Bibliography: Fforde, Jasper. (2009). Shades of Grey. New York: Viking. ISBN: 9780670019632
Plot Summary: Eddie Russet knows how his life will turn out–he’ll take his color test and score extremely high red, Constance Oxblood, the girl he is on a half promise to will accept his marriage proposal, and he’ll settle down to a quite comfortable life as long as he follows the rules. Literally–there are thousands maybe millions of them. But he didn’t count on East Carmine, of meeting Jane G-23 (a Grey-gasp!) and the Apocryphal Man (a historian of sorts) and a whole cast of characters that will upset his planned life and lead him to question all he thought was true and good.
Critical Analysis: This book is what would happen if Monty Python got a hold of Lois Lowry’s The Giver…very irreverent and funny and British and all too familiar and relate-able to the world we know today. I have to think that Jasper Fforde must have some kind of twisted crazy mind to think not just of Thursday Next, which has it’s own esoteric kind of wit and humor, but also of this new series, which is much more straight forward and almost obvious in it’s silliness. (On purpose, I think.) This obviousness is what screams at the reader to show the uselessness of so much of what is held dear today.
The plot is almost swallowed up by the details, and takes a long time to resolve itself, and for this reader, that’s okay. The details are the fun. The hierarchy of the Chromatic Scale, those who perceive more real color have higher positions than those who don’t, those who perceive little color are little better than slaves. The prefect system, which feels just like what you imagine would happen if a bunch of British boarding school kids decided to take the system outside the school to rule the world. The confused details about The Previous and The Something That Happened, including artifacts like the last known map (a Risk board game) and a statue of Oz (some of the characters from The Wizard of Oz movie). The Leap Backs which have resulted in a library with no books (full of librarians willing to help you find, well, not much at all), the elimination of electric light, motor cars, and more. I could go on and on, as Fforde does in the story, but I daresay, he does a much better job than I.
I would love to think of some readalikes for this title, but I am not as well read in this area as I would like to be. I can tell you this book will have very high teen appeal, as I know even today in every high school and college, there are still a small group of teens who discover and relish Monty Python skits and movies. They will relish this book and look forward to the sequel.
Review Excerpts: “This insanely clever novel…sounds like a cult classic for people who crave a rich brew of dystopic fantasy and deadpan goofiness….his most original story, an elaborate social satire about a weird but oddly familiar world almost 500 years in the future…Lewis Carroll madness tinted with steampunk. The palette of Fforde’s comedy is immense.”–Washington Post
“This inventive fantasy…imagines a screwball future in which social castes and protocols are rigidly defined by acuteness of personal color perception…. a vividly imagined landscape whose every facet is steeped in the author’s remarkably detailed color scheme. Sometimes, though, it’s hard to see the story for the chromotechnics.”–Publisher’s Weekly
“All the hallmarks of dystopian fiction are here…But there is also humor, wit, and mystery in this wonderfully weird new world where color and people’s ability to perceive it govern society. VERDICT Fforde has built a complex, engaging, and unique world full of surprises, serious ideas, and serious fun that will appeal to those beyond the author’s readers and sf fans.”–Library Journal
“[I]mpish British author’s refreshingly daft first volume of a new fantasy series….something like a contemporary Lewis Carroll or Edward Lear….All this is serenely silly, but to dispel a black mood and chase away the blues, this witty novel offers an eye-popping spectrum of remedies. A grateful hue and cry (as well as sequels) may be anticipated.”–Kirkus Reviews
Reviewed from public library audiobook. copy. Amazon Affiliate: If you click from here to Amazon and buy something, I receive a percentage of the purchase price.
