| Title | : | Lost in a Good Book (Thursday Next, #2) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0142004030 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780142004036 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 399 |
| Publication | : | First published March 31, 2002 |
| Awards | : | Dilys Award (2004) |
Lost in a Good Book (Thursday Next, #2) Reviews
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The idea of parallel universes, alternate timelines, uchronias,… is an often used trope, but in this constellation and with the interconnections and dependencies on and in the real book world and the not any more so just fictional second world, it gives the idea a whole new dimension.
It´s close to a literary and sociological experiment to integrate the worldview, mentality, history, of the time the novels were created and how they influenced the awareness about those times and how novels are more than just entertainment, but studies about different times of human history, of changing morality, genre pictures, true crime history distilled on pages.
The authors´ influence reaches a whole new dimension if one sees fictional works not just as something existing in the writers and readers mind, but as real and true worldbuilding, a kind of superpower to construct new worlds, the ultimate mind over matter proof, the option to be a creator of fictional universes for everybody.
Time travel, split up personalities that could develop in different directions, criticism of cartels, one world trying to take over the other, exaggeration of many character tropes, evil powers trying to destroy one of the worlds or subjects in it,… there is so much hidden in this universe that it´s difficult to get it all in just one read. It´s one of the greatest love letters to reading and literature in general too.
I imagine that a series like this could go on close to forever because the options are on the table and there is not just all literature ever written, but everything published this day, not to mention new forms of art such as video games and the good old buddies movies and series that are now having a renaissance thanks to VR and AR. An expanded satire universe like this would be something I want to totally get lost in.
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... -
Book Review
Jasper Fforde had a stroke of brilliance with the "Thursday Next" series of adventure books.
Lost in a Good Book is the second release in the series and I've given it a very high 3 of 5 stars. As it's a very difficult book to truly wrap your head around, it couldn't get a 5 from me. When I compared it to the first one,
The Eyre Affair, I had to give it a slightly lower rating just because I enjoyed the first one more. A few really cool things about these books:
1. Thursday is a literary detective who can jump into a book to try to solve whatever crime has occurred within the book.
2. Crimes can include changing plot lines, removing characters, introducing chaos...
3. You have to be mad or brilliant, or both, to come up with these kinds of stores. In this one, "The Raven" and "Flopsy Bunny" are major character arcs. Can you imagine dealing with that?
4. The book has footnotes on every page, but they're not real footnotes. They are commentary or thoughts about what's being said in the book that the person talking wouldn't necessarily know, but the reader needs to know them. I'm sure you're confused if you've never read one of these books. So am I from time to time, and I've read three of them.
5. It's such a great concept, and sometimes well-executed. And it's got your typical romance component in it too.
6. But it can get very confusing if you don't read slowly and think about every single action. There are so many made up words, actions, histories... it's an alternative fantasy universe and you never know what might actually happen.
7. At times, I think it's one of the best stories I've read. At others, it's still confusing me. But I focus on the little parts surrounding the realities of the characters and what they are doing.
Phew.... complicated to write this review. It can't be a normal one without it going on for pages about what is actually going on. All you need to know is if you have a huge imagination, don't need structure, and love books... you must give it a chance.
About Me
For those new to me or my reviews... here's the scoop: I read A LOT. I write A LOT. And now I blog A LOT. First the book review goes on Goodreads, and then I send it on over to my WordPress blog at
https://thisismytruthnow.com, where you'll also find TV & Film reviews, the revealing and introspective 365 Daily Challenge and lots of blogging about places I've visited all over the world. And you can find all my social media profiles to get the details on the who/what/when/where and my pictures. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Vote in the poll and ratings. Thanks for stopping by. Note: All written content is my original creation and copyrighted to me, but the graphics and images were linked from other sites and belong to them. Many thanks to their original creators.
[polldaddy poll=9729544]
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This was a reread and I still loved it just as much as the first time around.
Pickwick the dodo gets so many mentions in the early books. The way she looks after her egg and makes "plock plock" noises is delightful. And of course this is the book where something happens to poor Landon. Disappointing because he is one of my favourite characters but still very typical of Fforde's clever, funny and crazy ideas.
Thursday is developing her skills at book jumping and we start to meet all the wonderful characters at Jurisfiction. Miss Havisham, the Cheshire cat, Marianne Dashwood and the Queen of Hearts are just a few of them.
I always love a book about books and this one is brilliant:) -
Actual rating: 4.5 stars.
