The Eyre Affair

By: Jasper Fforde

Narrated by: Gabrielle Kruger

Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

There is another 1985, somewhere in the could-have-been, where the Crimean war still rages, dodos are regenerated in home-cloning kits and everyone is deeply disappointed by the ending of 'Jane Eyre'.

In this world there are no jet-liners or computers, but there are policemen who can travel across time, a Welsh republic, a great interest in all things literary - and a woman called Thursday Next.

In this utterly original and wonderfully funny first novel, Fforde has created a fiesty, loveable heroine and a plot of such richness and ingenuity that it will take your breath away.

©2001 Jasper Fforde (P)2013 Hodder & Stoughotn

Critic reviews

"What Fforde is pulling is a variation on the classic Monty Python gambit: the incongruous juxtaposition of low comedy and high erudition - this scam has not been pulled off with such off-hand finesse and manic verve since the Pythons shut up shop. 'The Eyre Affair'is a silly book for smart people: postmodernism played as raw, howling farce." ( Independant)

P.G. Wodehouse-style sci-fi

Well-written, enthralling, ludicrous, and very British from start to finish. Lots of fun. Splendid performance.

Jasper Fforde: An Interesting Read

The Eyre Affair is a remarkably amusing book that is a testament to the intriguing writing of Jasper Fforde. His writings are akin to those of the literary genius of Terry Pratchett with crazy worlds, mixed up magic and insane parallel universes.

The main character of 'The Eyre Affair' is one Thursday Next, a Literary Detective whose job is to police the literary world and prevent fake or bootleg copies of Literary works from entering the literature market. This book is set on a parallel version of Earth where the Crimean War is still being fought in 1985, cloning kits for animals like Thylacines and Dodos are available over the counter and Literature is the defining interest of the world's population. Thursday Next's life is sent into a dive by an encounter with the demonic Acheron Hades and is sent into a series of events that lead her to love, The Socialist Republic of Wales and the pages of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.

I Found the book a highly amusing read and believe that Jasper Fforde's writing is incredibly clever and engaging and it well deserves the epithets of "playfully irreverent", "delightfully daft", "whoppingly imaginative" and "a work of ... startling originality".

Great fun!

Love the writing style and humour! Looking forward to read the next book by Fforde.

so much breathing and mouth smacking

she rushes through, speaking way too fast, with so many audible breaths and mouth noises... way to ruin a great story

Loved it

I've listened to this a bunch of times. A few of the jokes don't translate because they are print based but the rest is great.
And I love the performance. I could listen to her voice all day.
I even like the musical intro!

Enjoyed the story, but….

Entertaining story. Lots of imaginative twists and turns. The production needs some quality control: there are at least two repeats of text due to recording overlaps.

Story is great, but is let down by performance

I really wanted to get into this story, but unfortunately the performance is too distracting for me.

- Female voices often have a deeper tone than male voices, thus generating a large disparity between my perception and the book. This created numerous clashes for me... essentially whenever a male character was introduced.
- When a change of location or character focus occurs there is little to distinguish between the two in terms of sound, generating a sense of confusion.

While such performance style may be fine with simpler stories, the context of the book is already quite confronting in its amusing and warped perspective, it really needs a good performance that can work with it, as oppossed to against it.

In all, i would love to see this narrative paired with a more appropriate performer.

That's it for me, I'm out.

I agree with other people’s assessment that this was a great idea with a lousy execution. I had a lot of difficulties following the plot, it felt all over the place to me; just as I was getting into it, it would veer off on another tangent.

I’m disappointed because the premise really was interesting! I won’t be sticking with this series.

Just not my cup of tea

Stories like this are definitely a love it or hate it variety. I personally, hated it. I just can't get into what feels a bit like overly forced stretches of the imagination. It feels like the author is trying to take real materials and have fun changing them just a little bit every single chance he gets. And that to me feels forced and false. So I just didn't get into it.