032. The Eyre Affair (2001).

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde (2001).

          
 A very strange book where the boundary between

reality and imagination and everything is completely and masterfully thrown away,

creating one of the most interesting books I’ve ever read.

Honestly, this book is insanely entertaining.

  

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layers. – Thursday Next.   A heroin. A war hero. Brave, intelligent, reasonable, over all, a perfect agent and probably the only person in this book who is not afraid of Jack Shitt and the Goliath Cooperation.

She is a Literatec officer who is working for the department which mainly deals with the forgery and thievery of literature which, in this world, is regarded as menacing and dangerous as terrorism. 

Her job consists of fairly regular, not to mention safe routine of checking out books and paper works until her uncle Mycroft invented the way to get inside the book. Then everything gets much more complex.

Later in the series, she gains an ability to get inside the book at her own will and stays inside the Bookworld for a few years patrolling the book world, making sure every characters does what they supposed to do.

Mycroft Next.   Thursday’s uncle. A brilliant inventor and somewhat-mad scientist with conscience.

A true genius who according to his wife Polly, got regularly kidnapped by foreign power or another during 60’s and 70’s for his brain.

His latest invention which allows a person to go inside the book by opening portal with worms(?) is the backbone of this Thursday Next book.

Later in the series, tired with everything, he decides to live inside the Sherlock Holmes books making himself second Mycroft in the Baker st.

With his brilliant wife, Polly, he has two sons who are dumb and dumber. The biggest mystery in family history. 

Jack Schitt. He is the head of Advanced weapons Division with eight billion annual budget with Goliath Cooperation which runs British empire since the last war. Another word, one of the most powerful men.

Short, chubby and annoying as hell, he is “villain” written all over him, but actually  belongs to the good side, sort of.

Acheron Hades. As the name indicates, he is a genius criminal mastermind with no empathy.

He lives for two things and two things only: Fame and Money.

He actually achieves his two goals in early part of this book. He is the most wanted man on this planet (fame) after stealing priceless manuscript from museum (money) and killing a few agents on his way out.

However, he doesn’t stop there. He wants to be the greatest criminal ever and also becomes the richest man on the Planet at the same time. So he kidnaps Mycroft and steals his invention and starts also kidnapping famous characters from literary treasures for huge ransom. 

What I mean is, can you imagine “Romeo and Juliet” without Juliet? How much you will pay if someone asking for ransom for her? If she got killed, the original story of Shakespeare’s play will be forever altered, right? How much do you think she is worth? Billions, easily. And that’s what Hades is doing. Goes inside the book and brings the literary character back to our world and kill them if he doesn’t get paid.

  Sounds crazy but it actually works well with all the characters and story flow. Really.

Others. Every single character in this book is either not normal or hilarious. Or not humans. Or all of it combines together. 

Hades henchmen are all psychopaths. Thursday’s co-workers are all hilarious or not humans. Goliath’s agents are all so mean and stupid. None of Thursday’s family members are normal. Especially her father Colonel Next who is traveling back and forth through out time to fix the glitches of history-matters for no other reasons than that he can actually do it(Dr. Who with military training). The crazy thing is because he is traveling with time machine all the time which apparently affects his metabolism or something, whenever Thursday meets him, he is always in different age!! Sometimes,  a lot younger then her!!

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lace. –Mainly, Swindon, England. A small town (year is 1986) where Thursday was born and raised with her two brothers.

Thursday works in a small branch of SpecialOP office in Swindon.

However, once the story gets going, she is literary everywhere and nowhere: something to do with time traveling and book/fantasy traveling.

The definition of linear time line (normal time) doesn’t exit in this book. Combine with the fact that Thursday can walk into the books(inside) and jump book to book with no difficulty(something she can’t explain why), this book gets really complex, not to mention, again, insanely entertaining!!

I’ll give you an example. Later in the series, after spending two years inside books, Thursday come back home (reality!) with Hamlet (yes, the HAMLET) and has a tea with the icily polite Prussian gentleman named Herr Otto Bismarck(1815-1898), the Iron Chancellor, man of “iron and brood”, courtesy of his dad(time traveler)’s intention of sorting out some kind of historic questions. Hilarious.

Compare to this, “Back to the future” is kid’s play.

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lot. – First half. A very rare manuscript is stolen from the high security museum without a trace.  The man responsible for the crime is Acheron Hides, the most wanted man in the world and Thursday is on his track with fellow agents.

Second half. After a spectacular mass-up, Thursday is retired (?) in her hometown Swindon with supposedly same old, boring job. 

But the small, quite town is not what it used to be and now filled with everything imaginably possible! : Kidnappers, murderers, secret society psychopaths, Government-backed cooperation agents, Vampires, werewolves, time machine etc, etc….

On top of that, Acheron is back and trying really hard to live up to his billing as the best criminal mind in history by committing hideous crimes of kidnapping/killing literary characters, altering the storyline of the classic books forever! by using Mycroft’s book traveling invention. 

Can Thursday stop him before it’s too late?

Also, there is small subplot of Thursday’s attempt to bring back her relationship with her ex.
 

And remember this. All above is just a basic storyline of the book. A small piece of iceberg. It’s what the writer puts in between the plots matters. He jammed the entire book with so much new ideas and crazy imagination, you should probably read it couple of times to appreciate the full value of it. Fantastic for book club, I think.

