Eyre Affair
Mar. 10th, 2006 01:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I can't remember where this was recommended to me, but I liked the idea enough to try it. It's another comic fantasy, though like many it didn't quite grab me in the end. ("In fact, the secret agency is kind of incompetant" is only funny so many times.)
But there were some wonderful touches in the premise. Imagine a world where literature has the importance, say, intoxicants have here. Vending machines recites verses of Shakespeare for small change. Fake original manuscripts are a big problem. Cheap knockoffs of famous books are raided from criminal warehouses.
Baconists, an organisation doubting the authorship of Shakespeare's plays, have a status something like Jehova's Witnesses[1] and something like recent communists[2]. Lots of little touches like this, make me feel very comfortable in the world.
The novels it bases itself off are slightly Martin Chuzzelwit and mainly Jane Eyre. It shows enough love for it that I feel inspired to try it.
[1] "Excuse me, ma'am, have you ever wondered who really wrote shakespeare's plays? Is the Shakespeare in Stratford even the same person as the playwright in London? Why does no-one in Stratford seem to have any notion of his literary success?"
"But then why does the Stratford Shakespeare mention the London Shakespeare's colleagues in his will?"
"I was hoping you wouldn't know that."
[2] "Steady on. It's not illegal"
"More's the pity."
But there were some wonderful touches in the premise. Imagine a world where literature has the importance, say, intoxicants have here. Vending machines recites verses of Shakespeare for small change. Fake original manuscripts are a big problem. Cheap knockoffs of famous books are raided from criminal warehouses.
Baconists, an organisation doubting the authorship of Shakespeare's plays, have a status something like Jehova's Witnesses[1] and something like recent communists[2]. Lots of little touches like this, make me feel very comfortable in the world.
The novels it bases itself off are slightly Martin Chuzzelwit and mainly Jane Eyre. It shows enough love for it that I feel inspired to try it.
[1] "Excuse me, ma'am, have you ever wondered who really wrote shakespeare's plays? Is the Shakespeare in Stratford even the same person as the playwright in London? Why does no-one in Stratford seem to have any notion of his literary success?"
"But then why does the Stratford Shakespeare mention the London Shakespeare's colleagues in his will?"
"I was hoping you wouldn't know that."
[2] "Steady on. It's not illegal"
"More's the pity."
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Date: 2006-03-10 02:04 am (UTC)I've read all the books so far, and I recommend sticking with them. On balance you'll come out happy, I think.
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Date: 2006-03-10 02:09 am (UTC)No, I've been lucky there, I've read very few awful books recently. And this was far from that. Not bad, just not as great as some. Of course, some others got an unfair advantage by me reading them first.
I've read all the books so far, and I recommend sticking with them. On balance you'll come out happy, I think.
How did you think they compared to each other? I was probably not going to bother, but if you enjoyed them I might try another. God, the addiction.
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Date: 2006-03-10 02:20 am (UTC)I first read The Eyre Affair on a group holiday a couple of years ago, and my thoughts were (I suspect) like yours: good enough for what it is, but is it enough? Then I found a copy of Lost in a Good Book in my local library, thought "Can't hurt..." and was hooked.
Whatever you do, don't read The Big Over Easy until you've read the first four books. If you do, you'll ruin two (or three, if you're a very careful reader) "OMG was that what I think it was?" moments in TBOE for yourself. And that's as big a hint about that as I'm prepared to give :)
I'd say they're all 7/10, 8/10. Definitely worth reading; maybe not for buying if book money is tight, but if you have a decent public library they should be in there.
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Date: 2006-03-10 11:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-10 11:19 am (UTC)Writing such a name (as Jasper Fforde does) with 'Ff' is thus wrong in two ways.
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Date: 2006-03-10 11:42 am (UTC)So, 'FForde' would be slightly better? But you'd never get institutions and starangers to accept that.
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Date: 2006-03-11 02:19 am (UTC)No, it strictly should be 'Forde'. If they wish to look faux-antique, then 'fforde', but not 'FForde' or 'Fforde'. Of course, people will present their names as they wish, despite the proprieties.
Systems that can't cope with unusually-shaped names are broken, and should be fixed forthwith. I keep being tempted to change my name to something that would break such systems, from minor hacks such as setting the 8th bit on one of the characters, to grosseries such as inserting a longish stretch of the upper reaches of Unicode as a middle name.
Systems that can't cope with unusually-shaped names are broken, and should be fixed forthwith.
Date: 2006-03-11 02:22 pm (UTC)Foriegn and fun names, well, yes, they *should* be able to cope with, and I'm sure most can in theory, but considering the number of letters I get which messed up 'Vickeridge' I wouldn't be confident they *would*. I'd prefer a surname that didn't invite mistakes if I had the choice (I don't change it because that's also a bit of a hassle. Of course, at some point, someone *first* spelt it 'ff' instead of 'F', but it might be hard to trace the blame).
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Date: 2006-03-16 01:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-10 09:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-10 10:34 pm (UTC)Actually, it was the Eyre Affair that finally prompted me to read Jane Eyre this month, and I'm now sorry I'd never read it earlier...
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Date: 2006-03-11 02:23 pm (UTC)(What about the "Other Woman"?)
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Date: 2006-11-21 03:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-21 11:38 pm (UTC)