| Title | : | Something Rotten (Thursday Next, #4) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 014303541X |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780143035411 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 385 |
| Publication | : | First published July 31, 2004 |
| Awards | : | Dilys Award (2005) |
Something Rotten (Thursday Next, #4) Reviews
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So here come some of the main ingredients of this part of the series of inimitable inter genre reading cocktails:
Propaganda, manipulation, and warmongering in politics and trade: the satirizing of all the conspiracy theories and real-life events in this regard play a key role in the series, as it´s often the evil corporation that is playing with the next attempt of real-world domination, literary world submission, or just mega sales of a new product, not caring about the potential causality, time loop, stability of the whole book universe, consequences. Some of the funniest and most profound scenes and plot twists are created by using real-life inspired happenings.
Hamlet has hardly ever gotten so many laughs instead of sighs, tears, and suffering. So it took four parts until we reached the soliloquizing skull wielder and I guess friends of Shakespeare (will hardly ever read it) may find much more pleasure than the average reader for whom there are wit, entertaining literary history, and some alternative plot use options for the old fellow.
What happens if real, living genres merge or are forced to interbreed and get monstrous, dysfunctional, mad kids? This, one of Ffjordes´most ingenious ideas, has become one of my favorite creativity technique vehicle and, once again, I ask myself why nobody else before had this idea before Fforde. Parody and satire used the idea of mixing not fitting and opposed ideas together for millennia, I don´t know if there might not be even the one or other cave painting, but Ffjorde nailed it and pimped it to perfection. Try it, take 2 or 3 genres with 2 very different authors and bam, that´s brainstorming and creative writing ammunition for a long time.
Literary detective rules and conventions of genres. Kind of relates to the last point and is one of the driving forces of the series, as Thursday is a mixture of different thriller genre tropes. But imagine it with another setting, this has a Pratchettian potential for more satire in close to every genre (except tragedy probably), or, my dream, to use the giant of satire again, Pratchett in space with sci-fi elements.
Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph... -
➽ And the moral of this rereread is: this series is a book lover's wet dream. And that, my Little Barnacles, is a scientifically proven fact (just ask Uncle Mycroft).
➽ And the other moral of this rereread is:HamletCousin Eddie + one-sided
Lorem Ipsum conversations +Hamletalpha dodos + Herr Otto Bismarck + outbreaks of unconstrained and wholly inapproprapiate Slapstick + officially sanctioned stalkers +Admiral Nelsonslightly suicidal navy officers + Teutonic slap and tickle (you don't want to know) + illegally owned bootleg cheese +Lady Emma Hamiltonbankrupt lushes + trained apologists +homicidal maniacs intent on galactic dominationEmperor Zhark + chronuption +female gorillasunusually hairy women + croquet-playing Neanderthals =
👋 To be continued and stuff
· Book 1:
The Eyre Affair ★★★★★
· Book 2:
Lost in a Good Book ★★★★★
· Book 3:
The Well of Lost Plots ★★★★★
· Book 5:
First Among Sequels ★★★★
· Book 6:
One of Our Thursdays is Missing ★★★
· Book 7:
The Woman Who Died a Lot ★★★★
· Book 8:
Dark Reading Matter - to be published
[July 2013]
I'm rereading the whole Thursday Next series and I'm having such a great time! I think I'm actually enjoying the books even more the second time around:) Something Rotten is probably one of my favorite installment in the series and I just love having Hamlet in the real world, along with Lady Hamilton, an extra dodo, St Zvlkx... This is just brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!
[October 2005]
The best book in the Thursday Next series & a hilarious must-read! I really hope Jasper Fforde will write a follow-up to Thursday Next's adventures:) Not to be missed: the conversation between Hamlet & Lady Hamilton, complete with Old English and Courier Bold, it's hilarious! -
Jasper Fforde has easily made his way into my favourite authors list. He is smart, witty, inventive, and packs his Thursday Next series full of literary references. He's basically a book lovers dream. The only terrible thing about reading one of his books is knowing it has to end. This one was definitely one of my favourites. Fforde seems to have had a vision of the future because I could swear he based his villain character Yorrick Kaine on Trump. Thursday is, as usual, a magnificent heroine and I cannot wait to find out what adventure they will take us on next!
