Fiction: “Lost in a Good Book” by Jasper Fforde

The perils of revisiting a book ten months after reading it: No memory of the plot, and all of the dogears are references to other jokes and not to the actual story.

Oh well.

As best as I can recall, Lost in a Good Book takes place almost directly after the end of The Eyre Affair – Thursday has married her love, Landon, and they’re getting used to domesticity. Except Thursday is also getting tired of being the face of SpecOps and having to endure TV shows and other interviews to talk about how she altered the ending of Jane Eyre (and the bigger discussion, is this ending better or worse than the original?).

She and her SpecOps partner, Bowden Cable, think they may have found an authentic copy of Shakespeare’s missing manuscript, Cardenio. Which is cool! And I’ve even read another book about it a very very long time ago!

But then, a member of the Goliath Corporation decides to eradicate Landon from the timeline, as a way to blackmail Thursday into going back into “The Raven” and releasing Jack Schitt, the big bad from The Eyre Affair. Except that Thursday’s uncle Mycroft had destroyed the Prose Portal, so there’s no way to get back into books.

Or so Thursday thinks.

Turns out, there’s a group of detectives that have found a way to jump in and out of books – they’re called Jurisfiction, and the group consists of a mix of fictional characters (including the Cheshire Cat and Miss Havisham), authors (Ambrose Bierce) and regular people (Thursday Next). Thursday gets paired up with Miss Havisham for a mentor and lemme tell ya, when the only image of Miss Havisham you have in your head is Gillian Anderson’s amazing turn as the character –

YOU’RE GONNA HAVE A GOOD TIME.

So the three plots keep intersecting – the attempt to verify Cardenio, Thursday looking for Landon, and her training into the Jurisfiction unit. Plus, Thursday is due to appear in a Trial straight out of Kafka concerning her mucking around with the end of Jane Eyre, plus her lost-in-time-travel father is warning her that the end of the world is upon them.

To say the book has a lot going on would be an understatement. But then you have to throw in a whole bunch of literary references and puns and … and no wonder I can’t remember much of this!

It’s also hard to realize that even if you are lucky (or unlucky, depending on your relationship with reading the classics) enough to recognize some of these references, you then have to remember that this entire book takes place in a crazy alternate universe where books don’t end the way you think.

I mean, there’s the example from the previous book, where, before Thursday ended up in the novel, Jane stayed with St. John and never returned to Rochester. But then when this universe tries to make sense of weird things that actually happened –

“When you get before the magistrate, just deny everything and play dumb. I’m trying to get the case postponed on the grounds of strong reader approval.”

“Will that work?”

“It worked when Falstaff made his illegal jump to The Merry Wives of Windsor and proceeded to dominate and alter the story. We thought he’d be sent packing back to Henry IV, Part 2. But no, his move was approved.” [p. 164]

See?? Unless you know that Falstaff was Henry’s friend in Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, and then dies offstage in Henry V – oh sorry, spoiler alert – but then Shakespeare decided to plunk him down in The Merry Wives of Windsor, just because it would be funny? This joke might not land.

[But for all us Shakespeare nerds out there – this is an even better joke:]

“Item two: There is an illegal PageRunner from Shakespeare, so this is a priority red. Perp’s name is Feste; worked as a jester in Twelfth Night. Took flight after a debauched night with Sir Toby. Who wants to go after him?”

A hand went up in the crowd.

“Fabien? Thanks. You may have to stand in for him for a while; take Falstaff with you, but please, Sir John – stay out of sight. You’ve been allowed to stay in Merry Wives, but don’t push your luck.” [p. 292]

I really like the concept of these books. I like the alternate universe, I really like Thursday Next (though I don’t talk about her much – sorry), and I enjoy the little in-jokes that the author sprinkles through the novel like Easter eggs. But I think what I need to do, someday, is sit down and read the series back to back (and not like, six years in between books or whatever it was) so I can have a cohesive view of the series.

It’s good, though – if you see this series, try it, I think you’ll like it.

