September 7, 2008

Book 42: The Big Over Easy

The Big Over Easy
Jasper Fforde

I picked this book up completely at random, based on my vague recognition of the author's name and the vibrant, happy coloring of its spine. I enjoy a good alternate reality, and Fforde's book concocts a compelling one in which nursery rhyme characters and situations actually occur in a more-or-less realistic modern Britain with a few additional fantastic touches. Fforde intelligently and interestingly intersperses familiar characters and situations into a modern mystery that holds its own as the central plot for the book though it occasionally becomes too silly or abstract for its own good. On the whole, Fforde cannot seem to decide whether to take his world seriously or to gloat in its fantastic delights, and the book oscillates oddly between being straight-faced and becoming a parody. The Big Over Easy does manage to level interesting criticism and subtle jabs at the mystery genre in general, with the police department focused almost entirely on making its crimes and investigations look good in print, a process which has been perfected by the perfectly irritating Friedland Chymes. Fforde uses Chymes and his incredibly inflated ego to parody both ever-popular crime shows and the literary genre's fascination with over-the-top super-detectives who have no basis in reality. The Guild for famous and customer-pleasing detectives is an excellent send-up of the mystery genre and gets good laughs out of the notion that the most venerable Sherlock Holmes was both real and the inspiration for modern detective work. What he lacks in subtlety he makes up for, for the most part, in charm.

Fforde's send-up, however, falters in a few places as his own mystery becomes convoluted beyond recognition. There are many valid reasons why the mystery genre is as vibrant and popular as it is, and he focuses too much energy on lampooning them to pay dutiful attention to his own plot, which spirals out of control at the end of the novel. This may be a purposeful reflection of the genre's propensity to introduce unnecessary complications into its cases, but Fforde is simply careless and throws wrench after wrench into the machine until it grinds to a scraping halt. Even the most cynical parody needs to rest on its own merits as well as the criticism it levels and it is unfortunate that Fforde loses sight of the details in his quest for a bigger critique. The mystery he concocts in his fully-imagined world is compelling and reflects on our shared reality but its conclusion borders on the preposterous and makes it easy to forget what a good and thorough book The Big Over Easy actually is. Equally frustrating is the initial inability of Fforde to suitably plunge his readers into this parallel reality. Though his imagination is unlimited and the world of Jack Spratt and Mary Mary is fully realized, Fforde's opening descriptions of Reading are clunky and fail to offer an engrossing sense of place or time. It is immediately obvious that nursery characters exist, but it is not immediately clear how far they are integrated into the world or what kinds of people notice and interact with them. This is a shame because after a few chapters and a few well-placed fake news clippings the world becomes clear and engrossing.

Small literary missteps such as the unraveling of the late plot and the unaccessible nature of the setting of The Big Over Easy mar what is otherwise an excellent work of an unbounded imagination. Fforde is incredibly thorough and gives his characters interesting and believable character histories that do, in time, help to construct the world in which the novel operates. Despite its flaws and its ridiculous ending, The Big Over Easy is a compelling mystery that is hilarious and does reflect in interesting ways on the mystery genre at large. Fforde has succeeded admirably at taking the stuff of nursery rhymes and translating it into a modern legal context, a translation most vivid in his treatment of the familiar three little pigs motif. The novel reflects on the absurdity of both beloved nursery rhymes and modern police procedures, introducing criticism none-too-subtle but biting nonetheless. Most of all, the book is simply fun, and though it may take a while for readers to get immersed in the world of The Big Over Easy, it is a light and rewarding read that should please fans of the mystery genre, so long as they can take a few jabs here and there, as well as other readers interested in the re-invention of timeless classsics or those just looking for a lighthearted good ride.

Grade: B+

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