books 2007: The Well of Lost Plots, by Jasper Fforde

[supercheesegirl]

I liked this one a lot, although I do find myself getting confused about how the Bookworld works. For example, the generics (although they were really funny, I kind of don't get it), and what characters do in their off-time, and why Thursday ever needed to pretend to be Mary, considering that no one ever read that book. But I think the books in this series are fun and wacky and fast-paced enough that even when I don't exactly understand what the hell's going on I'm inclined to roll with it anyway.

I'm ready for Thursday to get back to her real world now and save poor Landen. Although one of my favorite lines in this book was something like, "I'll take the job for a year, but then I've got to get back to the real world--I've got a husband there who doesn't exist and he needs me."

I finished this Sunday night in my hotel room in Florida. I'm glad I've got book 4 ready to go, although I'm not sure when I'll get to it. I have a lot of other things to read.

Comments

[x-hj-x.livejournal.com]

Good point about the why-did-Thursday-ever-have-to-act-the-Mary-part-if-no-one-ever-read-the-book issue. I haven't read it in a while, but I thought that was addressed in the context of the book being under review for demolition. Not at all sure, though. I'll keep that in mind while I'm rereading the first four books in June in preparation for the fifth coming out in July.

This one is lots more fun when you realize that the book Mary is trying to save, via massive plot and character reconstruction, in fact becomes Fforde's first novel, at that time unpublished and titled Nursery Crime. It's now available as the first Nursery Crime novel, The Big Over Easy, and does in fact star Mary and Jack and all the nursery rhyme malcontents who were given work in that novel at the end of The Well of Lost Plots. You can learn more about that whole angle in the DVD extras for Well.

Incidentally, the fourth Next book closes the first series, so most unanswered questions and dangling plot points get tied up. Sort of.

[supercheesegirl.livejournal.com]

I thought I remembered that there was a book called Nursery Crime! How clever of him, to write his own unpublished novel into the well of lost plots. I like this guy.