Shades of Grey

A Novel

By: Jasper Fforde

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

An astonishing, hotly anticipated new novel from the great literary fantasist and author of the Thursday Next series and Early Riser, Jasper Fforde

As long as anyone can remember, society has been ruled by a Colortocracy. From the underground feedpipes that keep the municipal park green to the healing hues viewed to cure illness to a social hierarchy based upon one's limited color perception, society is dominated by color. In this world, you are what you can see.

Young Eddie Russett has no ambition to be anything other than a loyal drone of the Collective. With his better-than-average red perception, he could well marry Constance Oxblood and inherit the string works; he may even have enough red perception to make prefect. For Eddie, life looks colorful. Life looks good. But everything changes when he moves with his father, a respected swatchman, to East Carmine. There, he falls in love with a Grey named Jane who opens his eyes to the painful truth behind his seemingly perfect, rigidly controlled society. Curiosity - a dangerous trait to display in a society that demands total conformity - gets the better of Eddie, who beings to wonder: Why are there not enough spoons to go around? Why is everything - and everyone - barcoded? What happened to all the people who never returned from High Saffron? And why, when you begin to question the world around you, do black-and-white certainties reduce themselves to shades of grey?

Part satire, part romance, part revolutionary thriller, this is the new world from the creative and comic genius of Jasper Fforde.

©2009 Jasper Fforde (P)2009 Penguin

Humorous Dystopia at its Best

Let's start by saying this is the most humorous dystopian novel I have ever read. It is silly and poignant, and dry and witty, and slow and endearing. The best way I can describe this book is that Shades of Grey is what the result would be if Douglas Adams had attempted to write 1984. It does take a bit to get into the plot and to care about the characters, but it is worth it. I suspect part of the reason that it's a bit slow at first is that Fforde never beats the reader over the head with this society and how it works and how it differs from ours; he lets you absorb it slowly, organically, and that takes time. Time well spent.

I'm so glad that there are to be more books in this series because I'm not ready to leave this society and these characters behind. I'm willing to wait for a good long time, which is fortunate since even though this book was published years ago, there is no set publication date for the next in the series.

Totally different!

This book is an alternate reality about when your social class and standing is determined by what colors you can see. The purples are the elite, and grays are the servants. But many of the grays have just about had enough, and they are ready to overthrow the current social structure . But every time one of those movements begins, There’s a mysterious disease called the mildew that wipes out entire towns!

A Must Reread

This was a fascinating book - one that I will ponder and then reread. Politics, love and societal differences expertly woven into an intriguing story.

My favorite Fforde novel

After a couple of abortive attempts to start the print version of this book, I decided to try the audio version and am so thankful I did. The story develops slowly, but the payoff is more than worth any patience that may be required early on. Fforde's trademark wit is on display here, but it is his satirical side that takes precedence, and the dystopian setting makes this a somewhat darker work than the Thursday Next or Nursery Crime novels, all of which I have thoroughly enjoyed. John Lee's narration brings the characters and this world to life quite brilliantly. This was my second time through the audiobook and if Fforde delays the sequel much longer, there will be a third. I recommend this very highly. Hopefully we won't have to wait much longer for the next one.

I love this book!

Jasper Fforde is a skilled writer and world-builder, and I really enjoyed this book and Early Riser.

John Lee is a treasure. I've heard him several times on more serious books , usually in sci-fi, but he did well with Jasper Fford'es tongue-in-cheek humor here.

Simply wonderful.

Innovative, thrilling, well narrated. Simply a fantastic listen. I was immersed and eager for each new chapter, highly recommend.

Read this book

Fforde has written a humorous book in his quirky and other-worldish style on a serious topic. First I thought it was a critique of the British aristocracy but decided towards the end that it is Orwell's "1984" done in a far less dark style. It is very entertaining and will keep you glued. It is a love story and a David against Goliath story in the style of his character, Thursday Next, (from other books), as she battled against the Goliath Corpoaration.

I finished this book and then immediately listened to it again. I had missed so many clues to what would happen and got a lot out of it the 2nd time. Clearly Fforde has written a 3 part series and couldn't release the first one until he was sure that he had set things up properly.

This has the potential to become a literary classic. I cannot wait for the subsequent books.

John Lee is also recognized for his outstanding ability to voice different characters.

terrific book!

Terrific concept!! With shades of the factions from the 'Divergent' series and the oppression of Big Brother from Orwell's '1984', I am enthralled with the depiction of society separated by the visible spectrum.

A different type of story from Jasper Fforde.

Any additional comments?

I can't wait for the second book to come out. I really liked the story and I want to see where it leads.

It’s a slow burn, but don’t give up on it

Fforde changes it up a bit with Shades of Grey. It’s not at all like the Nextian and Nursery Crimes series’s. But once you settle in for the ride it’s really good. He spends a long time explaining this new world to the reader before it really gets going. I had a hard time really locking in until halfway through but it was width it.
Eddie Russet lives in a world divided by colors called Chromatacia. No one can see more than one natural color, and even then the strength of their color vision varies. The government fills in the color of much of the inhabited parts of the world by pumping in universally visible artificial color. Denizens of Chromatacia are also unable to see in the dark. If caught outside after dark they can end up with “night blindness.” No one knows why.
Each person wears a spot on his or her lapel to indicate which color they see, and their color indicates their place in the hierarchy. Eddie is a red, a station just above the society’s under caste—the greys, who perform menial tasks and hard labor and are treated as second-class citizens. Above reds are yellows, blues, and at the top—purples.
At the age of 20 all citizens undergo testing called the Ishihara which determines the strength of their color vision. This measurement decides everything from marriage, one’s to standing in the community (e.g. one cannot marry a complementary color, and a higher strength vision can lift someone to prefect and earn them a spot representing their color on the city council). Most people are perpetually seeking to climb the color ladder through marriage and often try to match with someone whose color combination will either maintain or improve the family’s prestige particularly when it comes to passing on color to offspring. For example, a purple with vision tailing toward the blue end of the purple spectrum might seek out a strong red to partner with to ensure their offspring is firmly purple.
This world is full of rules and taboos that most people just accept without question. People earn and lose “merits,” a form of currency, based on good or bad behavior according to the rules and the whims of prefects. If one loses enough merits they can be kicked out of the community and sent away for what’s called “re-boot,” which is supposed to be exactly what it sounds like. Re-training to better conform.
Ever since what is referred to as “The Something That Happened” society has been systematically divesting itself of technology. No one questions this much, though. Or at least , no one who does question lasts very long without being de-merited all the way to re-boot. The home office sets down the laws and people follow mindlessly.
Eddie has a tendency to ask more questions than most but he goes along to get along and buys into the orderly society overall. He seeks a marriage with a member of a wealthy red family, the Oxbloods, and he hopes to one day work in color for the government. After a prank though, the powers-that-be force him to wear a badge next to his red spot saying he needs humility, and they send him to a town called Carmine out in the boonies for a “chair census” as punishment. His father is a healer, a task achieved by showing the sick the appropriate hues of color swatches depending on the malady, goes with him to fill a vacant spot in the same town. There, Eddie falls in love with a grey named Jane who has no time for oppressive, arbitrary rules and social norms and she has no problem openly showing disdain for those of the upper classes, including Eddie. In settling into Carmine he begins to pick up on many of the inconsistencies of the rules and laws and he begins to see what Jane sees. He starts asking more questions and soon finds some disturbing answers.
It sounds very dystopian but it’s equal parts funny, too. I’m a big fan of Thursday Next and it was very cool to see Jasper Fforde try something new. I hope he does a sequel.