Eyre Affair

[jack]

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."

Comments

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

A name worth 100 points all by itself :)

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

Especially on a triple word score. :-)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Somehow I feel those 'f's should be one letter, which would be nicer for treble letter squares.

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

That would be a very unusual letter... you couldn't just add the scores for the two Fs and make it an eight-pointer. It's much rarer than a J. I think you should multiply the Fs instead of adding them, and make it sixteen.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

And then 'zzz' would win a game all by itself

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

Yes, but does it count as a word? I know Mole's got it in one of his icons... :-)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Apparently not. The best google gives is the dutch "JAZZZANGER".

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

What a lovely word. :-)

[mhw.livejournal.com]

It means "jazz singer".

[mhw.livejournal.com]

AFAIK they are one letter: a capital F. Chancery hand 'F' looks much like 'ff', and for some unapparent reason some families (ffolliot, fforde, ffoulkes, ffrench) decided that this entitled them to spell their names with initial 'ff'.

Writing such a name (as Jasper Fforde does) with 'Ff' is thus wrong in two ways.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

With my name, I don't think I'm allowed to criticise others' drift. (Is "others'" correct? The drift of surnames of others...?)

So, 'FForde' would be slightly better? But you'd never get institutions and starangers to accept that.

[mhw.livejournal.com]

"others'", yes.

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.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I see, thanks.

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).

Re:

[mhw.livejournal.com]

Of course, there'll always be times when systems get it wrong, no matter how good they are. I've heard tell from the leader of the Amadeus String Quartet that he once received a letter addressed to "Mr. A String".

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

At least he did, in fact, get it :)