The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

              Reviewed by Camille Prioul  

                                            Click the photo to purchase The Eyre Affair

Have you ever dreamt of loosing yourself into a book? Of reading and re-reading work so you know every character as a friend, every event as if you were the author?

The place is London.  The year is 1985.  The SpecOps perform their daily specialized police job. Job levels range from 1 to 32 with any jobs below 9 being of the most secret nature.  For example, SO-6 : National Security. SO-17 : Vampires and Werewolves Elimination. SO-1 : SpecOps Internal Police. SO-27 : LiteraTecs.

            In this fictional society literature has been raised almost to the level of a religion and the need to regulate it can’t be ignored.  It’s the LitteraTecs job to hunt false manuscripts and plagiaries and to discover the real author of the works we consider belonging to William Shakespeare.

            Following the theft of the original manuscript of Charles Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit, SO-5 (SpecOp with a vaguely defined function) hires Thursday Next, a talented LitteraTec, who has the misfortune to have had passed many years as the number one suspect in a crime, and whose uncle, a genius inventor, has just perfected a mysterious machine that allows him to visit the famous works of literature.  When a gangster tackles Thursday’s favourite book:  Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë, the LitteraTec’s hunt becomes personal.

            Jasper Fforde has given us a novel which is a cross between Thriller and Science Fiction.  The Eyre Affair is initially based in reality but gradually gets lost into a blur of british humour.  This fascinating and crazy plot allows the reader to revisit the great classics of English literature.  For 36 chapters I read a breathtaking novel with eyes sparkling and a smile on my lips.

If you enjoy The Eyre Affair check out Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots and Something Rotten