➽ And the moral of this rerereread is: I want to work at Jurisfiction when I grow up. Because Miss Havisham (aka the newest addition to the Fast and Furious cast) + the Red Queen + the Cheshire Cat + Prose Resource Operatives +Sense and SensibilityConfusion and Conviviality + PageRunners + preposterous stuff vs. Kafkaesque stuff + the Character Exchange Program + the vertebrate uberclassics not translating well into Arthropod + ISBN Positioning System + Footnoterphones + Heathcliff Protection Duty + the lobster market and the crustacean readership + grammasites and adjectivores and verminators, oh my + uh-oh, I think we've been boojummed =
➽ And the other moral of this rerereread is: rice and lentils, never leave home without them. Because you never know when an entroposcope will come in handy. Oh, and also: Phodder and Kannon + thou shalt not spank the mammoth (no indeed, thou shalt not) + Gerhard Von Squid + chain-smoking dodos + the Brotherhood of Unconstrained Verbosity + Mr Perkup + Shakespeare using ballpoint pens (or not) + the Cheese Squad + Eradications Anonymous + Pontefract Cakes (YUM) + Lamb and Slaughter + isolated high coincidental localised entropic field decreasement (don't ask) + strawberry-flavoured pudding mix (I told you not to ask) =
👋 To be continued and stuff.
· Book 1:
The Eyre Affair ★★★★★
· Book 3:
The Well of Lost Plots ★���★★★
· Book 4:
Something Rotten ★★★★★
· 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
[June 2013]
I read Lost in a Good Book when it was first published but decided to read the whole series again before burying myself in its last instalment, The Woman Who Died a Lot.
I was a bit disappointed after reading The Eyre Affair the second time around (it wasn't as enjoyable as I remembered it) so I wasn't sure what to expect from Lost in a Good Book. Still, I shouldn't have worried as this is such a great read!
The book is packed with wild, hilarious ideas : Thursday Next becomes an apprentice to Miss Havisham (from "Great Expectations" and incidentally a mad driver) in order to become a Jurisfiction Prose Resource Operative (agents whose job is to maintain the integrity of popular fiction), she is prosecuted in Kafka's "The Trial", someone tries to kill her through coincidences, there are grammasites that live inside books and feed on grammar, a Character Exchange Programme so that characters can vacation in a book other than the one they belong to, the Cheshire Cat is the librarian for The Great Library... These are only a few of the great ideas that make this book a fantastic read! Now on to read The Well of Lost Plots again :)
[November 2005]
Fforde has done it again! As in the Eyre Affair, the book is packed with literary references and wild, hilarious ideas : Thursday Next becomes an apprentice to Miss Havisham (from "Great Expectations" and incidentally a mad driver) in order to become a Jurisfiction Prose Resource Operative (agents whose job is to maintain the integrity of popular fiction), she is prosecuted in Kafka's "The Trial", someone tries to kill her through coincidences, there are grammasites that live inside books and feed on grammar, a Character Exchange Programme so that characters can vacation in a book other than the one they belong to, the Cheshire Cat is the librarian for The Great Library... This book is absolutely brilliant, I can't wait to read "The Well of Lost Plots!" -
This is one of those books that I wanted to like so much more than I did. Hell, it's one of those books that I feel like I should like more than I do. I mean, with the little literary cameos and the wry humor (and occasionally groan-inducing puns), with the jumping through books and really just the whole thing - it should be right up my alley. But it just doesn't work for me.
Part of it is that I feel it has a little bit of the
Un Lun Dun problem - it seems more a showcase for all the nifty ideas and wordplay that Fforde can throw in, but he seems less concerned with developing interesting and/or likable characters and an actual plot line with any sort of momentum.
And part of it is that while I really like the idea of Jurisfiction and it seems like a really cool premise, I'm less enthralled with the execution. Parts of it just don't make sense. For instance,
And maybe there are answers to all these issues, and I just don't care enough to remember them. Or whatever.
There were some things I liked. As I said, I do enjoy some of the puns and wordplay (even if some of it's a bit, erm, low-brow. I mean, I'm ok with low-brow, but it's a little bit said when characters with the names of Schitt-Hause and Mr. Dedman and Mr. Walken are the height of humor.)
And I did like the bits with Mycroft. He's still my favorite character, I think.