Grade for Lost in a Good Book: 3 stars

Fiction: “The Martian” by Andy Weir

Two Oscar!Watch titles down, two to go! (and then another six books after that, and guys, I am now imposing a deadline upon myself: I need to get caught up with this shit before my sister’s wedding. I do not have time for further dilly-dallying. I mean, good news, the TV season will end soon, and also, I’m currently reading Alexander Hamilton, and that is an 800-page beast. So hopefully, I’ll get caught up with my books by the time I have to drive down to D.C. to pick up a Very Important Photographer, because once I punch out of work on that Friday, there ain’t gonna be no Alaina-Time until June.)

I saw The Martian when it came out last October, and holy shit, you guys – if you haven’t seen the movie, you need to. It was my favorite movie of 2015 until I saw The Force Awakens, and look, if you want to send me off on a rant, then go ahead and get me started on how the fuck the fucking Revenant got nominated for Best Picture when The Force Awakens made me feel ALL THE FEELINGS and the fucking Revenant only made me feel fucking ANGRY.

Someday, when I have either more time or less of a life, I will create the Alaina Awards, in which I reward movies that truly deserve it. And first up for a Reparations Oscar (am I allowed to use that word? God, I hope so) is The Force Awakens.

(I mean, Spotlight was amazing and I’m still exceptionally happy that it did win Best Picture. But The Force Awakens! BB-8, YOU GUYS – BB-8 FOR BEST ACTOR)

Okay. So. Anyway. The Martian. I saw it, and lo, it was amazing. And then I read the book.

The story is about Mark Watney, the engineer-botanist astronaut in a team of astronauts who have been sent on a mission to study Mars. I shouldn’t have to point out that this is science-fiction, but I’m going to anyway. And I should also point out that it’s really fiction that’s heavily-steeped in science, as opposed to fantastical elements. The only Martian in the story is Watney.

Not too far into the astronaut’s mission on the planet’s surface, a dust-storm brews up, and they have to evacuate back to Earth prematurely. En route to the evacuation vehicle, Watney gets knocked off course by debris, and the crew are forced to leave him behind, believing him to have died on impact. They load up into the evacuation vehicle, link up with the shuttle, and depart for Earth.

Watney, however, wakes up the next day to his space suit beeping at him, warning him of his dangerously low oxygen levels. The debris that hit him was a bar of rebar (or something), and while the impact punctured his suit, the hole in the suit was also sealed enough by his blood and stuff to allow Watney to continue breathing while unconscious. He manages to crawl his way back to the Hab (the habitation quarters for the astronauts), suture his wound by himself, and then realize that he’s alive and alone on Mars.

Watney discovers that the storm knocked out all communication with Earth – the evac vehicle had a good amount of the communications devices, but the backup satellites were damaged and are unable to be repaired. So Watney has no way to tell NASA or his co-astronauts that he survived the storm.

So now, he’s truly on Mars. Alone.

But instead of committing suicide, he knows that the next mission to Mars is in approximately 500 sols (Mars-days, slightly longer than an Earth-day). He knows where he is, and he knows where the landing site is going to be, and he knows he can get there. But how can he spare his rations to live that long?

Remember when I said that Watney was a botanist? And conveniently, NASA sent up pre-packaged Thanksgiving dinners, complete with actual potatoes. Watney comes up with a plan to cover the Hab floor with makeshift soil so he can plant potatoes in the simulated Earth atmosphere. But what about water? Well …

Watney records his journey and travails in the Sol Log – astronauts record their doings and discoveries in a log, and even though this is now practically Mission: Watney, Watney continues the tradition. The majority of the book is Watney’s log entries, but there are chapters that return to Earth or the astronauts who are on their way back home.

About a third of the way into the book, an overnight observer at NASA realizes that one of the small rovers near the Hab has been moved since the evacuation. She keeps an eye on it, and sure enough, it moves a bit every day. She brings this information to her supervisor, and that’s when they realize that Watney’s still alive – this after the head of NASA had announced his tragic death.

But because there’s limited communication, NASA doesn’t know how Watney’s doing, or even what he’s doing. Conversely, Watney doesn’t know that NASA figured out he’s alive. But Watney, like a lot of us human beings, has an intense drive to survive. So dammit, that’s what he’s going to do.

