Review: One of Our Thursdays is Missing

I recently finished the final three books in Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series: Something Rotten, First Among Sequels and One of Our Thursdays is Missing. Fans of the series will have read these already, most likely when they originally came out. The latest installment, One of Our Thursdays is Missing, came out in 2011, and so I will focus my review on this particular book. First, a quick recap: we were first introduced to Literary Detective Thursday Next in The Eyre Affair, in which her attempt to stop a book thief and murderer takes her into Jane Eyre and the resulting action causes a change in the novel’s plot (the ending is much better now). Lost in a Good Book was the second book, followed by The Well of Lost Plots, Something Rotten, and First Among Sequels. In each novel, Fforde expands on the idea of BookWorld, which posits that fictional characters are real entities whose jobs are to portray characters in novels as they are being read. It is a fascinating world, and Fforde does well to maintain his metaphor throughout.

In One of Our Thursdays is Missing, the narrative conceit is changed slightly. Thursday Next’s adventures have become so well known that a series of novels were written about her, giving birth to the fictional Thursday. Fforde goes to several levels of metafiction here, as the first five books in the fictional Thursday Next series have the same titles as the actual books; Fforde goes so far as to reveal the truth behind a major character's actual name, as it was changed for the fictional version.

The novel is told by the written Thursday, who must solve a BookWorld mystery of espionage and corruption, as well as find the real Thursday, who seems to be missing. Fforde expands on the conceit of BookWorld, giving metaphor, malapropism, tropes, etc, tangible properties. It works as a device and he keeps it interesting, especially during the token River Boat trip with cliche characters.

The story is exciting as always, and while it is not exactly a crime novel, it works well as detective fiction. Thursday is an excellent character, and Fforde explores the idea of the self through a fictional representation of his staple character. The book follows a predictable narrative arc, yet it is anything but predictable.

However, I felt as though there was an opportunity to dig deeper into the era of ebooks and ereading. For instance, Fforde has an opportunity to explore the definitions of "text" and "book", as well as the evolution of authors, publishers and readers. It is addressed peripherally, but not nearly enough. It is enough of a sea change in publishing and reading technology that it felt like the white elephant in the room while I was reading it. Of course, I was reading it on an ereader, so that may have influenced my opinion. Perhaps the next Thursday Next book will tackle this topic in more detail.

Overall, the six books of the Thursday Next series are excellent: fun, thought-provoking, intelligent and well-written. Highly recommended - four wise-cracking dodos out of five.

Review: The Well of Lost Plots

I just finished reading The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde, the third book in the Thursday Next series. For a primer on the series, check out Jasper Fforde’s website here - the first book in the series, The Eyre Affair, is worth checking out even if you aren’t inclined to read the whole series (My review of The Eyre Affair can be found here).

In The Well of Lost Plots, Thursday Next is in hiding after being framed by her old friends at Goliath Corps. She retreats to Book World, finding shelter in a yet-to-be-published novel titled Caversham Heights. She is safe from her Outland persecutors, but is still charged with the crime of changing the ending to Jane Eyre, and must stand trial. This subplot is quite amusing, as it gives Fforde a chance to bring in Kafka as well as the Red Queen. Both trials are humorous studies in logic. As well, Thursday is apprenticing to be a Jurisfiction agent with Miss Haversham (Great Expectations), and becomes involved in a plot to change the way books are read forever. A few characters meet their demise along the way, and it is left to Thursday to save the day.

Meanwhile, she is being tormented by Aornis Hades, sister of the devious Acheron, who met his demise while battling Thursday in The Eyre Affair. Little sister is out for revenge, and she uses her powers of memory to haunt Thursday’s dreams. Thursday struggles to remember her old life in the Outland as Aornis slowly removes the memories from Thursday’s mind.

Fforde does an excellent job once again with this book. He introduces several new characters from literature, such as Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights and Uriah Heep from David Copperfield, adding to the cast of memorable literary characters who interact with Thursday. He also maintains a tenuous balance between fantasy and realism throughout the stories - he follows his own rules about Book World. The next book is called Something Rotten - I am looking forward to it!