Anyway - these books came highly recommended from a trusted source, and they really do seem like they should be something I should enjoy far more than I do, and I wanted to be able to give it at least a 3 star rating, but when about 3/4 of the way through I realized I just wanted it to be over already, I realized that I just couldn't.
And so... I don't know if I'll continue with the series or not. If I do I'll definitely be getting it from the library. -
I love the sheer inventiveness of Jasper Fforde's books, and in this series, the madcap way that he messes with literature, with both love and a childlike glee, and it makes me happy to have spent some time rereading this book.
Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision
here.
In the meantime, you can read the entire review at
Smorgasbook -
Curses! About 40 pages from the end, I had to run out and get the next book in the Thursday Next series, "Well of Lost Plots." This book doesn't have an ending! Even worse, I got sucked up into it and had to keep going.
"Lost in a Good Book" is the sequel to "The Eyre Affair" starring spec ops officer Thursday Next. To say that Thursday's life is complicated is an understatement. I'm not going to get into the plot or characters of this book. To do so would spoil this book, the preceding book, and the following book. I will say that, unlike "The Eyre Affair", "Lost in a Good Book" does not stand on its own. You must have read the first book to understand it. Then, you will have to read the next book to get any resolution. (I rather suspect that there won't be any resolution in the next book either.)
Now, I rarely read series. It's even more rare for me to read books in a series back to back. But, Jasper Fford is such a compelling writer with such a weird imagination, that I'm breaking my usual rules.
If you like weirdness and literature, and don't mind spending a lot of time on a series, go ahead and read the Thursday Next series. They are a lot of fun. -
Maybe only a 3.5 star, but it was another fun trip into such a strange world filled with literary references, slippery characters, murder, & mayhem. There's plenty of wry humor, puns, & ridiculous situations to make sure things don't get too serious. I'd call it a cozy mystery, except that belies just how fantastic the world is & there is no way the reader can figure out what is going to happen. I sometimes wonder if the author knows. He writes the way Mrs. Haversham (Yes, the lady from
Great Expectations.) drives - with complete abandon & sheer joy. 'It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world except forLolaThursday. Oh, oh,LolaThursday...' OK, I'll quit singing now, but if this series had a theme song, that wouldn't be a bad one.
It was a bit uneven, but I put that down to the high points striking me as so funny. There's a great scene at a book sale, for instance. I didn't quit chuckling for several minutes. Reminded me of the time I stood in line at 5am in 20 degree darkness to get Ghost Buster backpacks for the boys for Xmas. That was 30 years ago, so I can laugh about it now. The savagery of mostly mothers on the prowl was shocking & a lot of fun to watch, once I got the backpacks, of course.
Very well narrated which added to the atmosphere. I'm definitely up for another at some point. -
This is the 2nd book in the series, after THE EYRE AFFAIR. Read that first, or you might be a bit lost.
Thursday Next is now married to Landon. They are so in love. Both veterans of the Crimean War, they have put the past behind them and started a new future together.
Thursday is a Special Operative. She is a LiteraTec, someone who deals with stolen and forged books. But Thursday is also blessed with a rare special power - she can travel INTO books.
In this book she visits, among others, Sense and Sensibility, Great Expectations, The Raven, and. The Trial by Kafka.
She lives in an alternate universe, one where every average Joe and Jane on the street has vast literary knowledge to rival one of our dimensions English Professors. People literally kill each other while arguing who Shakespeare REALLY was. Parents name their kids after famous authors, so, for example, there might be 2,000 or so women named Jane Austen in London, each with a tiny number after their name so that the government can keep track of them.
Technology is also a bit different. People ride in dirigibles instead of jetliners. Extinct species are brought back to life (Thursday has a pet dodo named Pickwick, who is very cute). Neandrathals have been brought back and are now fighting for their rights (the government forced sterilization on all of them).
Thursday herself is one of my favorite characters in a long time. She's about 35. She dresses frumpy, is a war veteran, is smart, witty, and world-weary. I really enjoy reading about her. She seems like a "real" woman to me. Fforde never even mentions her breasts or her body - ever. And Thursday never wastes her time thinking about men and love, except for her own husband, Landon. And that's a sweet and real relationship, not just a jealousy-fueled-sex fest. SO REFRESHING.
I was so, so angry reading this book. I was in a state of rage. Those f*cking bastards from Goliath The only problem is that Thursday
I adore Thursday's sweet father, a time-traveler on the run from Special Ops, who cares about her and always shows up in the nick of time to help her and guide her. They have a great, sweet, father-daughter relationship. Aw.