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The fouth instalment of the Thursday Next series is my favourite one, the one in which all the plotlines set out earlier are woven together and political satire enters the series in a grand way.
In Something Rotten, Thursday returns from the book world to late-1980s England with her two-year-old son, two dodos and the Prince of Denmark, Hamlet, who wishes to see a bit of the world. As it happens, Hamlet's arrival in the real world poses a bit of a problem, for unbeknownst to Thursday, a fictional character, Yorrick Kaine, has been trying to get himself elected dictator of the British Isles, and he has just launched a vitriolic campaign against all things Danish, including Kierkegaard and Out of Africa. Just as worryingly, the almighty Goliath Corporation is trying to pass itself off as a religion rather than Big Brother, which, if everything goes according to plan, will change life in Britain significantly, and not for the better. Needless to say, Thursday has to sort things out, which she does while trying to evade an assassin, visiting the world of the dead and making sure that the local croquet team wins the cup, as the thirteenth-century saint St Zvlkx, who is always right, has predicted that the fate of the world depends on this match. Naturally, she also spends a bit of time trying to get back her husband, who still has an existence problem, but first she has to arrange a baby-sitter for her son, which proves just as difficult.
Something Rotten gets off to a slow start, but once it gets under way (some 100 pages into the book), it's excellent; the second of half of the book may well be the best part of the series so far. The political satire is thick and hilarious, the cameos and conspiracy theories are great fun, the loose ends are tied up very nicely, and in the end, nearly everyone gets what he/she deserves. What more could a reader want? -
Have you started the Thursday Next series yet? If not, put the first book
The Eyre Affair on your short list. This is one of my favorite series and Something Rotten is easily the best book in the series thus far.
How can a book this hilarious make me weep like a heartbroken teenager at the end? I laughed, I cried - I was nearly institutionalized because of the Fforde-induced bipolar syndrome this book caused.
It wasn't just me. Hamlet (various classic fiction characters make grand entrances in all of these books) was also a wreck. But at the very least, his emotional highs were from knowing that he was once played by Mel Gibson. That IS, at least, something.
My review probably doesn't make sense. But I'm not trying to be serious. If you've read these books, which also make no sense and no determinable effort at being serious, you'll actually understand this garbled nonsense. -
"Schon beim Tod meines Vaters vor vielen Jahren hatte ich erfahren, dass das Sterben und das Lebensende nicht unbedingt dasselbe waren, und das tröstete mich ganz erheblich."
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I really enjoyed this installment in the Thursday Next series! It moved more quickly than The Well of Lost Plots, and there was some suspense. Overall, it’s the characters and the quirkiness that keep me invested in this series. I love Fforde’s writing style, his humor, and the literary allusions. I love that the series is postmodern surrealist science fiction. There’s time travel, strange technology, and visits to the underworld. Mythological characters feature as much as the characters of the literary canon. I like Fforde best when he mixes the Outland with the Book World. The clash of cultures is especially interesting to me, and it’s unique to have the characters travel back and forth whereas Thursday living fully in the Book World had less variety and felt more static.
Overall, I liked this book a lot and think it continues Thursday’s story well. I was very relieved that . It was great to see some villains get their comeuppance. Of course, there are parts I thought were a little boring or that were resolved too quickly, but the book is action packed and interesting throughout most of it.
I definitely recommend this installment if you already like the series. If you haven’t read the first three books, you might be a little confused, but again, Fforde does a great job of explaining relevant key events, and if he doesn’t go into detail, it’s because the events aren’t as important to the plot. There’s also one major twist that I never saw coming that I thought was really clever.
