The Fourth BearJasper Fforde
After reading the first book in Fforde's Nursery Crime series, I was a bit disappointed in the execution but entirely enthralled by the conceit driving these mysteries. Unfortunately, this book takes the bad elements of its predecessor and expands upon them, dropping any hints of subtlety or nuance along the way and gloating in the author's cleverness. This book does, like the last, take a familiar childrens'` story and brings it into the real world of murder, mystery, and intrigue; this time the theme is the story of Goldilocks and the three bears, and though the book has its faults its groundwork is far more stable than that of The Big Over Easy. Whether this is because Fforde has more to draw on than four lines of poetry or because he has learned from working within this world is unknown; what is clear is that Fforde has become far more comfortable with his parallel alternate reality and can execute an interesting murder mystery within the confines of that world. Jack, Mary, and Ashley continue to be well-defined and rounded as we learn yet more about their personal lives and, though their side stories are not always relevant to the text as a whole, they are compelling and provide for both depth and laughs.
In fact, this book would be a huge improvement on the last if it stuck to its main plot and slight character side stories, most of which are executed quite well. Where Fforde stumbles is when he becomes too aware of himself and his story. It is charming the first couple of times characters refer to common plot devices by number (along the lines of, "You're not going to pull a plot device twenty-six, are you?"), and it prevents the book from taking itself too seriously, but these asides eventually descend into pure unintelligent farce. Fforde falls back on them for easy laughs time and again, and by the time the characters themselves beat up Fforde on certain aspects of the plot, this breaking of the fourth wall seems only self-serving, a sort of inside joke about how amazing Fforde feels he is. What this book illustrates, however, is that he has the chops, if only he didn't realize it. More frustrating, however, is his absolute waste of an original and hilarious idea. Fforde introduces a used car salesman who promises Jack that the car he's buying will never age or see damage, no matter what he does to it (sound familiar?). Instead of drawing out the allusion and allowing it to build, Fforde names the salesman straight up (shockingly, Dorian Gray) and has him show Jack the car's magic painting. This is a brilliant idea, absolutely hilarious, and instead of running with it Fforde assumes the stupidity of his readers and pleases no one. Even those who are unaware of Wilde's classic would surely find the sub-plot's mystery intriguing, and die-hard readers would be pleased to have their intellect stretched a bit. Instead of a book full of laughs, Fforde gets one cheap groan.
That is the fundamental problem with Fforde's execution of this series: Fforde's propensity for sheer, pointless randomness in his world and the continued explanation of his jokes- it is not just nursery rhyme characters that populate his Reading, an expansion that hurts his narrative but does not sink it, making him look naive and pretentious instead. Certain elements are handled consistently well, and they are the oddball ones. The race of aliens he has created, the Rambosians, are hilarious and serve a purpose within the narrative. Fforde explains at length how they tick and brings them to life without being overbearing or patting his own back too often. The first book's inclusion of a Greek Titan went incredibly well and I am hard pressed to think of a more unique and thought-provoking treatment of the Great War than a theme park based on the Battle of the Somme. Even structurally speaking, the blurbs that begin each chapter, ostensibly from the Bumper Book of Berskshire Records, are hilarious and, as "primary sources," are free of Fforde's overworking. What is most frustrating about The Fourth Bear is that Fforde often allows his talent to simply shine through but doesn't trust it enough to carry a novel. The improvements over The Big Over Easy alone show that Fforde has learned more about constructing a mystery and can operate successfully in this world now that it is fully imagined both in his and readers' minds, yet Fforde is not content to let a good thing simply be. Fforde exhibits that most exasperating of authorial pretentions: he doesn't trust his readers to get the joke unless he holds their hand. There is a good mystery at the heart of this book, and if Fforde would realize that his Nursery Crime Series books are indeed for grown-ups and stop using it as an excuse to showcase how clever he knows he is, they could be classics in modern humor. Instead, they come off as childish and, while worth reading, offer unnecessary exasperation as their brilliant premise and good writing go slowly to waste.
Grade: B