And her crazy, genius uncle Mycroft and patient aunt Polly. And her brother, Joff, who in this book is revealed to be a gay man. Just very casually. He doesn't conform to any "gay sterotypes." He's just a bloke who happens to like men. VERY REFRESHING, FFORDE.
This book is for people who love books and love literature. If you are not familiar with the classics, a lot of the jokes and references will go right over your head. That being said, it is funny, witty, fantastical, and smart - like a mixture of Alice in Wonderland and Hitchhiker's Guide. It's more serious than Hitchhiker, though. The stakes are higher, and you actually get very anxious and angry when bad stuff happens to the characters you've come to care about. -
I really, really liked this sequel! I liked the first book in this series but I thought this one was incredible. I felt like this one really drove home the bookish element to this series that the first one only touched on. Some of my favorite parts about this book was the book jumping, the conversations in the footnotes, all the bootstrap paradoxes, and this books funny self awareness. In the last book we got a glimpse of Thursdays power to jump into the events of any book, but it wasn't the main plot line. In this book we really get to see how it all worked and I loved the imagery of a library that contains every book ever written as well as every idea for a book. I would love to just go hang out there for a while. I really liked the way the characters developed in this book. Last book I found the characters to be interesting but they didn't really grab me and I was way more interested in the alternate world the author created and not so much the characters. In this sequel I loved all the characters just as much as I loved the world building. I also enjoyed the mystery of this book a little more than the last one and I like seeing the Goliath Corporation take more of a front seat as the villain of these stories. Speaking of Goliath, my book had a little approval rating at the front of the book from Goliath which I thought was really cute and I love when books have those sort of things in them. I also loved how there were parts of this book that tied it to the titles of the previous books and to the sequels. And on top of that any book is made better in my mind with quotes at the beginnings of chapters. I loved this book a lot and to be honest I was a little surprised at that because the first one to me was good but not great. This book definitely convinced me to pick up the next book in this serious and I would enchorage anyone who read the the first book and liked the concept but thought some of the delivery was only meh, to definitely try this one because I think this one is a great sequel and a great improvement over the first one and I hope I like the next detective Next book as much as I liked this one!
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‘Bad boy!’ she added in a scolding tone. The Tasmanian tiger looked crestfallen, sat on its blanket by the Aga and stared down at its paws. ‘Rescue Thylacine,’ explained my mother. ‘Used to be a lab animal. He smoked forty a day until his escape. It’s costing me a fortune in nicotine patches. Isn’t it, DH-82?’
This is such a clever book and there ere are so many quotable passages, but the problem is that may favourite parts contain spoilers of either this book or of pretty much any classic work of literature worth reading.
I really admire the level of detail and research that Fforde put into this book, but I didn't think it lived up to the enjoyment of the first book, The Eyre Affair, tho. Maybe the novelty of Thursday's world has worn off a bit already, maybe the incessant puns and jokes were just a bit too much.
However, Thursday is still one of the best protagonists out there - kickass and kind.
The only real problem I have with this book is that it was so obviously written with the idea to continue the story in book #3 and therefore doesn't even attempt to be a standalone story - which makes me feel somewhat cheated and tricked into having to get the next book to find out what happened to my favourite characters.
I NEED TO KNOW THAT THE EGG IS OK!
Seriously, not cool, Mr. Fforde. But I guess, now I know how Scott's or Dickens' readers must have felt when they had to wait for the next installments of their stories.
And, yeah, I obviously am still in denial that Harry Potter worked the same way - except that I wanted to read the other books for their own sake, not to find out what happened to one particular character.
Ugh.
(Changed my mind about the rating and going to go with 3*, not 3.5*.) -
3.5 stars -
September, 2020:
I listened to the audio of this book to refresh my memory before continuing with the series.
This is still a story that is a lot of fun to read. There are so many clever & interesting oddities in Thursday's world. It's fresh and very entertaining.
I enjoyed this story more than the first book (which I liked). I think it's because I got to know the characters more, they became more real. Their world was more familiar and the story was touching.
I look forward to continuing with Thursday's story (I would still like to have a Dodo).
Jan, 2012:
A helluva lot of fun. I didn’t mean to read this book right now. Having been rather lukewarm about the first book in this series, I wasn’t sure whether to continue but some have said the series gets better. I thought I'd scan the first few pages and decide what to do.
Then, like Thursday Next, I fell into this book. It was clever, delightful; entertaining with lots of plot twists and turns, including an end-of-the-world scenario.
