The Essential Quality of Literature to Living
Make no mistake, this is a book that is not afraid to come down squarely on one side in the most meaningful debate of the 21st century: what’s the point of reading? As the world colludes to hasten the art of writing into dusty archives of history, The Eyre Affair is something of a manifesto demanding that people start paying attention to the essential quality of literature in their lives before it goes away forever, replaced by memes, emoticons, emojis, snapchatting, tumblrizing and facebooking. Any novel that dares to base its plot on the literary market being targeted by organized crime for big profits while at the same time inventing an alternative timeline that looks well on its way to avoiding social media and reality TV is a whole lot of just fine.
The Absurd Quality of War
Obviously, this is not the first novel to situate war from a distinctly and robustly absurdist point of view. Unless some under-appreciated masterpiece is molding away unbought in some obscure publishing warehouse, it does carry the distinction of being the first novel to ever criticize the absurdity of international military conflict within the context of the Crimean War lasting over a century rather not even half a decade. That alone would qualify it to stand alongside Catch-22 as one of the big-time novels about the insanity of war, but then it dares to give readers a cherry on top of that sundae by bringing the one-hundred thirty-one years of persistent warfare to a complete and final conclusion after just four months of peace negotiations. War goes on. Life...not so much.
Post-Genre Postmodernism Pastiche
Critics, scholars, academics and readers all seem to either love or hate the book for the same reason: it is all over the place. Fans see it as a serious-minded work of postmodern meta-meta-fiction. Non-fans consider it silly and unfocused. It is part science fiction and part detective novel. In fact, the story pretty much completely rejects the entire notion that literature should even be categorized according to genre. There are warnings from future selves to their past selves to make career changes and there is the abduction of a fictional character. This is the kind of pastiche that is guaranteed to tickle as many people as it ticks off. Making things even more confusing is that it is written in tone that takes its story very seriously while at the same time featuring a heroine named Thursday Next, a villain named Acheron Hades and having a character quote seemingly unwittingly quoting a lyric by the 70’s glam band Sweet that is delivered with complete sincerity that lacks any trace of irony. As the empty saying that means nothing at all goes: it is what it is. And if you get what it is, you will love it. All others beware.
