And he's off!
bookfiend73 asks:
Do you think there is any significant value in modern readers assessing a work like Jane Eyre by contemporary values? eg: today’s reader assessing Jane Eyre’s feminist values by today’s values?
Guardian contributor Good question. Always a problem, I think, and not least in JE the regrettable 'Mad woman in the attic' episode which does cast a few problems with Ed and Jane's romance, especially as Jane seems to forgive him this one small indiscretion once Bertha is well, burnt. It doesn't read too well right now, really, but as a narrative twist of ages past, I guess it must have been a zinger.
By rights, we should be shouting: WATCH OUT JANE!
I think the best thing to do is to read, consider, build, think and then do the best one can for oneself and one's immediate sphere. Feminism and Jane Eyre. I'm sure much has been written about this, and by better writers than I.
'Thursday is based on pioneering women aviators.'
ID1821678 asks:
Thursday Next is a wonderful heroine. Is there any one or number of women that inspired you when writing her? And if so, who?
Guardian contributor This was a hard one, as much of writing is intuitive and it may take years to figure out why you did some thing. I think Thursday is based on pioneering women aviators of the golden years of aviation - people like Bessie Colman, Beryl Markham, Amy Johnson. Women who didn't think for one moment that this was unusual or difficult - just went and did it because they had a burning desire to do so. Amy Johnson flew to Australia alone, in the twenties, with about ninety hours of flying experience in a 2nd hand aircraft and guided by what was essentially a school atlas. When she crash landed in India she repaired the aircraft with men's shirts sewn together and got a painter to make her some cellulose dope by smelling the wing and mixing up something similar.
The equivalent today would be a young lady passing her driving test on the friday, buying a Nissan Micra on Saturday and announcing she was going to Pluto on the Monday.
Extraordinary women.
snarlish says:
My question regarding The Eyre Affair is: why 1985?
Guardian contributor 1985 was ten years before the year I first started writing it: 1995. The reason I did that was there was more of a 'now it can be told' aspect to The Eyre Affair, sort of like Thursday relating her story as a very old woman:
'I remember a time before the cheese wars, when the Gravitube was still running, and when Jane Eyre had a different ending..'
I think I'd just seen The Name of the Rose and liked the way it started. As it turned out that aspect has gone, but a sense of this happened a few years back still hung on. That's why. It also meant, fortuitously, that I could plausibly include President for life George Formby.
And when I use the word 'plausibly' I am talking in relative terms, naturally.
MrsIsraelDavis asks:
What do you think are some ideal cheese/beverage/book pairings? How would these vary with the weather?
Guardian contributor Wine and Dine with Brie and Born Free?
I never buy cheese from the Stiltonistas. Do that and you are giving money to very bad people indeed. Teenagers: Take it from someone who hit the cheese big time when I was in my early twenties: Friends don't let friends eat Limburger.
Eat cheese sensibly
Bad joke: The lambs near us refuse to gambol sensibly. It'll lead to a downward spiral that ends in mint sauce, I'll be bound.
'Perseverance pays off, but only if you have a certain degree of pigheadedness, too.'
hemingway62 asks about the rejections Jasper received for his first book, The Eyre Affair:
How did you survive getting 70 rejection slips? Is it just a case of having a thick skin or did you learn to adapt to rejection? If so, how?
Guardian contributor They were rejection slips, but not really rejection, and that's how to view them. I was very conscious that I was learning my craft and these were notes telling me that my books were not (yet) of merchantable quality. Perseverance pays off, but only if you have a certain degree of pigheadedness, too. I always had a suspicion that The Three Bears were a suitable topic for a police procedural, and I built on that. It just took a while.
Julie-Anne Richards asks:
What made you make the protagonist of the Thursday Next books a woman? I’m happy about it, but curious.
Guardian contributor Thursday was a woman quite simply because I'd written two books with a male protagonist (The two Nursery Crime books, which although published last, were written first) and I thought, I like Jack Spratt but his female co-stars were much more interesting to write. She was third person for a while, but then I though I wasn't getting inside her head enough, so switched the book to first person.
I've written Thursdayish characters ever since, even if they aren't truly the protagonist.
'Dark Reading Matter will be the next Thursday Next adventure.'
Vikas Vijayovich Datta wants to know:
When will the next Thursday Next adventure come out?