Again, I don’t know how far I’ll get in this series. I’ve given up on Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce series, which became too repetitive and trite for me, but I am still enjoying this series and will definitely read Book #5! -
With every book I've read in this series, I've said the same thing: this was fun but I doubt I'll continue on with the series. Well, this is the fourth book and I give up. I'm going to keep reading Thursday Next books because they're absolutely ridiculous and they make me laugh. This time around, Thursday is back in the real world, where she has to deal with fictional would-be dictators, semi-dead presidents, a husband who may not actually exist, violent cricket matches, 13th century mystics, a perpetually dithering Hamlet, and - most daunting of all - motherhood. The whole thing is just marvelous. My favorite part was "Avoid the Question Time," which is pretty much what all political interviews and debates actually are but won't admit it. Nothing is too outlandish to show up in these stories, and I can't wait for the next book.
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https://poseidons99.wordpress.com/201... -
I regarded reading the 4th book in the series more like a duty, rather than something interesting to pass time with. I didn't really want to read it now, but since I got through the first 3 I might as well read the 4th one too, right? Plus I would've probably forgotten the plot in a year. In other words:
Something Rotten was bound for failure right from the beginning.
... and now I'm wondering if I could just possibly insert yet another I somewhere in this paragraph: I!
Two years have passed since
The Well of Lost Plots and Thursday is ready to go back to the Real World, and get her husband reactualized. Easier said than done. Her friends at Jurisfiction are not ready for a new Bellman, her son Friday needs a nanny, and 'back home' she's still very much a wanted criminal.
Since it never pours but rains, she finds that Yorrick Kaine (the villain from
Lost in a Good Book), is about to be elected a dictator for life. The evil multinational Goliath Corporation has decided to 'up the ante' by backing Kaine's candidacy and also angling to become a religion.
Luckily, all this can be avoided if the Swindon Mallets win the 1988 Superhoop. Too bad their players suck.
I have to admit, there are LOTS of hilarious moments, tonnes of memorable quotes, and the televised election debates are extremely accurate:
'I will award three points to Mr Kaine for an excellent nonspecific condemnation, plus one bonus point for blaming the previous government, and another for successfully mutating the question to promote the party line. Mr van de Poste gets a point for a firm rebuttal, but only two points for his condemnation as he tried to inject an impartial and intelligent observation.'
I contamplated giving it a rating of 2/5, but the extremely satisfying ending tacked on an extra star. It would've been good enough to wrap-up the entire series... had
Jasper Fforde decided to end the series here. Luckily for fans, that's not the case. I, however, will be taking an indefinite break from the books.
3/5 stars for yet another funny and quotable book from the Thursday Next series.
==========================================
Review of the 2nd book:
Lost in a Good Book
Review of the 3rd book:
The Well of Lost Plots -
4.5*
"I knocked at their door and, hearing no answer, walked in. When I was last working at SpecOps we rarely heard anything from the mildly eccentric members of the time-travelling elite, but when you work in the time business, you don’t waste it by nattering – it’s much too precious. My father always argued that time was far and away the most valuable commodity we had and that temporal profligacy should be a criminal offence – which kind of makes watching Celebrity Kidney Swap or reading Daphne Farquitt novels a crime straight away."
After being disappointed by book #2 and skipping book #3, I loved this one. Something Rotten had just the right mix of silliness with thoughtful digs at current affairs and contemporary discussions such as the argument about what makes humans human and what gives humans have the right to control other species, or the rights of other groups of humans for that matter.
Thursday has returned from the book world and again takes up the pursuit of a shady character that threatens the country. But, Thursday has not returned alone - Hamlet (aka the "ditherer") has come with her and so has Alan. I loved Alan, and I am having to read the rest of the series just to find out how he fares.