Miss Havisham is interesting. She’s assertive, in charge, smart and resourceful. I wonder what Dickens would think of Fforde's rendition of his stern, revengeful character.
I’m looking forward to the rest of this series now. Fforde has an amazing imagination.
I also want a Dodo. Plock-Plock. -
Though I'm not generally a big fan of book series, the Thursday Next books are really growing on me. This second book picks up shortly after The Eyre Affair ended and follows Thursday as she again tangles with Goliath, tries to figure out why she is experiencing life-threatening coincidences, and begins to learn more about the fine art of book-jumping.
Though character development does not seem to be Fforde's priority and the bad guys in particular a little too thinly drawn, the underlying premise of this book was so interesting to me I was able to overlook the occasional clichéd moment. As someone who has always gotten easily lost in books, I really love the idea of being able to literally enter books and explore the world behind the story on the page. Fforde has created an endlessly interesting world of possibilities with his oddball alternate reality, and I am most curious to see where he will take it next. -
Much fun. Very puns. Wow.
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I seem to have really hit my stride with this second book (and I say “I”, not the author, because I don’t think there was really any style changes between book 1 & book 2 that would account for me liking it better). Almost like the first book was a wading pool that I dipped my toes into before deciding to jump right into the big pool. I’m appreciating the absolutely unique concept a lot more, and definitely smirking or even outright laughing a lot more at the absolutely ridiculous humour. I’m glad I decided to stick it out with the series, and can’t wait to see where it takes me next.
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3.0 to 3.5 stars. Not quite as enjoyable as Fforde's other novels (my favorite being
The Big Over Easy) but still a good read. I really like the "world" of Thursday next and will certainly visit it again by reading the next book in the series. -
Super fun for book geeks like me. Even if I am unfamiliar with some of the books and characters mentioned here, as in the first Thursday Next book, I had no problem laughing out loud on occassion and following the plot. Having read this after Christopher Moore's "You Suck!" it is interesting to note the different approaches to creating humorous situations. Moore relies rather heavily on teenage angst and sex jokes while Fforde borrows from the English tradition of word play, absurdism (is this even a word?) in the manner of Lewis Carroll and Eugene Ionesco, plus a healthy dose of straight slapstick.
One small peeve about this book is in the rather thin plot. We have here something in the manner of an episodic novel, with a string of loosely connected set pieces and an overall arch that doesn't advance much and is left to be resolved in a future book.
But all is forgiven in the sheer exuberance of wrecking havoc on timeline continuity and of playing loose with established literary characters. So if you are interested in finding about tensionolists, entroscopes, bloopholes, mnemonomorphs, oozemosis and so on ... this is the place to come to.
to give an exampleof the Next style:
"Time is the glue of the cosmos, Thursday, and it has to be eased apart ? try to force events and they end up whacking you on the frontal lobes like a cabbage from six paces." -
While I didn’t feel quite the same extreme sense of glee about the final parts of the book as I did with the end the first book in the series (The Eyre Affair), the events toward the end of the book were, once again, exceedingly clever. And: I think that I enjoyed this book even more than the first one, which is saying a lot. I’m also thrilled because several people have told me that the next/third book in the series is their favorite so far; I believe that there are 5 now. I’m therefore very eager to read the next book: The Well of Lost Plots.
I’m finding that I am enjoying some books’ characters more in Fforde’s books than in their original books.
Fforde is brilliant and these books are so much fun to read.
I’m been strongly recommending this series to several friends. They might not be for everyone, but I’m so delighted that I found them, thanks to Goodreads. The books should be read in order, in my opinion; of course, I do think that about all series. -
https://poseidons99.wordpress.com/201... -
good sequel. Got me interested into reading the series again. A little bit odd but endearing.
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Sequel to The Eyre Affair. Literary Detective Thursday Next is dealing with her sudden fame, pregnancy, the eradication of her husband from the timeline in order to force her to work for megacorp Goliath by going into books, the thing where someone is trying to kill her, her training as a Jurisfiction (hee) agent to ensure the integrity of books, and the impending end of the world.
Weird, fun, metafictional. Thursday slides in and out of books and her brand of reality, and there are some great little touches like communication via textual footnotes between people in fiction and people in reality. Mostly, these books are a big conglomeration of “hey, isn’t this neat?” saved by the fact that actually, yes, most of the things really are pretty freaking neat (though I say again, WTF with the random vampire subplot?).
