The Fourth Bear blew my mind.
I had thought that the Ffordian brilliance of a Rocky Horror Richard III from the Eyre Affair ("WHEN is the winter of our discontent?" "NOW! is the winter of our discontent") could never be matched, but oh, how wrong I was.
Plot-devise twenty-six. Pippa Pepper. The cucumbers, my god, the cucumbers. I was laughing so hard people were staring. (Warning: Reading Jasper Fforde's books in public will cause people to gape at you like you're a lunatic. This is not your fault, the book's fault, or the author's fault. Blame the people who are doing the gaping. They clearly do not have sufficient respect for the glory of the written word. Of course you are laughing. You are reading one of the funniest books in the world.)
Detective Jack Spratt (with his powerful aversion to fat) and his Sergeant Mary Mary (not quite as contrary as you might expect) investigate the mysterious disappearance of a certain golden-locked reporter while the psychotic killer the Gingerbreadman runs and runs as fast as he can out of the maximum security nut-house that has held him since the dastardly cookie (cake?) was first apprehended in this brilliant opus of ridiculous fiction.
And now that I've hyped it up beyond all belief, you won't like it. Isn't that always the way? This is why my dad didn't like Star Wars when he first saw it. Too much hype.
So, if you are planning on reading the book: The second book in the Nursery Crimes series by Jasper Fforde is a distinctly mediocre book. Expect to yawn, but give it a go anyway. It might be somewhat better than your pathetically low expectations.
And if you are not planning on reading the book: What are you thinking? Don't you realize that this is one of the treasures of modern fiction? A masterpiece of the written word? You fool! Go, buy the book! Buy it now! Then read the above notation marked "So, if you are planning on reading the book..."
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2 comments:
I *heart* Jasper Fforde. And I prefer the Nursery Crime series to the Thursday Next stories. Thursday got too sad and complicated by the third one. He's not the most even of writers, but I'm still hooked.
Yeah, the third Thursday book was not a high point, but I was pleased with the way he ended the series in Something Rotten. Hamlet, we always knew he was funny...
Of course, then he had to ruin the game by writing the another Next book, which is currently languishing on my TBR pile.
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