His first step after figuring out how to grow potatoes in Martian soil is to retrofit one of the rovers for a longer journey. He then takes that rover and travels about twenty sols (because rovers really don’t move that fast) and rescues the Mars Pathfinder rover. When the NASA scientists realize what he’s doing, they contact their top tech guys at Jet Propulsion Labs (JPL) to get the MS-DOS stored on Pathfinder to work again, and this gives them communication back to Watney.

The entire book is filled with that type of stuff: something happens on Mars. Watney deals with it. NASA figures out what Watney’s doing, figures out ways to help Watney from Earth. Something else happens, so now both Watney and NASA are on to Plan D.

This is an awesome story, even if at more than a couple of points, I almost shouted, “What the fuck ELSE could go wrong?!” Because there are a lot of things that go wrong. But I do want to reassure everyone that Watney gets brought home.

The film steers very close to the book – what I liked about the film is we could actually see the science behind Watney’s problem-solvings, although the book does a very good job about describing those concepts. (It’s much more user-friendly than The Big Short was in that regard.)

What I really enjoyed about the book and the movie is the character of Mark Watney. He’s a scientist that’s funny, that can make pop culture references, be relatable, and also competent in the face of danger. We don’t always get his “scared” emotions in the book, because we’re hearing about most of the events through Watney’s log entries, and he’s trying to put on a brave face for the NASA recorders who will have to read them once they’re transmitted back to Earth. The movie does take those moments to show how scared Watney is in the face of almost certain doom, which I appreciated.

But the best part of the book, the movie, and the character of Mark Watney himself: are his quotes.

You may have seen this one before, but the juxtaposition is just … so priceless.  The ‘Teddy’ is the chairman (or whatever) of NASA, and Venkat(*) is the lead scientist on the Ares 3 mission.

Teddy swiveled his chair and looked out the window to the sky beyond. Night was edging in. “What must it be like?” he pondered. “He’s stuck out there. He thinks he’s totally alone and that we all gave up on him. What kind of effect does that have on a man’s psychology?”

He turned back to Venkat. “I wonder what he’s thinking right now.”

LOG ENTRY: SOL 61

How come Aquaman can control whales? They’re mammals! Makes no sense. [p. 76]

When NASA and Watney are finally able to exchange emails, we get to see how Watney interacts with the rest of his crew and the scientists back on Earth. Their communications are illuminating.

In other news, I got an e-mail from Venkat Kapoor:

Mark, some answers to your earlier questions:

No, we will not tell our Botany Team to “Go fuck themselves.” I understand you’ve been on your own for a long time, but we’re in the loop now, and it’s best if you listen to what we have to say.

The Cubs finished the season at the bottom of the NL Central.

The data transfer rate just isn’t good enough for the size of music files, even in compressed formats. So your request for “Anything, oh God, ANYTHING but Disco” is denied. Enjoy your boogie fever.  [p. 176]

Mark Watney’s sense of humor has been described as “black humor.” I can attest to that, based on his dining options for his trek to the Ares 4 launch site:

I saved five meal packs for special occasions. I wrote their names on each one. I get to eat “Departure” the day I leave for Schiaparelli. I’ll eat “Halfway” when I reach the 1600-kilometer mark, and “Arrival” when I get there.

The fourth one is “Survived Something That Should Have Killed Me” because some fucking thing will happen, I just know it. I don’t know what it’ll be, but it’ll happen. The rover will break down, or I’ll come down with fatal hemorrhoids, or I’ll run into hostile Martians, or some shit. When I do (if I live), I get to eat that meal pack. [p. 309]

And as if anyone needed any additional proof that Mark Watney is my fictional, botanist engineer counterpart:

[11:49] JPL: What we can see of your planned cut looks good. We’re assuming the other side is identical. You’re cleared to start drilling.
[12:07] WATNEY: That’s what she said.
[12:25] JPL: Seriously, Mark? Seriously?  [p. 260]

(*) The only choice the filmmakers did that I wasn’t appreciative of was the name change of Dr. Venkat Kapoor to Vincent Kapoor. There was no need to Anglicize the character’s name: making that change did not affect the plot, or the characterization. Dear Hollywood: quit doing that. Love, Alaina.

