How many of you are like me and wish that they could actually enter a book? Slip into the pages and meet your favorite characters? Well you can....in a way. Jasper Fforde is a genius author who wrote the Thursday Next series and it's pretty amazing.
Any time you want to jump into a book and find out how your favorite characters or not so favorite characters are doing all you need to do is pick up a Fforde. In The Eyre Affair Thursday Next joins the literary crimes unit........yes, people commit literary crimes and someone needs to watch out for our favorite characters. You get to meet a slew of famous characters from Mrs. Havisham, Fanny Dashwood (she's later on in the series, but honestly one of my favorite scenes in all the Ffordes has to be the scene where she tells Thursday that she didn't want to push Marianne, Elinor, Margaret, and Mrs. Dashwood out of the house, but she HAD to for the story to continue and the girls to find their true love. It really seems like something she would say in real life to not be the villain.)
Thursday ends up chasing a villain into Jane Eyre and changing the story for all time. Is it for the better? I don't know. I liked St. John better than Mr. Rochester, but I am so in love with a beta hero. Those dark and brooding alcoholic dickbags can just go away. Okay, maybe I'm being harsh on Mr. Rochester. I suffer from what I call Bronte schizophrenia. When I'm reading or watching Jane Eyre I LOVE LOVE LOVE Jane Eyre. And yet when I'm not reading or watching it I'm wondering what the BFG is about it. (Although I know BFG is technically Big Friendly Giant ala Roald Dahl I like to use it in my world to mean big freaking deal). So I am two personalities about the Brontes.
Thursday also gives me one of my favorite heroes in Landon Park-Laine, which I found out once at a reading of Fforde's is actually a pun for landing on Park Lane or Park Place in American Monopoly. That's' the thing about Fforde, he's your grown up Norton Juster. Just as Juster played with grammar in The Phantom Tollbooth Fforde sends us literary and just for fun puns. Here's a note: There is never a chapter 13 in any of Fforde's Thursday Next books and chapter 17 or 18 always ends up with vampires or werewolves. Normally with Thursday's friend Spike. No pun intended I'm sure :)
So if you want the behind the scenes deal with your favorite classic characters pick up Fforde's series and enjoy! Let me know how much you love Fanny Dashwood or Mrs. Havisham in their reincarnations.
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