Guardian contributor 'Dark Reading Matter' will be the next, and we're building up to it. I love the idea of dark reading matter. That the 'observable bookworld' is calculated to consist of only 10% of all the stories there have ever been. This illusive and undetectable range of stories, the 'Dark Reading Matter' is made up of plots that writers had in their heads when they died, deleted manuscripts and people's memories. Quite simply: 'All those moments .. lost, like tears in the rain.'
And Thursday has to get in there - or Goliath will.
ooooh, I want to write it now.
Jericho999 has a question about mapping plots:
When I read The Eyre Affair I really enjoyed all the twists and turns - but the idea of having to plan it all seemed overwhelming. Do you use any kinds of visual aids/plans? or just have it all in your head?
Guardian contributor All in my head. (See thread above somewhere) I once did a plan and spent two weeks doing it, then started writing - within a week I had gone off on a tangent. The trouble is that there are these things called 'better ideas' and they lurk at the door, taunting me until I tell them to come in and use them. And those better ideas only chance along when I am writing. The worst and best thing that can happen for me is a better idea at the 11th hour. Bad because I have to rework everything, and best because they are, well, better ideas. The 'changing the ending of Jane Eyre' idea is a case in point - arrived when the book was finished. Had to go in. Pulled the book apart and then plastered over the cracks. The book is better for it.
dhjones has a request:
You promised us a new ‘Nursery crimes’ novel 6(?) years ago at a book launch in Foyles, London... what’s taking so long? Please hurry this up!
Guardian contributor
AmandaStillitano says:
You have spoken several times about how Shades of Grey has lower sales figures than your other work. However, it’s my favourite all time book and everyone I’ve ever recommended it to has absolutely loved it and put it in their top books. Why do you think it wasn’t a commercial success?
Guardian contributor I've no idea why it didn't sell - it's my favourite, too - along with Fourth Bear. What's not to love about talking bears and the 'Right to arm bears' controversy. Perhaps it's becasue as odd as my books were up until that point, SofG was an oddstep too far. Absurd heavy, rather than absurd light. It's an odd mix, too - whereas the Thursday Next series was 'high lit V low comedy' then SofG was 'slapstick V social issues' and that's a tricky one to do and read. Perhaps it's time is not yet here. 'Perhaps," as my editor says, 'we need to do the next in the series.'
I think so too, although given the absurdity of the series, Eddie Russet may find himself bogged down in the rhododendron issue.
'Plotting, hah! I make it up as I go along.'
Michealmack says:
My question is a mundane grey one, possibly one that authors dread and probably already has been asked by someone else but can you tell us how on earth you plot your books and keep your bearings/marbles?! I am also a fan of toast. Many thanks for hours of happy reading.
Guardian contributor Plotting, hah!
I make it up as I go along. If you're reading my books and have no idea of where it might end up, then you're in good company - neither do I.
I tend to just start with one or two 'narrative dares' (Jane Eyre is kidnapped from Jane Eyre/Humpty Dumpty is murdered/why was the porridge at different temperatures when poured at the same time/invent a social order run entirely on visual colour) and then just riffing over what comes into my head. While writing The Eyre Affair I was reading a book on the Charge of the Light Brigade. 'Egad,' me thinks, 'I've got to get myself some of that!' But then I think: 'How is that possible? My book is set in 1985!' Then I think: 'Wait a moment, I'm the author - I can do what I want. What if the 1854 Crimean war is still on?' There is sometimes a little bit of narrative contortions, but that's essentially how I write.
'Even readers who don't know Swindon understand what Swindon is all about.'
Edgeley asks:
What would you do to the real Swindon to make it less Swindonish?
Guardian contributor Ah, Swindon. Even readers who don't know Swindon understand what Swindon is all about, and when you ask an overseas reader to name their own country's Swindon, they instantly know somewhere. What's unfair is that Swindon is actually a very decent place. I lived near there for almost ten years and both my sons were born there.
The choice to use Swindon was an obvious one. When writing I use 'Choose the less well trodden path' as a central tenent.
Where do I set a book?
Well trodden path: London, Edinburgh, Bristol.
Less well trodden path: Swindon, Reading, Hereford.
How do I treat that location:
Well trodden path: As a cheap shot for a joke.