Everything else was good, though.

Grade for The Martian (book): 4 stars
Grade for The Martian (film): 5 stars

Fiction: “The Eyre Affair” by Jasper Fforde

Y’know, I’ve decided to stop apologizing for how “late” these reviews are. First of all, what makes them late? The fact that I finished the book nearly a month ago? I’m not on a set schedule; I don’t get paid for writing these in a “timely” “manner.” And look, seeing as how I’m currently struggling through The Mysteries of Udolpho to the point where it’s taken me six weeks to read three hundred pages, I don’t think I’m going to finish that before I finish at least a couple more of these. So without further ado, here is my next review.

(I’m also not going to apologize for using quotation marks as finger-quotes.)

A few months ago, Erica of NYC Bookworm had read The Eyre Affair. I had read that book a couple of times in the past (all predating That’s What She Read), and I was about to offer my insight when … I couldn’t find my copy. Anywhere. I had the next two books in the series in my bookcase, but not the first one. What? Did I lend it to someone who never gave it back? Is that person reading this now? Are they realizing that yes, they do have Alaina’s book? Are they feeling guilty about possibly never reading it? Are they?

Well, don’t worry about it. Because God bless Bull Moose, you guys – not only did I find another copy of The Eyre Affair there, and not only was it on sale for $2.97 (!), but it was also a hardcover (!!) in fantastic condition (!!!). Seriously, if you live near a Bull Moose (Mainers and New Hampshire-ites only, sadly), you should totally go to there.

Now, I would almost classify The Eyre Affair as science-fiction. Almost. There are sci-fi elements (cloning, travel between both time and space), but it still feels like literary fiction to me. I’m not sure I can explain it better than that. So for those individuals who can’t “get into” sci-fi, I still think you should give this book a chance, because I don’t find the sci-fi elements to overpower the rest of the story. [Note from the future: this statement turns out to be a lie.]

In the universe of The Eyre Affair, it is the late 1980s in Britain. Britain and Russia have been involved in the War for the Crimea for nearly a hundred years, and almost every able-bodied character has done their tour of duty in the war-torn region. Upon discharge from the Army, Lt. Thursday Next has gone into the Literatec police – one who investigates literary crimes, such as copyright infringement, counterfeit manuscripts, and complaints about how a book ends.

In this universe, the Brits take their literature seriously. Very seriously. There are museums dedicated to famous authors. I want to say that Shakespeare’s birthday is treated as a national holiday? (I say “I want to say” because I wrote this draft longhand at work on my breaks and when this database I’m working on gets boring, and also, I … may have misplaced that book again.  Goddammit. [Note from the future: this statement also turns out to be a lie; I found the book when I got home. Hooray!]) There is a theater in Swindon where everyone goes to reenact Richard III. As in, every person in Swindon knows every word to Richard III, and can play any role at any time. If that’s not a Shakespeare nerd’s dream, I don’t know what is.

Thursday is stagnating as a Level 27 Literatec when she gets tapped to help capture the most diabolical villain this version of Britain has ever seen: her former literature professor, Acheron Hades. (Fun Fact!: I almost called this character Dante Hicks. I was so close, and yet so very, very far.) Acheron kidnaps the original manuscript of Charles Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit and attempts to hold it ransom. Thursday helps the other Special Ops department (SpecOps for short), and in the ensuing stakeout, well – as Paul Smecker once so eloquently put things:

(I have got to rewatch that movie. Seriously.)

In the aftermath of the firefight — in which Thursday is rescued by a friend from her past who leaves her with a handkerchief monogrammed EFR — she hallucinates a vision of herself, driving a flashy roadster directly into her hospital room, telling herself to take the Literatec job in Swindon, her hometown.

Thursday listens to herself and transfers to Swindon, where she reconnects with her mother (who wants her daughter to get reinvolved with her ex-fiance, Landon), her Aunt Polly, and her inventor uncle, Mycroft. Mycroft is in the process of showing her his latest invention when Thursday’s called away; that invention turns out to be the Prose Portal, which pays a huge part in the rest of the story.