Yes. Never mind Thursday and the fate of Landon, my interests in this series are thoroughly invested in Pickwick and Alan! -
This might be my favorite book of the series. Time travel gives me a headache but Fforde handles it very well across this series, and the inclusion of classic characters remains a joy. (I still need a Mrs Tiggy-Winkle figurine for my bookshelf. Christmas, anyone?) The one mistake I made after Well of Lost Plots was to go reading about Thursday Next on Wikipedia -- spoilered myself for Granny Next, but that actually resolved itself in this book! Huzzah! And it was quite... I feel like I've used "unexpectedly poignant" too recently to bust it out again, but... yes.
At any rate, I love these books and I love Jasper's imagination. Each of these books feels like a cobbled-together NaNoWriMo project, and personally it gives me much hope when NaNoWriMo rolls around each year. -
Book on CD read by Emily Gray.
Book four in the Thursday Next fantasy / sci-fi “literary detective” series. The Goliath Corporation is still trying to take over the world, though this time their scheme is to be declared a religion. Hamlet is staying with Thursday and her family, while she tries to sort out the mess that all the cloned Shakespeares have made of the original play. Thursday’s father, the rogue ChronoGuard, and her mad-scientist Uncle Mycroft, both make significant, though small, contributions.
What I most enjoy about this series is Fforde’s vivid imagination and all the literary references. The plots are completely unrealistic, but that’s part of the fun. Thursday is a strong, independent, resourceful heroine, and the supporting characters – Spike, the vampire, and Stig, the Neanderthal, in particular – are delightfully over-the-top. The SuperHoop (think “Super Bowl” for croquet) match is fun and thrilling and ridiculous all at once.
If this review doesn’t make much sense … well, neither does the book. But who cares?! It’s fun to read.
Emily Gray does a marvelous job performing the audio version. She has great pacing and is a skilled voice artist, able to differentiate the many characters. I love the way she voices Stig and St Zvlkx in this installment. -
This took me a LONG time to get into. It has been on my "to-read" list since 2008, so for a while I wondered why I even bothered. I started enjoying it about half way through, and then I came across a passage that made the whole thing worth it:
When I read it, I laughed out loud, and it made me feel like she was looking right at me! I put a marker in the page so I could read it again, which I did several times and enjoyed chuckling each time. I even had to share the passage with my husband.
By the end of the book, I was really enjoying it. If I jump into
First Among Sequels right away, maybe it won't take me so long to get into the story and remember the characters. -
After belong a little disappointed by the third book, this one was back in the 'real world', and just as much fun as the first two.
The plot was deliberately complex, full of twists and turns. Nevertheless I found it easy to understand as events follow their own internal logic.
The bad people were vanquished, the good people won (but not without cost), the funny characters amused, and the dodos waddled in occasionally to do their dodo thing.
By the end of the book the major story lines were resolved in ways that were both dramatic and humorous, while enough minor questions were left open to allow for further adventures.
A very satisfying read. I will certainly read the next one.
BTW, I thought the Brought-Vincent-Norton motorcycle factory was a Triumph. -
This was just okay for me. There was so much going on. The author kept it reigned in, but it was like a jumbo zig zag. Usually I like busy, so I'm not sure why this rubbed me the wrong way. There was also a fair amount of repetition which caused eye rolling....not excessive eye rolling...just basic eye rolling.
I liked Thurdsay. She was great. I also liked Hamlet. He seemed like the comic relief. Everything else was just okay. -
Ultimo libro di questa serie geniale ad essere tradotto in italiano,ce ne sono poi degli altri,ma in effetti la storia si può concludere qui.
Thursday,dopo aver partorito un bel maschietto,ha nostalgia del mondo reale e così decide di tornare a casa sua, a Swindon, con la speranza di riavere di nuovo suo marito sradicato.
Non sarà sola, da Giurisfiction,il Mondo dei libri, si porterà dietro Amleto,curioso di capire perché i lettori lo considerino sempre così indeciso; si ritroverà a dover lottare nuovamente contro la Goliath,che nel frattempo vuole diventare una religione,verrà anche immischiata in un pasticcio genetico di William e il tutto sarà mescolato da una feroce satira sui danesi.