Less well trodden path: A place that is a vibrant, exciting, and there's little that can't happen. Glassy towers, 50,000 seat croquet stadium, Travelhub - 'The Jewel on the M4'
The less well trodden path works with characters, too - the obvious thing to do with Thursday's romantic life is to have a procession of unsuitable boyfriends move through her life. The less well trodden path is for her to be a one-guy-gal, and her husband a one-girl-guy. There's plenty of drama to be found when one wears my patented Absurd-O-Vision glasses..
Uh oh: ‘Other Jasper’, who was mentioned in a previous answer, has made an appearance.
Guardian contributor This is the other jasper, speaking from the basement. Don't believe a word he says. I am the real jasper and hardly mad at all um tum bibble dum dum.
mb1973 has a question about the possible third book with Detective Jack Sprat:
Is there any chance that The Last Great Tortoise Race may eventually be written? Jack Sprat and Mary Mary have been gone far too long!
Guardian contributor Yes indeed. See elsewhere in the threads. I went off the boil as a lot of movies came out which retold nursery rhymes in amusing ways, but then I thought: 'Well heck, I did write this in 1992, so if not perhaps the first, one of them.' So I will. The Easter Bunny was introduced in The Fourth Bear and it seems like she and Jack have some history together that goes back a few years. She's a femme fatale gang boss who cleverly disguises her intentions by being very very cute on one day of the year. She's modelled on Jessica Rabbit and that rabbit with the west country accent who used to advertise Cadbury's Caramel bars. It'll be fun.
'Several booksellers told me they gave customers Shades of Grey instead of Fifty Shades of Grey'
Richard Wilkinson has a question about that other book about shades of grey. You know the one.
Shades Of Grey was published in 2009. Since then, the entire Fifty Shades Of Grey series has come and (perhaps not yet) gone. Are you annoyed by the similar title, or concerned that people are going to think the Shades Of Grey series is a Fifty Shades reference of some sort?
Guardian contributor Fifty Shades of Grey was an interesting event for me. I thought of renaming SofG 'Forty Nine Fewer Shades of Grey' to try and exploit the market, but we thought not. Actually, there was a (very) minor lift in sales, although I'm not sure the 'accidental sales demographic' is one that is really worth exploiting.
Interestingly, the whole deal did highlight how wonderfully mischievous booksellers can be - and how much they care about their customers. I spoke to several booksellers who when asked 'May I have a copy of Shades of Grey?' and KNOWING they meant 50SofG, actually sold them my book on the premise that: A) It was what they asked for; B) They preferred mine; C) they were none too fond of 50SofG.
Gotta love those booksellers!
Jasper is open to suggestions on how to organise his socks.
Peter Jackson is both happy and not happy to see Jasper on our webchat...
It’s a simple question. What are you doing web chatting? Get home and get writing! More Nursery Crimes, more Eyre, more Shades of grey & more Dragonslayer... please?
Thanks for some of the most interesting, intricate fiction ever. There are few authors that I await each new book impatiently... but I do yours.
Guardian contributor Ah! A mole from my publisher! Yes, will do. Soon as I'm done here and filed my socks. Can't make up my mind how they should be categorised. By how old they are, by their colour, or which are my favourites. suggestions to: jasper@prevarication.swindon.uk
ID628345 asks:
The Thursday Next novels are my all-time favourites, which I regularly reread. Is there a possibility of a future story about Thursday’s children? Also, would you ever consider revisiting the Nursery Crime series? Please!
Guardian contributor Thursday's kids seem to be quite a strong part of the stories now, so I guess they will always be included, even the one that doesn't exist. Yes, there will be a third in the Nursery Crime series, just not sure when. So many (ideas for) books, so little time...
'I'm planning a sequel for Shades of Grey for maybe 2019'
Another question of Fforde’s Shades of Grey from Fraser Stephens:
I can understand why Shades of Grey took so long to write - it is a work of genius. Although the next ones in the series will probably also take a while, when can we expect them?
Guardian contributor I like this book, but it has had disappointingly low sales - although things are picking up now. I'm planning on writing a sequel as the bokk after the book after the book I'm working on now, so maybe 2019. Sorry. I tried to clone myself, but all he did was argue and now I have to keep him in the basement.
Richard Wilkinson asks:
Are you familiar with the 1980s role playing game Paranoia? It features a rainbow colour-coded society on a similar principle to the society in Shades of Grey, and I wondered if it was one of your influences.