I do want to say, though, that these books are a perfect exemplar of the ways our IP and copyright systems are broken. Thursday does her Jurisfiction apprenticeship with Miss Havisham, and every other “real” fictional character she interacts with is in the public domain. I should also point out that these characters are explicitly extra-textual, with lives and personas outside the pages of the books they hail from – Fforde’s Miss Havisham drives motorboats, enjoys high-speed chases, and wears running shoes. But Fforde’s publisher would never permit him to work in a character who isn’t in the public domain, as it would be economically prohibitive even just to use a well-known name, irregardless of the personality attached. Fforde, being no fool, likely knows better than to even try. And if that isn’t a chilling effect, I don’t know what is. -
Thursday Next must prevent Armageddon from happening next Thursday. This second episode of the saga of Thursday Next is filled with wordplay, bookjumping and irony.
It is very cleverly written and I found myself chuckling often at the situations that were described by Fforde and the definitions of terms often presented before each chapter.
This exchange between Landon and Thursday is one of the best in the book:
'"Goodbye, Thursday," muttered Landon, looking at the ham.
"Are you going somewhere?" I replied, unsure of what he meant.
"Me? No. Why?"
"You just said 'Goodbye.'"
"No," he laughed, "I was commenting on the ham. It's a good buy."
"oh."
He cut me a slice and put it with the cheese in a sandwich, then made one for himself. There was a distant trumpet of a mammoth as it made heavy weather of the escarpment and I took a bite.
"It's farewell and so long, Thursday."
"Are you doing this on purpose?"
"Doing what? Isn't that Major Tony Fairwelle and your old school chum Sue Long over there?"
I turned to where Landen was pointing. It was Tony and Sue,m and they waved cheerily before walking across to say hello.
"Goodness!" said Tony when they had seated themselves. "Looks like the regimental get-together is early this year! Remember Sara Nara, who lost an ear at Bilohirsk? I just met her in the car park; quite a coincidence.'
And there is much more to find in the pages of this book. I can't help imagining Thursday looking much like Agent 99 from Get Smart. Anyone else? -
Dopo "Il caso Jane Eyre", che ho adorato tantissimo, non pensavo che Jasper FForde avrebbe potuto sorprendermi ancora.. E invece c'è riuscito alla grande con questo secondo volume che si dimostra parimenti intelligente, raffinato, irriverente e soprattutto geniale!
E' un libro che contiene TANTE cose, ci sono mille piani di lettura e gli elementi più disparati che possono accontentare qualsiasi lettore: garantito, con Jasper Fforde e la sua Thursday non avrete modo di annoiarvi!
La cosa più meravigliosa però è come i libri la facciano da assoluti padroni all'interno della storia: autori, libri pubblicati, libri ritrovati, libri che non hanno mai visto la luce del sole, personaggi che si muovono a loro piacere all'interno del loro libro e negli altri, agenzie letterarie, espedienti letterari.. STUPENDO. Mi ha ricordato a volte "La città dei libri sognanti" di Moers, ma d'altronde tanta genialità mica si trova ovunque! :D
Mi è presa una gran voglia di scoprire e approfondire tutto il marasma di autori e libri che Fforde, dando prova di grande cultura in modi anche spesso sottili (E chissà quante chicche nascoste mi sono persa!!), ha tirato in ballo nella sua storia.. *_* -
Another excellent literary romp, I wish I could say yes as many times as Thursday when asked if I've read xxx. I also wish I could book hop. And be Miss Haversham's trainee. And go to THE library. And have a dodo. Plock plock! Much like reading Pratchett, you spend most of the time terribly amused which is no bad thing.
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I love the Unitary Authority of Warrington Cat. :D
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La vita può diventare stressante se siete incinta e vi sradicano il marito, il mondo sta per trasformarsi in un ammasso di gelatina rosa e voi vi ritrovate di punto in bianco nel bel mezzo del Processo di Kafka a dovervi giustificare per aver cambiato il finale di Jane Eyre.
Tra l'altro il vostro avvocato per il processo comunica con voi tramite note a piè di pagina, il che non è comodissimo!
In situazioni del genere conviene sempre guardarsi le spalle e soprattutto controllare che il livello di entropia dove vi trovate sia sempre a livelli normali perchè quando si abbassa troppo, ovvero quando il numero di coincidenze che vi capitano diventa incredibilmente assurdo,potreste morire da un momento all'altro.
