Literary franchises
Literary franchises
Updated 04:59am (Mla time) Nov 21, 2004
By Rina Jimenez-David
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the November 21, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
IT was Bibeth Orteza who first alerted me to a literary franchise that is apparently taking the reading world by storm. "You must look for this guy Fforde," said Bibeth. "He writes mysteries set inside famous books and literary characters make an appearance. Nakakatuwa!"
Bibeth's enthusiastic recommendation triggered a memory: a review of a book called "Something Rotten" where a literary detective works with, among others, Hamlet the Prince of Denmark. I remember reading the rave review and telling myself I should get hold of a copy.
It turns out that "Something Rotten" is the latest-and heftiest-volume of Jasper Fforde's novels about Thursday Next, who at the start of "Something Rotten" is the head of Jurisfiction, "the policing agency that operates within fiction to safeguard the stability of the written word."
Having just finished this latest installment, I can assure potential readers that you can begin with "Something Rotten" and still follow the crooked chronology of Thursday's voyages through the world of fiction and of Swindon, the English city that is her temporal home. In this one volume alone, readers travel back and forth and even sideways through time, even as characters from the past, present and future materialize and disappear with little notice or reason.
Still, "Something Rotten" is not the mess it may appear to be. There is method in Fforde's madness, and order in the "alternate" reality he creates within the world of Thursday Next, her family, friends, workmates and enemies. Though I have read only one in the series of four (so far) books, I can promise that people who love books, who take fictional characters to heart, and who gladly surrender themselves to the invented reality that authors beguile us with, will find plenty to laugh at, empathize with and be touched by.
* * *
"SOMETHING ROTTEN" and the other Thursday Next novels should be on the reading list of every literature major, and of every caring reader for that matter. Though one gets the sense that Fford is showing off, it's fairly obvious that he regards the written word, but especially fiction, with fondness and familiarity. And characters, even in the most revered of classics, are to him not icons but real people, with real people's weaknesses, foolishness and insecurities.
In "Something Rotten," Hamlet is allowed to step out of his play so he could "see for himself" if it was true that he was being "misrepresented as something of a 'ditherer' in the Outland." While "fictional characters are rarely troubled by public perception," the author notes, "Hamlet would worry about having nothing to worry about if he had nothing to worry about." Unfortunately, the world Hamlet visits is currently in the grip of anti-Danish fever so the Prince of Denmark must pass himself off as Thursday's "Cousin Eddie." A most amusing portion is when Thursday and Hamlet drop by Swindon's version of Starbucks and the prince is caught in the horns of a dilemma: "To espresso or to latte, that is the question...whether 'tis tastier on the palate to choose white mocha over plain, or to take a cup and go..."
I am, by the way, doing a bit of time-shifting myself through Fforde's world, having started with the last book and getting ready to read the second volume, "Lost in a Good Book." I'll have to take a chance on making sense of Thursday Next's history when I read through "The Eyre Affair" and "The Well of Lost Plots," but of one thing I'm sure: I'll have great fun in the process.
* * *
ANOTHER literary franchise worth tracking is the "No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency" series, set in Botswana and featuring the plucky and utterly sensible Precious Ramotswe, "Botswana's only-and finest-female private detective."
The series is authored by Alexander McCall Smith, a professor of medical law in Scotland and noted bioethicist who was born in Zimbabwe and lived for a spell in Botswana. His fondness for the land of his childhood is quite obvious. He paints Precious and her people with a simplicity that rarely crosses the line into condescension.
When her father dies and leaves her with an inheritance of a herd of cattle, which in Botswana is considered good as gold, Precious decides it's time to follow her dreams, which is to be a private detective even if she must send for a "manual on detection" to acquaint herself with the basics of the trade. Selling off her father's cattle and buying a small house just outside her village's boundary to house her agency, Mma Ramotswe establishes herself as her country's first woman private eye, with her first (and only) employee, the redoubtable Mma Makutsi, who finished at the top of her secretarial class but finds potential employers are more interested in a woman's looks rather than her typing skills.
* * *
I HAD the good fortune of following the series in the right order, beginning with "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency," and the sequel, "Tears of the Giraffe," both books accompanying me through long plane voyages to and from London. I also have with me an unopened copy of the third book in the series, "Morality for Beautiful Girls," which the blurbs say has to do with mysterious mishaps during a beauty contest.
Each book consists of a series of mysteries and investigations that Precious is commissioned to solve or at least embark on, with plenty of help from her ever-reliable fianc‚, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. But it is not just the suspense or intrigue that keeps one enthralled with this fictional franchise set in Africa. It is, rather, the humanity and humility of the village folk, their simple take on the world, and their commonsensical views on life, that keep us interested in the goings-on at the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency.
