Shades of Grey giveaway winner

I took everyone's name that entered the Shades of Grey giveaway and I put all the names in a hat. Then I asked Boyfriend+ to pick one of the names so we would have our winner. He asked for a cut so I asked him if that meant he'd take take a few pages out of the book. I talked him out of it but know you almost had to call him to get the last pages.

And the winner is...

Mariana @ And so it goes...

I'll shoot you an email, get your address, and then this book will be yours!!

If anyone is sad they didn't win, blame Boyfriend+. Or Franzen. Cos it's October and I plan on blaming Franzen a lot this month.

Apart We Are Together

I've just recently finished up Jasper Fforde's Shades of Grey. Fforde is one of my favorite writers, but he's a difficult author to describe to those unfamiliar with him. His books can fall into so many categories and so many genres, it's hard to say who would enjoy him. I've told people his work is "absurdist literary humor". A fellow Fforde enthusiast, The Book Stop, recently reviewed the latest book from the Thursday Next series and begins her post trying to describe Fforde's writing. Because she said it better than I did, I want to quote her directly:

No one writes like Jasper Fforde. He's been compared to Douglas Adams but even that's kind of a stretch. His books are kind of the adult version of The Phantom Tollbooth, with adventure and time travel thrown in. Bottom line: if your tastes range from fantasy to science fiction to classic literature humor, these are the books for you.

 She was directly referring to the Thursday Next series, but this fits for his other books as well.

Like the Thursday Next and Nursery Crime series, Shades of Grey takes place in its own world but is the first of his works that is a dystopian novel. The new world is called Chromatacia and social hierarchy is completely determined by how much and what color you can see. The world is dominated by "the Rules", which dictate every part of life, from the micro ("2.3.09.23.061: Slouching is not permitted under any circumstances" [location 5249]) to the macro ("3.9.34.59.667: In order to maintain the quality of breeding stock and to maintain public decency, complementary colors are absolutely forbidden to marry." [location 522]) and a series of "Leapbacks" means inventions as simple as the light bulb are not available, even though people can't see anything after twilight. It's not entirely clear when this is taking place. It's sometime far in the future of our own world, but information about "the Previous" is withheld, so it's never clear exactly when this is or what happened to destroy our current civilization and create this new selectively hued humanity.

This took me longer to get into than the other Fforde books simply because becoming familiar with this completely new world is difficult when you have to search for clues as to what's going on. Believe me, I prefer this to a narration dump, but it does mean it's a little harder to find your narrative footing. Once I have an idea of the world and our main character Eddie Russett makes it to East Carmine, the story really takes off. It has what you expect from a dystopian novel: oppressive government, an unbending society that does not deviate from the rules, and people trying to subvert the stasis to make the world a good, fair place. As much as the word of Munsell wants to simplify the world into a series of black and white rules, the world is full of shades of grey (see what Fforde did there? pretty clever) for people who want to acknowledge them.

Despite the dystopian setting, this is by Fforde and is in no way as dark as a 1984, Brave New World or The Handmaid's Tale. It is a smart, funny, absurd story that deals with heavy topics in a light way. Here are a couple quotes to demonstrate Fforde's sense of humor that is imbibed throughout the book

"Constance had refused me a tango on the grounds that it was a 'gateway dance' to something bolder, such as a lambada" (location 2376)

"She laughed. The sound was lovely - yet quite out of character. It would be like hearing a fish sneeze." (location 3957)

"First, time spent on reconnaissance is never wasted. Second, almost anything can be improved with the addition of bacon. And finally, there is no problem on earth that can't be ameliorated by a hot bath and a cup of tea." (location 4261)

I'm excited to see that this is the first in another Fforde series. I can't say I enjoyed it as much as Thursday Next, but still, I can't wait to read the next books in the series when they come out. It deals with heavier themes and thus doesn't have the same lightness and easiness that comes with TN or NC. It's sadder and darker and wonderful.

Title quote is repeated throughout the book as the motto for the Colourtocracy.

Fforde, Jasper. Shades of Grey 1: The Road to High Saffron. Viking Adult, 2009. Kindle edition

Do you give up on books?

Remember how I said I was having trouble getting through Bate's Soul of the Age so my solution was to read an age, read a different book, come back for another age, repeat until I finished? And I even said in my last post about the book how things were looking up and getting more interesting? At least I'm consistent in my failing to keep up with promises to myself, because I've already failed. This is why I stay away from challenges.

I finished up the Lover age, read Christopher Moore's You Suck, and then I was all prepared to pick up Soul of the Age again. (This is going to seem like I'm just rambling, but I promise you, it does come back to books.)  Since I now work from home and live in the suburbs without a car, I spend a lot of my time hanging around the apartment and Saturday was so beautiful, I decided I needed to get out. Boyfriend had to work and they didn't have anyone to take pictures of the game, so I volunteered my services to be the photographer for the women's lacrosse game. I do this sometimes if they don't have someone else, and they let me because I work for free and have my own equipment. It's actually probably good they don't rely on me, since when we got to the university I realized the memory card was in my other camera. I could have gone back and gotten it, but they were fine without pictures, and I'm lazy. Instead I hung around campus for awhile and just watched the game. And by watched the game I mean I randomly looked up from my book to see why there was cheering.

This is the point I wanted to get to: I brought You Suck and my Kindle with me. Had I actually remembered my memory card, I would have had a lot less reading time, and therefore wouldn't have finished You Suck and wouldn't have needed another book. But that's not how things went, and I finished You Suck and needed something else. So I bought an ecopy and started reading Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde, which I've wanted for awhile but was originally waiting for it to come out in paperback. Thank you Kindle, for allowing me to purchase things I'm too impatient to wait for.

I do plan on making it back to Soul of the Age but it seems like it's going to take longer and longer to complete that one. So I have a couple questions:
Do you ever stop a book in the middle? What makes you stop?
Do you have any books you stuck with and in the end you were happy you kept with it?
Do you have a book you finished despite your better judgement and regretted it?