Guardian contributor No, never heard of it. Influences were: 1984, Brave New World, Flatland and Farrow and Ball colour chart, C. 2009. The thing about speculative fantasy is that no matter how bizarre you write and how original you think you might be, there is always something that is vaguely similar. Fantasy is a big genre.
Myopicus wants to know:
If you could be one of your characters who would you be?
Guardian contributor Oh, Landen, Thursday's Hubby, without a doubt. In the support trench of a wholly remarkable person. Failing that, Emperor Zhark. As God-Emperor of the universe, I could really sort out the UK education system.
palfreyman asks:
Even when women write literature, it is rare, or unheard of, for them to write about women-specific issues such as menstrual periods; were you tempted, when writing your Thursday Next novels to try to write a more rounded woman, someone with cramps and tampons and more? Or did you think, as a male writer, that there was only so far you could go?
Guardian contributor It's not a huge area of expertise of mine, I have to say. But there are many, many, well-rounded female characters who don't talk about cramps and such. It's a fascinating idea: A deleted scene from the original draft of Jane Eyre?
'Whenever I dress up as a gypsy woman everyone twigs in an instant.'
We begin our webchat with a question about Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre - Swelter asks:
What led Mr. Rochester to dress as a gypsy woman?
Guardian contributor You'd have to ask lottie to know for sure (lottie@planchette.com) but I think it was all part of Ed's rather odd sense of humour. He must have been very well disguised for no-one to notice. Whenever I dress up as a gypsy woman everyone twigs in an instant.
And we’re live! Hello Jasper.
Hello everyone! I’m very happy to say that Jasper is online and ready to start answering questions.
On the subject of the questions, meanwhile, thank you. Many of them have been great. I knew Thursday Next would have good fans.
Post your questions for Jasper Fforde
As the author of The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde is an ideal guest to discuss this month’s Reading Group subject, Jane Eyre. Fforde’s debut novel provides a fine commentary on Rochester and friends – and some quite brilliant explanations for some of the odder elements and coincidences in Brontë’s plot. If you want an alternative theory about why Bertha died and how Rochester managed to get Jane to go and find him after the fire, this is the book to look at.
There is also much more to ask this prolific and talented writer at 1pm BST on 3 May. The Eyre Affair is only the first book of seven (so far) starring the literary detective Thursday Next, a series Fforde himself has described as “fantasy spread thick, deep, and silly”. That’s a pretty decent summary, except for the fact that it downplays how clever these books can be, and how many smart questions they raise about the way novels are put together and our own expectations when reading.
Not that the brainy material gets in the way of the fun. The Guardian’s Mary Hamilton described the pleasure of The Eyre Affair in our Summer Reads series:
Reading a truly good book, the page opens like a trapdoor and you simply fall through. The Eyre Affair takes that feeling, the moment you lose the sense of yourself and become engrossed in the story, and creates high adventure and wild drama around the porous boundaries between fiction and real life.
Jasper Fforde is a good person to ask about the publishing process and making writing work. Not least because before he managed to amass over 70 rejection slips from publishers around the country, before the Eyre Affair was published. Since then his books have been received with great acclaim and success: his 2004 novel The Well of Lost Plots received the prestigious Wodehouse prize for comic fiction.
You might also be interested to know that before his literary success he worked in the film industry (he worked as a focus puller on films like Golden Eye) and that he can fly planes. I especially recommend this list of Frequently Asked Questions from his website and I also recommend feeling free to ask one of them again, since his answers are so amusing ...
Jasper Fforde will be here from 1pm BST on 3 May. But please feel free to get your question in early by posting below.
To get the ball rolling, I’m also happy to say that we have three copies of The Eyre Affair to give away to the first three readers to post a “please may I have” along with a nice question for Jasper. If you’re lucky enough to be one of the first to comment, email Laura Kemp with your address (laura.kemp@theguardian.com) – we can’t track you down ourselves. Be nice to her, too.
Updated
That's me, I'm out of here - many thanks for the questions. My next book is Early Riser and will be out in 2017. The narrative dare of this is: Write a thriller in a world in which humans have always hibernated.' Discuss.
Until then, why not follow me on Instagram or Twitter?
Jasper Fforde