If you like books that combine comedy with biting political satire, look no further. If you like books that challenge you intellectually and actually make you think, Jasper Fforde is your man. His Thursday Next series is filled with literary as well as pop culture references and presents an alternate reality Britain that would be both awesomely fascinating and kind of scary to live in. His Nursery Crime books take elements from stories and fairy tales known to every child in at least the English-speaking world and use them in ways that are thought-provoking, entertaining, and at least PG rated.
With Shades of Grey, Fforde once again demonstrates his ability to create worlds that engross you completely while reading about them – and fill them with identifiable and three- (sometimes even four-!) dimensional characters. The story takes place in a post-post-apocalyptic future Britain with traces of both 1984 and Brave New World. All we know is that a big ‘Something’ happened centuries ago and now the entire social order is based on a book written by some mysterious semi-historical figure (just imagine!). Society has become a ‘colourtocracy’: people are born only able to see a certain amount of certain colours. The more colour you can see, the higher you are ranked within your group, and some colours are ‘better’ than others. At the top of society are the pompous Yellow elite and at the bottom the drone-like Greys, performing all the menial jobs nobody else wants. Order is maintained by a complex, public school-like system of Monitors and Prefects, merits and demerits.
The protagonist is Eddie Russett, a young Red who has never really questioned the existing social order: his whole life so far has revolved around building up enough of a dowry to marry up. When he has to follow his father to his new job in the village of East Carmine, however, he meets an intriguing Grey girl named Jane who teaches him to ask questions that the powers-that-be would rather leave unanswered – and his life changes forever.
Despite the obvious similarities to fatalist authors like Orwell and Huxley, Ffordes stories are actually anything but grim. His prose is wonderfully consistent and upbeat, despite the big and serious issues he tackles. You might not laugh out loud along the way, but you are sure to chuckle a whole lot. Like his other books, the world in Shades of Grey is populated with a huge supporting cast of almost Dickensian characters that the author seems to have put in purely for his own – and our – enjoyment: most of don’t really need to be there to help the story along – but they sure a a lot of fun. Like the other fictional worlds Fforde has created, this one is eerily weird and strangely recognisable, scary and oddly compelling at the same time – and it is guaranteed to draw you in completely. This is one dystopia I wouldn’t mind living in – at least for a short while. Fforde is simply the most refreshingly readable English-language author since Terry Pratchett. If you have read any of his other books, you are sure to enjoy this one just as much. If not – don’t deprive yourself of the experience.
N.B. The book is subtitled ‘The Road to High Saffron’, and at the end the titles of a further two volumes are revealed, in the best James Bond tradition. I for one can’t wait!
Shades of Grey (2010) by Jasper Fforde. 436 pp. paperback. Listed for € 14.49 on play.com
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