The Well of Lost Plots - Jasper Fforde

I'm currently re-reading Jasper Fforde's The Well of Lost Plots. What has particularly struck me on this reading is the cleverness of the idea of book characters having a life of their own outside that prescribed by the text of the book. Just as in the Toy Story(1) and Toy Story 2 films, where Andy's toys have a life of their own when he's not playing with them, so too the characters of various books in Fforde's universe have a life of their own that is not seen by their readers. This is a very imaginative concept in terms of books, and I confess that I rather like the idea of specially trained people (called Jurisfiction Agents) being able to read themselves into books in order to fix plot holes, have conversations with characters or even change the ending as Thursday Next did to Jane Eyre in Fforde's first book, The Eyre Affair. According to Fforde, the book originally ended with Jane marrying St. John Rivers, instead of racing off to find Rochester and marrying him; remember the mysterious voice which Jane suddenly heard calling her name ? According to Fforde that was the voice of his character, Thursday. In The Well of Lost Plots, Thursday fixes the ending of Enid Blyton's Shadow the Sheepdog so that he recovers his sight after being blinded during the course of the story.

Reading Fforde's books leaves the reader thinking because he challenges the accepted norms of books. The whole idea of their being a Well of Lost Plots for instance, or a Text Sea into which unpublished books are eventually cast, or a Library that contains a copy of every single book that has ever been written, is a fascinating one. Although I feel that Fforde's later books lost their edge in terms of humour, they are still a fascinating and challenging read because of the ideas he packs into them.

(1 Can you believe that Toy Story is now 10 years old ?! And did you know that Joss Whedon has a screenplay writing credit for it ?)