The Prose Portal opens a door into a work of literature. To demonstrate: Mycroft hooks a copy of Wordsworth’s poem, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” to the Portal, and the door opens, and Polly is able to cross the threshold and visit the landscape and interact with Wordsworth himself. Since the poem is written in the first person, the version of Wordsworth that acts as the narrator of the poem would be in the landscape along with the scenery. Eventually, Acheron Hades comes across the Prose Portal and steals it, complete with Polly trapped inside the poem, and then hooks up the original manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit to the Portal. He steps in and kidnaps a minor character, and then kills him, erasing him from the book completely.

See, if the Prose Portal is hooked up to a copy of a work (like Polly’s copy of the Wordsworth poem), someone can explore and interact with things but it won’t change the original work. It will be like me hooking my copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone to the Portal so I can play Quidditch when everyone else is looking for the troll in the dungeon. The book is still following Harry and the gang, and since no one’s paying attention to the Quidditch field … endless goals for Hufflepuff! I mean, guys – WE COULD ALL PLAY AT HOGWARTS WITH THIS THING.

And aren’t we all just a teensy bit proud that I did not say anything about hooking The Silence of the Lambs up to the Prose Portal, considering my show comes back in FIVE FREAKING DAYS?!!

ANYWAY. If you were to hook up an original manuscript to the Portal, any action that directly interferes with the narration of the novel will affect the novel. So when Acheron then steals the original manuscript of Jane Eyre and kidnaps the narrator right out of her own book, all copies of the novel stop on page 110 or something.

Okay, maybe I lied about the sci-fi elements. I’ll admit, walking through a door into a book and stealing the main character and having all copies of the book simultaneously lose the rest of the book is pretty out there. It’s also pretty freaking cool, but still very weird.

I should also mention that, in this universe, Jane Eyre has a different ending. (For reference, check out my review [or, rather, recap] of Jane Eyre from when I read it back in 2011.) In Thursday Next’s version, Jane does not return to Rochester at Ferndean; she goes with St. John to India. Bertha Mason does not burn the house down, and Jane does not hear a voice calling her from across the moors. You can probably guess, however, how this version gets changed into our version; it involves the Prose Portal, and Thursday crossing the threshold to help out.

Two things and then I’m going to start rewatching Season 2 of My Show:

1) How much do I adore Edward Rochester? SO MUCH. Look, I admit that I do need to reread Pride & Prejudice and I’ll get right on that (not). But given a choice between Rochester and Darcy, I’m going to take Rochester every fucking time. Rochester is broody, sarcastic, experiences emotions deeply, and can be very loving. Darcy is a snob who, admittedly, comes to his senses, but he professes his love in a letter, whereas Rochester eventually confesses in a thunderstorm. Granted, if Rochester was played by Colin Firth, we’d have what is known as a win-win situation. But seriously: ROCHESTER.

And in The Eyre Affair, we see an even better version of Rochester. He’s still broody to Jane and Adele, but when Jane’s narration takes her away from Rochester, he is charming and helpful to Thursday. He is a valuable ally and friend to Thursday. Basically he’s awesome, and just reinforces my belief that Virginia Woolf continues to be wrong about Jane Eyre being a lesser novel to Pride & Prejudice, even this long after her death.

2) Similar to how Bridget Jones’s Diary took a modern spin of Pride & Prejudice, Thursday Next is not without her Jane Eyre-esque love triangle. She finds herself enjoying herself with Landon, even though she’s not sure she wants to get back together with him. Meanwhile, her partner in the Swindon office, Bowden Cable, is clearly set up to be Thursday’s version of St. John Rivers. And that should tell you who she ends up with, so yay, mystery solved!

Overall, I really like this book. It has such an interesting take on a very unique universe (oh crap and I didn’t even get into the whole War with the Crimea and weapons advancement and — oh well, read it yourself!) — I just want to go to there and live.

Preferably in a version with my own Rochester. I’m just saying, if I’m wishing, I might as well go big or go home.

Grade for The Eyre Affair: 4 stars