La soluzione ai vostri problemi potrebbe però non essere così spiacevole: si tratta semplicemnte di perdersi in un buon libro!
E' ciò che deve imparare a fare l'impavida Thursday Next in questo nuovo capitolo delle sue avventure, sotto la guida di una Miss Havisham molto più simpatica e molto meno acida di quanto non ce la ricordassimo in Grandi Speranze.
Thursday diventa così una sorta di Alice nel Paese delle Meraviglie, che in questo caso è il "paese dei libri" (ma il gatto del Cheshire c'è comunque), tra i quali, con un po' di pratica si può scorazzare a proprio piacimento, cercando di fare attenzione per non disturbare troppo personaggi e trama. Si ripete così la magia de Il caso Jane Eyre, ovvero quella bellissima sensazione per il lettore di essere trasportati insieme all'eroina in un mondo in cui letteratura e realtà si incorciano, si confondono fino a diventare un tuttuno. Le avventure di Thursday viaggiano a cavallo fra il thriller e il bizzarro, in un turbinio di personaggi letterari riportati in vita con impareggiabile destrezza e ironia da Jasper Fforde il quale, ancora una volta con il suo racconto dimostra non solo la sua sfrenata fantasia ma, soprattutto, comunicare il suo amore per la letteratura che viene trasmesso immediatamente al lettore. Se non avete ancora letto i libri attraversati da Thursday vi verrà voglia di impossessarvene immediatamente, se li avete già letti vorrete riimmergervi in essi seduta stante.
Unica raccomandazione: assicuratevi di essere pratici prima di affrontare il salto nel libro o vi troverete incastrati nell'etichetta con le istruzioni di lavaggio dei vostri pantaloni. C'è da dire che l'omino dell'etichetta è molto gentile e ospitale!
Un'osservazione sull'edizione Marco y marcos: la grafica è molto ben curata e diviene parte integrante del racconto, non si può dire lo stesso della traduzione che spesso fa pasticci con i giochi di parole dell'originale o peggio ancora traduce titoli dei libri in modo errato.
http://ghettodeilettori.blogspot.com/... -
Der zweite Teil von Jasper Ffordes Paralleluniversum gefiel mir großartig und noch besser als der erste Teil, da ich mich nicht mehr die doch zu Beginn verwirrende Welt einleben musste.
In diesem Roman wird ein Feuerwerk der grandiosen Ideen gezündet, das von der ersten bis zur letzten Seite anhält. Sogar die kleinen Nebenhandlungen in diesem Werk sind von atemberaubender innovativer Gedankenkraft und Tiefgang z.B. die Nachzüchtung von Neandertalern und die ethischen Fragen die der Status einer solchen ?Person, Sache? aufwirft oder der Einsatz von Nanotechnologien. Auch unser Universum kommt in der Nebenhandlung als alternative Welt vor, in der man sich verstecken könnte. Im Literaturbereich werden wieder viele Anspielungen eingebracht von Dickens über Poe und Caroll bis Kafka. Oh der Prozess ala Prozess von Kafka in der die Hauptprotagonistin des Romans Thursday Next als Angeklagte verwickelt ist, war wirklich für mich eine der witzigsten Szenen in diesem Buch. Wunderbar manchmal wünscht man sich in so einer Welt zu leben, in der man ganz einfach von Buch zu Buch reisen kann.
Fazit: Für Liebhaber von Science Fiction und Fantasy auf jeden Fall Pflichtlektüre. Es hilft auch, wenn man die zitierten Bücher schon mal gelesen hat, da man die Anspielungen dann noch witziger findet. -
Not so deep as the first one, and I strongly disagree with "to be continued" finale, but funny nonetheless.
Here are some examples:
-improved expressions like to catch someone "inky-fingered" or to be "a paragraph late";
-candid official anouncements: “Attention, please. Passengers for the 11:04 DeepDrop to Sydney will be glad to know that the delay was due to too many excuses being created by the Gravitube’s Excuse Manufacturing Facility. Consequently we are happy to announce that since the excess excuses have now been used, the 11:04 DeepDrop to Sydney is ready for boarding at gate six.”
-new words, like boojum (when speaking about "the total annihilation of a word/ line/character/subplot/book/series"), bowdlerizer (when speaking about the prudish readers that censor texts), orgrammasites (“a parasitic life form that live inside books and feed on grammar” - by the way did you know that Tristram Shandy is full of them?).
