is an alternate fantasy that takes place in the world of literature. The other is a historical fiction about the female players behind the War of the Roses, Henry VIII and his six wives, and the Elizabethan court. They are both great but long series so sit back. We’re going to be here awhile.

The Thursday Next Series is a book lover’s dream come true. In this strange meta-fantasy series literary characters interact with Readers and sometimes have the power to change their books.
In this world lives Thursday Next, a LiteraTec with Spec Ops. Thursday is a clever memorable protagonist who takes her world's oddities with a wry amusement and detachment similar to her male counterparts like Dashiell Hammet's Sam Spade or Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe.

A LiteraTecs's job is to locate counterfeit books being sold on the Black Market and to break up vicious gangs that engage in fisticuffs over who wrote Shakespeare's plays. LiteraTec isn't the only division Spec Ops has to offer. There is Art Crime (watch out for French Impressionists), the Chrono Guard (time travelers one of which is Thursday's father who is lost in time), Vampire and Monster Hunters (AKA Suckers and Biters whose only member is Spike Stoker), and Internal Affairs which guards the other branches.

As a LiteraTec, Thursday is looking towards a career of forgery hunting and authorship rights when she is called outside her jurisdiction to join the hunt for Acheron Hades, the Most Wanted Man in the Whole World, Criminal Evil Genius, and All Around Nasty Guy. Unfortunately, a stake out goes wrong and Thursday is the only survivor who is left without a job and plenty of blame.

Thursday is then led to a LiteraTec job in her hometown of Swindon where her search for Hades becomes personal when he kidnaps Thursday's aunt and uncle and steals the Prose Portal, a device that allows people to travel into books. (Though there are hints that people can do it without the Prose Portal as an early encounter between a young Thursday and Edward Fairfax Rochester from Jane Eyre reveals.)

Fforde's writing is filled with brilliant word play and clever references. Thursday reveals that while she was born on a Thursday, her mother, Wednesday was born on a Sunday and that she doesn't know her father's name since his identity was erased by the ChronoGuard. Thursday's boyfriend is named Landen Park-Laine which is a term in the British version of Monopoly. (In a later book, we find out his parents are named Builden and Housen.) There's a sinister weapons dealer named Jack Schitt. Hades and the rest of his villainous family are all named for the rivers that surround Hades in Greek mythology such as Acheron, Styx, and Aornis.


Fforde also gives some clever details to his Alternate England. There are Will-Speak machines on every street corner which quote lines from Shakespeare's plays. There is an ongoing performance of Richard III in which audience members shout comments and participate ala Rocky Horror Picture Show. People have genetically engineered dodos as pets. Instead of airplanes, people travel by air ship.

While The Eyre Affair is filled with plenty of laughs, there is also plenty of drama as well. England has been at war against Russia over the Crimean Peninsula for over 150 years. Thursday is a veteran of the war and still suffers from the occasional PTSD induced flashback and from the death of her brother, Anton. She is also furious with Landen whom she feels betrayed Anton.

Alternate England's biggest problem besides Hades and The Crimean War is the Goliath Corporation, a conglomerate that controls every aspect of the character's lives. Thursday often finds herself arguing with Goliath's shady representatives who want the Prose Portal for their own gain and aren't particular over who has to die to get it.


The highlight of this and the other books in the Thursday Next series are the trips into other books. Fforde has a good handle on writing his and other author's characters.
Thursday's aunt takes a brief journey into William Wordsworth's poem, “I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud” and sees Wordsworth's field of daffodils. A character from Charles Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit gets extracted from the book and is murdered in the real world. (Don't remember Mr. Quaverly? Didn't think so.)


Thursday spends a great deal of time visiting Jane Eyre to protect her from getting kidnapped by Hades. (She's a first person narrator so the book falls apart without her.) It's interesting to read Thursday interact with Bronte's characters who behave like actors in a play waiting off stage for their next moment to enter the scene. They are well aware of the ending but can do little to stop it. (In this Alternate version of Jane Eyre, Jane joins St. John Rivers on his mission to India instead of returning to Thornfield to marry Rochester.)
Bronte's characters are written to act a certain way, to have a certain style and have no past or future beyond what she wanted. It is a difficult existence but the characters are full aware of the impact that Jane Eyre has on its Readers so they, like Thursday, are willing to protect their book/home at all costs.

The Eyre Affair serves as a way to introduce us to the world of Thursday Next. For such a brilliant imaginative series, it's a great start.