Updated 04:59am (Mla time) Nov 21, 2004
By Rina Jimenez-David
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the November 21, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
IT was Bibeth Orteza who first alerted me to a literary franchise that is apparently taking the reading world by storm. "You must look for this guy Fforde," said Bibeth. "He writes mysteries set inside famous books and literary characters make an appearance. Nakakatuwa!"
Bibeth's enthusiastic recommendation triggered a memory: a review of a book called "Something Rotten" where a literary detective works with, among others, Hamlet the Prince of Denmark. I remember reading the rave review and telling myself I should get hold of a copy.
It turns out that "Something Rotten" is the latest-and heftiest-volume of Jasper Fforde's novels about Thursday Next, who at the start of "Something Rotten" is the head of Jurisfiction, "the policing agency that operates within fiction to safeguard the stability of the written word."
Having just finished this latest installment, I can assure potential readers that you can begin with "Something Rotten" and still follow the crooked chronology of Thursday's voyages through the world of fiction and of Swindon, the English city that is her temporal home. In this one volume alone, readers travel back and forth and even sideways through time, even as characters from the past, present and future materialize and disappear with little notice or reason.
Still, "Something Rotten" is not the mess it may appear to be. There is method in Fforde's madness, and order in the "alternate" reality he creates within the world of Thursday Next, her family, friends, workmates and enemies. Though I have read only one in the series of four (so far) books, I can promise that people who love books, who take fictional characters to heart, and who gladly surrender themselves to the invented reality that authors beguile us with, will find plenty to laugh at, empathize with and be touched by.
* * *
"SOMETHING ROTTEN" and the other Thursday Next novels should be on the reading list of every literature major, and of every caring reader for that matter. Though one gets the sense that Fford is showing off, it's fairly obvious that he regards the written word, but especially fiction, with fondness and familiarity. And characters, even in the most revered of classics, are to him not icons but real people, with real people's weaknesses, foolishness and insecurities.
In "Something Rotten," Hamlet is allowed to step out of his play so he could "see for himself" if it was true that he was being "misrepresented as something of a 'ditherer' in the Outland." While "fictional characters are rarely troubled by public perception," the author notes, "Hamlet would worry about having nothing to worry about if he had nothing to worry about." Unfortunately, the world Hamlet visits is currently in the grip of anti-Danish fever so the Prince of Denmark must pass himself off as Thursday's "Cousin Eddie." A most amusing portion is when Thursday and Hamlet drop by Swindon's version of Starbucks and the prince is caught in the horns of a dilemma: "To espresso or to latte, that is the question...whether 'tis tastier on the palate to choose white mocha over plain, or to take a cup and go..."
I am, by the way, doing a bit of time-shifting myself through Fforde's world, having started with the last book and getting ready to read the second volume, "Lost in a Good Book." I'll have to take a chance on making sense of Thursday Next's history when I read through "The Eyre Affair" and "The Well of Lost Plots," but of one thing I'm sure: I'll have great fun in the process.
* * *
ANOTHER literary franchise worth tracking is the "No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency" series, set in Botswana and featuring the plucky and utterly sensible Precious Ramotswe, "Botswana's only-and finest-female private detective."
The series is authored by Alexander McCall Smith, a professor of medical law in Scotland and noted bioethicist who was born in Zimbabwe and lived for a spell in Botswana. His fondness for the land of his childhood is quite obvious. He paints Precious and her people with a simplicity that rarely crosses the line into condescension.
When her father dies and leaves her with an inheritance of a herd of cattle, which in Botswana is considered good as gold, Precious decides it's time to follow her dreams, which is to be a private detective even if she must send for a "manual on detection" to acquaint herself with the basics of the trade. Selling off her father's cattle and buying a small house just outside her village's boundary to house her agency, Mma Ramotswe establishes herself as her country's first woman private eye, with her first (and only) employee, the redoubtable Mma Makutsi, who finished at the top of her secretarial class but finds potential employers are more interested in a woman's looks rather than her typing skills.
* * *
I HAD the good fortune of following the series in the right order, beginning with "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency," and the sequel, "Tears of the Giraffe," both books accompanying me through long plane voyages to and from London. I also have with me an unopened copy of the third book in the series, "Morality for Beautiful Girls," which the blurbs say has to do with mysterious mishaps during a beauty contest.
Each book consists of a series of mysteries and investigations that Precious is commissioned to solve or at least embark on, with plenty of help from her ever-reliable fianc‚, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. But it is not just the suspense or intrigue that keeps one enthralled with this fictional franchise set in Africa. It is, rather, the humanity and humility of the village folk, their simple take on the world, and their commonsensical views on life, that keep us interested in the goings-on at the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency.
posted by Dante at 4:59 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home