I've just managed to finish The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde. Perhaps I should have started with the first in the series, because it took me a while to warm to the characters. Anyway, my overwhelming impression of this book is that it's very, very clever.
Fforde has incorporated tons of humorous literary references into this imaginative story of Thursday Next, literary detective, and her adventures in Book World. I can imagine that readers who are already familiar with the works of Austen, Dickens, D.H. Lawrence and so on would find it a huge chuckle. I got a chuckle here and there, but I'm certain that I missed a large number of in-jokes. My saving grace was perhaps knowing enough about computers to enjoy the software upgrade references to Book World's upcoming Book Operationg System. Despite my handicap though, I enjoyed it enough to finish the book and check out the previous one, Lost in a Good Book.
4 comments:
Stop!!!!
You need to go right back to the beginning and read 'The Eyre Affair' first. It is my favourite, and the first of the series. Things will click once you've read it, then 'Lost in a Good Book'.
I haven't read alot of the titles he references, but I love the depth of knowledge he shares. I want to read them all one day with a notebook by my side so I can note all of the texts I should investigate.
I want to go read 'Eyre Affair' now.
Easier said than done, Casyn. The Well was the only one available at the time, and now that I've finished it, the only ones available are Lost in a Good Book and Something Rotten...
Ah crap. Well, what's you address? I'll lend you my spare copy. :-)
That's a lovely gesture, Casyn. I've taken your advice to not continue with Lost in a Good Book, and I'll just wait patiently until I see The Eyre Affair. Meanwhile I have plenty of course-related reading to do anyway, and I still haven't finished Middlesex either. :-)
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