Il finale è perfetto con nonna Next che è...
Sono contenta di essere riuscita a leggere finalmente questi libri ricchi di satira, paradossi e situazioni surreali che mi hanno accompagnata, piacevolmente ,fin dall'inizio.
Alcuni momenti sono un po' lenti,soprattutto se,come me, non si ha una grande cultura di autori inglesi classici, ma è tanta la curiosità di sapere quale genialità aspetterà il lettore che poi tutto scorre velocemente.
Consigliati se conoscete un po' lo stile di scrittura del vecchissimo P.G. Wodehouse (per l'umorismo), del buon Terry Pratchett (per la satira)e del caotico Douglas Adams (per la parte di fantascienza strana). -
This series just gets better and better, and if you haven’t read definitely put it on your radar. Something Rotten was my favorite of the bunch so far, because it had everything. Thursday trying to take down comically corrupt politicians (that were way to accurate), Hamlet learning to be more decisive, a corporation turning into a religion, and a croquet match for the ages. It’s unbelievably good and somehow raises the already sky high bar for the series.
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This series is fun and full of humor and literary nerd jokes. The conceit starts to get a bit thin, but the series wraps up nicely here. I know there's a second series. I'm not sure I need that much more in this universe--maybe in a few months. Overall, though, Fforde is highly inventive and admirable, and the characters are warm-hearted and easy to like.
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The fate of the world depends on the results of the Superhoop, with help from the cloned Neanderthals wholly owned by Goliath Corporation, now a religion after a year of bad press. Thursday Next is back in the real world after hiding out in the world of unpublished novels.
Jasper Fforde books are wonderfully crazy . -
Happy birthday, William Shakespeare, and as a gift for your 450th, I present to you an excellent book written for your 440th. Jasper Fforde has exactly the same love of reading and writer's inventiveness as many of the great ones who are inspired by your creativity. Not only does he give Hamlet some thoughtful reflection upon his role as a dithering protagonist, but also literally brings you back to life with all the tragic consequences of your great plays. Okay, not even King Lear suggests an armageddon like Something Rotten's threat of global nuclear warfare, and you certainly held back on the puns and cartoon-like violence. Beyond this surreal alternate reality surface is that mirror held up to nature for those who have "drunk ink," as it were.
In case you "had left vnſeene a wonderfull peece of worke" known as Thursday Next, allow me to explain how much she fits in with the thousands and thousands of inspired characters derived from your plays. First of all, she has met with and worked alongside many many of literature's brightest stars, but is level-headed and pragmatic in an otherwise chaotic fictional world. Returning to her home world to find, as the title suggests, things rotten in Swindon, she takes on as many of these burdens as she can manage, never being crushed by the responsibility nor the silly wordplay. No matter how much she seems to know about the future and events in the past that went otherwise, she knows of the urgency to do the right thing when the time comes. And only at the midpoint of her highly entertaining series, each novel she is in feels like her story is just beginning to unfold. Finally, although she is based upon so many wonderful parts, Thursday has the one quality you seem to enjoy most: originality. -
Two years have passed and Thursday is still working in Jurisfiction and hunting the Minotaur, but she longs to return to the real world and find Landen, previously eradicated by the Goliath Corporation. Her son Friday is now two
She returns to Swindon with Hamlet, who wants to see what the real world is like and stays with her mother and father. She gets her job back at SpecOps and starts to find out all she has missed. President George Formby is still in power but the Goliath Corporation has made allegiances with Yorrick Kaine and plan to oust him. Kaine has growing power and influence and is using it to stir up hatred of Denmark, and has sought the services of 'The Windowmaker' (a spelling mistake, but it was too late to correct) an assassin who turns out to be the wife of a friends of hers.
