Sometime in the not too distant future, "something" happened which caused the progress of society to halt and humanity to start devolving. Set at least 500 years from now, the humans of Fforde's novel have decreased ability to view the full spectrum of colour, pupils of their eyes are so tiny that they cannot see at all in the night and who live in a world that I imagined to be somewhat like the village Belle lives in Disney's Beauty and the Beast as the conveniences we have today have been removed by "leapbacks" by the government (items that have been leapbacked include bicycles with gears, most cars, all but one train line, most phones and the computer)- also there is a severe spoon shortage plaguing humanity. The world is run on a strict set of rules established by Munsell (named after the colour system) who is the founder of the society as seen in the novel. The society of the novel also runs along strict class divides based on the level of an individual's ability to see colour and what colour that is (people can see one or two only). People are split along colour lines into primary and secondary colours and grey. Peoples' names are derived from their colour, the towns and villages are ruled by a head prefect who is purple and three other prefects from the three primary colours, and the greys, who cannot see colour, are the lowest of the low and are therefore the workhorses on whom society is built. Yikes a lot of backstory!
Now to the actual plot, 20 year old Eddie Russett is or was a red on the way up. He is on the verge of his Ishihara- the test that establishes how strongly you see colour and what colour you can see (named for the colour blindness test of the same name)- and is sure that he will register a high enough percentage to be a red prefect one day. He is also on a half promise to marry Constance Oxblood- a strong red from a line of strong reds (unlike his Russett line which has some grey in its recent past)- and yes arranged marriage and doweries are back in favour by the future in which this novel is set. Unfortunately Eddie cheesed off some big wig in his hometown of Jade-On-Lime and so has to accompany his father (a swatchman i.e. a doctor) to the far off town of East Carmine to regains some humility by conducting a chair census. On the way as a chance encounter he meets Jane G23, a grey with a "cute" nose who threatens to break his jaw, and he is smitten. He and his father arrive in the backwaters of East Carmine to discover that the swatchman his father is supposed to be filling in for has died following self- misdiagnosis, Jane G23 is their maid and there is a naked man (who for the sake of Munsell's rules must be treated as invisible) living in the upper floor of their house, and don't forget the locals are just the right mix of the odd, the insane and the scamming. Pretty soon, Eddie is being scammed out of his return ticket to Jade-on-Lime, finding that anything can be sold in East Carmine, and that society might not fall into the clear rainbow he thought it did.
So why the sudden addition of what is clearly a quite complicated bit of sci fi/fantasy to my list of novels? I picked this up a few weeks ago- after setting the list- and it has been lying in my flat calling to me to read it since them- seriously it talks or maybe it's just the insanely colourful cover. I've found that there are three schools of thought on Fforde's novels-the enlightened, the dimwitted and the unaware. The enlightened (yes that includes me) have read more than one and love the crazy postmodern worlds and are happy to suspend their disbelief and go along for the ride; the dimwitted just don't get it; and the unaware haven't had a chance to yet as they haven't read any yet (if you are in the latter camp, do yourself a favour and find a copy of The Eyre Affair- it'll change your life). This book represents the first in what will be a new series for Fforde following the Thursday Next series and the Nursery Crime series and I would warn that it probably best to get into Fforde's other series before attempting this one as it is a bit of a leap if you aren't already aware of what to expect from Fforde. I'm going to steal from the critics whose comments are on the copy I read and add a bit to the mix when I say it is part Orwellian dystopia (the critics said 1984 and I agree but the oft repeated Munsell catch phrase of "Apart We Are Together" did remind me a little of the way the sheep repeat "Four Legs Good, Two Legs Baaaaad" in Animal Farm), part Wizard of Oz (after Glinda hits the Technicolor switch) and part Hitchhiker's Guide (the spoons thing- oddly at this very minute talking to someone on facebook about younguns being ignorant of Hitchhiker's Guide)- critics also compared it to Brave New World but I've not read it (please don't comment on that being a crime, I'm well aware it being one). I'm looking forward to the sequels especially as I quite liked the characters of Jane (though she was a tad predictable by the end), Tommo (he reminded me of Colin from Press Gang) and the Apocryphal man, and there are several things left up in the air that are quite intriguing- also I want to meet an orange, if there was one in the novel, they got lost somewhere as I don't remember them. I'm trying not to give too much away here because the book should best be read to be comprehended and I thought it was brilliant so I want you to have the same experience. I just hope that the sequels get out there because there were a few books in the Thursday Next series which were promised but never arrived (though there were of course other books in their place). As final note, I will give away the delightful facts that English sheepdogs are called Dulex dogs and as I suspected when reading it, Wikipedia confirms that East Carmine is probably in Wales.
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| See colourful cover....is it talking to you too? |
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