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erdict. –Jasper Fforde creates amazing world with his truly remarkable imagination: The world literary ruled by literature. Renaissancites (?) are causing riots. Surrealists form political parties. Shakespeare is regarded as a religion so every hotel room has equipped with (mandatory) complete works of the  master.

On top of that, it is also filled with all sort of imaginary creatures (dodo birds is the men’s best friends, not dogs, and smarter than dogs, too ). 

I dare to compare him to the other ridiculously imaginative writer: Douglas Adams. Both have wild imagination and tremendous talent to create the universe based sorely on their brain-work. And jokes, lots of them.

Only thing missing in this book is a spot light!!

Jasper Fforde needs more recognition!!

Fanfare of trumpets should sound for Jasper Fforde for his great work!!

031. Snuff (2008).

Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk (2008).

I’ll say this officially.

Chuck Palahniuk is mad!

On my book, the writer who gives us Fightclub is next only to the devil himself, Hunter S. Thompson.

Both shares completely mad imagination and tremendous talent to turn their insanity into jaw dropping (funny as hell) masterpieces!!

  This book is not for kids and probably not for women neither,

but a masterpiece ‘cause you are never going to find a book like this, ever.

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layers. – Cassie Wright.   An aging porn legend who tried to break world record by sleeping with 600 men and for the last time, making a film out of it for her kid whom she gives up to the adoption agency at the peak of her career.
  

She is starred in classic titles such as a groundbreaking adult feature named “Emergency Room Back Door Dog Pile”, civil war epic, “Ford’s Theatre Back Door Dog Pile”, and her greatest hits, “World Whore One: Deep In Trenches”, “World Whore Two: Island Hopping” and the one they are making today, according to industry rumor, will be titled “World Whore Three: The Whore To End All Whores”. I told you. Chuck is a genius. 

There are only four other characters in this book. All the male characters are called by numbers and when your number is called, it's your turn to perform. You are one of 600 men lucky enough to shag Cassie and leave your mark on history.

Sheila.   A young girl and an agent who is behind this crazy film. At the first look, she is just a very efficient, almost cold organizer. However , like everyone in this book,  she has some kind of hidden agenda which of course changes the total outcome of the book.

Mr. 72. A skinny kid  who for some reason, thinks that he is the legitimate son of Cassie. Only problem is that there are apparently hundreds of others kids (grown up watching Cassie’s films, of course) who think the same way.

Mr.137. Out of job actor who tries to revive his carrier by appearing in this controversially film. His agent sends him to get a face time with Cassie so when she dies during the shooting, he will get recognized as one of dudes who kill legendary Cassie Wright.

He almost becomes a star with “Dan Banyan Private Detective” at one point until someone finds out that years ago he made one gay gang bang porn movie to support himself. What a life.

Ms.600. Brach Bacardi. The last guy on the line to take Cassie. A retired porn legend who owns his own line of sex-toys and various sexual products.

An old co-worker and friend(?) of Cassie.

A star of “The Da Vince Load”, “To Drill A Mocking Bird”, “The Postman Always Cums Twice”, and the first ever musical adult feature “Chitty Chitty Gang bang”.

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lace. –Inside the studio somewhere in states. Place holds absolutely no meaning in this book. For all I know, they could be shooting this film in my back yard.

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lot. – Like other Chuck Palahniuk’s works, this book has a storyline which doesn’t make much sense and can be fit into couple of sentences: An aging porn legend is making her final appearance by doing 600 men and breaking record of all record!! However, one dude in the 600-long line up  may want to kill her. Who and Why? You see, it doesn’t make any sense. It sounds crazy, right? But don’t worry about it. This book doesn’t sound crazy. It is actually crazy. It won’t disappoint you.

What this book is actually about is the lifestory of 4 very different and extremely disturbing individuals.

Chuck Palahniuk’s signature style of characteristics is all here: psychopathic, extremely sad, damaged beyond repair, antisocial, desperate, and of course, hilarious as hell.

The misery Chuck creates is so extreme and hopeless, it just makes you laugh out loud. And quite honestly, I really enjoy reading about their despairs.

And also, for those who somehow survive this book through the last chapter, very typical Chuck Palahniuk ending is waiting at the end. It is so shocking and disturbing yet appropriate for this book, it will stay with you for long time. You just don’t get this kind of books that easily. So enjoy it.

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erdict. –Three things to consider.

First, this book can be read as coffee table book of Adult Film History. 

Although I am not sure how much of all the info in this book is true, they look awfully convincing to me. Chuck is lucky enough to know someone who works for the industry long time or owns tons of porns. Either way, he is THE MAN. The amount of knowledge of porn industry shown in this book is utterly impressive and quite astounding.

Second, because of the first, this book is filled with vivid and sometimes a bit gross details of sexual activities and behind the scene antics. Both fascinating and disgusting.

And that makes the third point easy to understand. Because of first and specially second, the final climax which is so shocking and disgusting won’t disturb you as much as it should be.

You see, because Palahniuk has been filling you in with all the gross details from the chapter one, by the time you reach the final, you kind of get numb of all the sex act. So you will be blown away at the end but not puking like drunks.

Read it for fun/shock but never talk about it with your wife or girl friend.

They will think you are crazy.