She meets with the CEO of the Goliath Corporation to try again to get Landen back, and they promise that they will for her forgiveness, but she is convinced that she has had some mind control applied. Landedn appears, but it takes a while for reality to get used to him being there so he keeps disappearing. Her father, now re-admitted to the time-travelling ChronoGuard, warns her of the perils that Kaine's plan pose. Along with the Goliath Corporation planning to become a religion to avoid the prophecy that they are doomed to fail, and that Thursday has to get the Swindon Mallets to win the 1988 Croquet Superhoop to avoid the end of the world, her biggest problem is getting childcare.
Not quite as good as the previous one the the series, it didn't seem to have the focus of the last. That said, I do like the way that Fforde writes these, they are cleverly done, and full of wit and ideas and sub plots that turn and twist. -
TN4: I enjoyed it less than the first three -- it was a 'helicopter', a lot of unrelated parts moving in synchrony, that yet somehow seem to get the story from point A to point B. However, we get a few answers! (Of course, it would be a spoiler to give them all away. But, gingham? Really?) It has a lot to recommend it to the literophile, especially fans of the Revernd Dodgson (I really hope I spelled his name correctly. Oh, wait -- I'm on the Internet!
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Top flight stuff, with Thursday keeping about six balls in the air at once, clues to what's about to happen slipped in so deftly you don't notice, and relentlessly clever twists and details in a storyline capped by the most vicious game of croquet as ever was.
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Delightful literary fantasy, full of bad jokes, literary references, bizarre characters and a twisty plot that links up plotlines from earlier in the series. Thursday Next returns from the fictional world to Swindon, hoping to find her husband Landen and introduce him to their son Friday. Accompanied by Hamlet Prince of Denmark and two dodos, she finds a world heading for disaster which can only be averted if Swindon wins the World Croquet Championship….
This is such an enjoyable series, original and inventive and written to delight book lovers. Thursday is a great character and in this episode we see both her resourceful, feisty side and a touching side, especially in a surprisingly moving scene towards the end of the book. Knowing Swindon well, I loved seeing the alternative version of the town (here a city) that Fforde has created and spotting the familiar landmarks.
Very entertaining and amusing story, Fforde’s imagination and writing is amazing and I thoroughly enjoyed it. -
I started this series actually with the second book, because we read it at an English course at University. Then I read the first book in German and just some time ago after years the third one again in English. I didn’t want to wait so long again, so I directly started the fourth book.
I liked this one even better than the third, even though there was less book jumping and literature involved (except for Hamlet). But still it was funny, it was exciting, it was just really enjoyable. I loved how Jasper Fforde writes about things. Like the political debates, where the participants get points for “who avoids to answer the question best” etc.
For me personally this would be a good end of the series, but as it is not, I already bought the next one to read it soon. -
Ci sono io che quando mi sento di aver avuto un'idea geniale è perché sono riuscita a portare la tazza del tè con il piattino dei biscotti sopra per fare un viaggio solo..
... E poi c'è Jasper Fforde che fa parlare Friday in Lorem Ipsum :D
Niente, vado a prendere lo straccio perché la mia idea geniale non si è poi rivelatoatanto tale.. -
The pace picks up again in this novel compared to the previous one. Thursday actually gets somewhere in her quest to retrieve her husband. The subplot with the neanderthals has potential and is rather interesting. I love the neanderthals. An entertaining and amusing installment of the Thursday Next series, though I do wish she had named her some something other than Friday.
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Si algo me da pena de este libro, es que se acaba la saga de Thursday Next. Es una saga divertidísima y con gran parte de intriga, especialmente para los amantes de los libros, ya que está llena de guiños a los grandes libros de la literatura universal
-
This one was a bit slower than the 2 previous, so loses a star for that. But I adore the fact that Granny Next turns out to be Thursday herself, and even though (in hindsight) there were multiple things pointing to this fact, I didn’t see it coming.
