A couple of years ago, I wrote a book review on The Eyre Affair, the first book in Jasper Fforde’s captivating “Thursday Next” series. Thursday, a literary detective in the SO-27 government agency, previously found herself embroiled in a page-turning series of tumultuous events when Acheron Hades—one of the world’s most notorious criminals—kidnapped Jane Eyre from the classic Jane Austen novel.
Fforde’s next installment in the series, Lost in a Good Book, follows the same quick-witted protagonist as she faces off against a familiar foe: the Goliath Corporation. In the parallel universe where Thursday Next lives, the country of England remains under the thumb of this malevolent entity, and Goliath will stop at nothing to fulfill its objective of militarizing the country. Ongoing geopolitical tensions with Russia loom in the background and memories of Acheron Hades linger, but it is Goliath that is causing the most problems for Thursday.
When Goliath “eradicates” Thursday’s husband, Landen — removing him from time and space altogether and leaving only her memories of him — she is faced with the challenge of jumping into the pages of Poe’s “The Raven” and retrieving a formerly-vanquished foe to get Landen back.
As was the case with the first novel in the series, Fforde satirizes governments, corporations and other entities that attempt to consolidate power, leading readers to wonder: are these institutions truly as infallible as they seem? Goliath, for all its intimidation tactics, cannot replicate a key talent that Thursday has: “book jumping,” or hopping into the pages of popular novels to interact with the characters. Just as Fforde transcends the traditional boundaries of literary imagination by depicting a world in which Neanderthals walk among humans and dodo birds are kept as pets, the very act of book jumping collapses the boundaries between people and “fictional” literary worlds.
I chuckled as I followed Thursday’s chaotic apprenticeship to Miss Havisham, the abandoned bride and man-hater from Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations. Havisham is temperamental and an absolutely horrid driver, but she also nurtures Thursday’s untapped book-jumping talent and rescues her from a dangerous situation or two. Taking a well-known character from a classic novel and adding additional dimensions to this character (without going overboard) is a skill that Fforde has mastered. Also in appearance: the Cheshire Cat! He and Miss Havisham both work for Jurisfiction, the policing agency of the book world.
Compared to the first book in the “Thursday Next” series, the plot of Lost in a Good Book felt considerably more linear and easier to follow. The quirky digressions from the main plot that seem to be a hallmark of Fforde’s writing—in this case, the presence of an unidentifiable pink sludge in danger of engulfing the whole world—did eventually connect back to the main events taking place in Thursday’s life. I would have loved to see an entire book written about certain characters Fforde introduces, such as a detective in charge of capturing rogue werewolves and vampires. Alas, this is more of a testament to the imaginative quality of Fforde’s writing than it is a criticism of his wild plots.
Lost in a Good Book ended on a much more somber note than I expected, with Thursday unable to resolve her sticky situation and instead having to take refuge in a book to recuperate. I was disappointed to see one of my favorite heroines of contemporary literature so dejected, but I suppose the lesson to be taken from this ending is that the comfort of a good book is always there when life becomes unmanageable. I can toast to that.
With two out of seven books in this series completed, it’s only a matter of time before I once again crave the wildly creative, genre-bending adventures that Jasper Fforde brings to life in his books.
