Thursday, February 7, 2013

The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde


The next part in the adventures of Thursday Next. Thursday is hiding from her enemies in an unpublished detective novel. As no one ever reads the book she is able to do pretty much whatever she likes. She gets drafted as member of Jurisfiction, the law enforcement agency of the Bookworld. Thursday has become an apprentice to Miss Havisham from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, who is one of the most valued agents of the Jurisfiction. Another import agent is the Cat Formerly Known as Cheshire. Working with Jurisfiction keeps Thurday busy as a new operating system for literature – BOOK v. 9, the Ultraword, is going to be published in a few weeks. It is supposed to be the best thing ever, but there seems to be something fishy going on…Also, Thursday has been sued for changing the ending of the Jane Eyre in the first book. Also, she seems to be forgetting her husband, who has been murdered as an infant and no one else has any memories of him at all. In spite of his eradication and her inability to remember him, Thursday is still carrying his child. And who is that Godot guy? There are so many people who are waiting for him.
This series seems to come better and better. The book is filled with so many references in books and writing is so funny and creative that it is hard to believe. Never before I have seen two successive sentences with eleven (11!) consecutive uses of the word “had”. The events in the book often have an effect on the actual text of the book, as when the characters face different creatures of the Bookworld - like bookworms, which change common adjectives into others, or the more dangerous creatures like adjectivores, which suck all descriptions from an object. This was an unbelievably fun book to read even if I probably missed many of the references to English language literature. I have high hopes for the next part.

375 pp.

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