Customer Reviews

Shades of Grey: A Novel

5 star:		(61)
4 star:		(29)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

6.1.02.11.235: Artifiacture from before the Something That Happened may be collected, so long as it does not appear on the Leapback list or possess color above 23 percent saturation.

Did you understand that? You would if you were Eddie Russett, the 20-year-old, first-person narrator of Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron. Eddie knows that the above is one of Munsell's innumerable Rules. "The Word of Munsell was the Rules, and the Rules were the Word of Munsell. They regulated everything we did, and had brought peace to the Collective for nearly four centuries. They were sometimes very odd indeed: The banning of the number that lay between 72 and 74 was a case in point, and no one had ever fully explained why it was forbidden to count sheep, make any new spoons or use acronyms. But they were the Rules..." Not surprisingly, this is a society that has embraced "loopholery" enthusiastically.

Eddie's society is a Colortocracy, where social status isn't determined by merit or by birth, it's determined by which color(s) of the spectrum you can see, and how much of them. Eddie's a Red, which is next to lowest on the totem pole. Oranges are higher than Reds, Yellows higher than Oranges, and so on. The only ones lower than Reds are the Greys, or achromatics. They can't see any color at all. They're the unappreciated workers of this society.

In Shades of Grey, Jasper Fforde has created a richly imagined future that revolves entirely around color, and the perception of it. Explains Eddie, "No one could cheat the Colorman and the color test. What you got was what you were, forever. Your life, career and social standing decided right there and then, and all worrisome life uncertainties eradicated forever. You knew who you were, what you would do, where you would go and what was expected of you."

As the novel opens, Eddie doesn't want much from life. He wants to fulfill his Civil Obligations as best he can. He wants to marry into the prestigious Oxblood family. And he does have a few fairly radical ideas about improved ways to queue. Other than that, he wants to avoid the perils of swans, lightning, and mildew. But that's before he travels for the first time in his life, to the Outer Fringes, where the Rules are interpreted differently. Eddie's a fish out of water, and we're meeting people and learning about life in the village of East Carmine right along with him.

It is there that Eddie meets an intriguing Grey named Jane. He's smitten immediately, and that's even before she threatens to kill him. Jane, rude in a world without rudeness, violent in world without violence, leads Eddie gradually down a path that has him questioning everything he thought he knew about the Colortocracy--in a world that most definitely does not value questions or those that ask them.

By now, you may have gathered that this novel is a bit of a departure for Fforde. There is so much going on that it's hard to take it all in, and virtually impossible to summarize. While undeniably funny, the humor is darker and a bit less overt. Shades of Grey is more challenging, sophisticated, and substantive than anything we've seen previously from Mr. Fforde. In a word, it's brilliant! The cleverness he has always displayed in his Thursday Next novels is dialed up several notches here, as he points his satirical eye at a world so strange and outlandish that comparisons to our own are inescapable. I'm not convinced that all of the Fforde Ffanatics will embrace this latest work, but I suspect most will. And I, for one, will be looking forward with great enthusiasm to Shades of Grey 2: Painting by Numbers and Shades of Grey 3: The Gordini Protocols.

Oh, how I missed Jasper Fforde! I devoured his Thursday Next series and then the Nursery Crime books, and definitely had mixed feelings when he wrote that his next book would be delayed a year due to the birth of his new daughter. (I understand, really, but I also wanted to read more Fforde!)

At last, we have Shades of Grey, and it's both like and unlike anything Fforde has published before. Like, because it gives us a richly imagined world with absurd-sounding details, yet it all hangs together. Unlike, because Shades of Grey is firmly on the side of science fiction whereas his other books I'd call fantasy.

It is some unspecified time in the future. An "Epiphany" occurred some hundreds of years in the past - nobody knows what it was - that changed the world. Most people can see only one shade of color - the higher up the spectrum you can see, the higher your social status. Those who can't see colors at all are Greys and are generally a servant class, but not entirely. It is possible to move up and down the social strata through marriage, and children are reclassified by a color test given when they are 20.

We meet our hero, Eddie Russett, a Red, as he is being digested by a carnivorous tree, into which he was thrown by Jane, the Grey woman who has turned his life upside down. I spent a large part of the book wondering how this would be resolved, since Eddie is narrating the story and this implies he somehow moved past this fate. We shall see....

As Eddie learns more about how his society works, he has more questions. This does not endear him to the community leaders, since their society is rigidly structured according to the rules laid down by "Munsell" some centuries past. Many of the rules don't make a lot of sense - such as why manufacture of forks is permitted but not spoons - but the populace manages, sometimes finding loopholes in the rules. Despite periodic "Leapbacks", where selected technology is destroyed, some tech remains, such as the self-maintaining Perpetualite roads and the Everspin motors that never slow down. Remnants of the "Previous" are held onto, though often misinterpreted (such as the "Parker Brothers Map of the World", which is a Risk game board.)

Eddie's questions and moral development lead him into danger, into confrontation with Jane, and gradual revelation as to what's really going on. It is not all pleasant and Eddie is forced to make extremely difficult choices. Throughout the book Fforde's vision is very colorful, if you'll excuse the term. The level of detail provided is astounding, perplexing and entertaining.

As in Fforde's other books, you are simply deposited in the new world without any explanation, and you are expected to pick things up as you go. It is a style similar to CJ Cherryh. Another author I'm reminded of is Matt Ruff, who has a similarly overactive imagination, though his books are typically darker than Fforde's.

The end of the book is classic Fforde, however. I don't want to elaborate on that. What I was not prepared for was the note that this was the first in a planned trilogy. I don't mind book series, but I do find it annoying when an author does not tie up important plot elements by the final pages, which is what happens here. I very much want to read the next installments in the series, and hope it will not be another two years before I get to do so.

If you enjoyed any of Fforde's other books, you'll get a kick out of this one. If you haven't met Fforde before, by all means start here, but don't miss his Thursday Next series.

9.3.88.32.025: The cucumber and the tomato are both fruit; the avocado is a nut. To assist with the dietary requirements of vegetarians, on the first Tuesday of the month a chicken is officially a vegetable.

If you've read and loved Fforde in the past stop right here. There's no need to read this review. Shades of Grey is Fforde at his Ffordy best. Buy, read, enjoy.

I really feel that this is one of those books that it's best not to know anything about before you start reading it. But you seem rather committed to reading this review, so I'll continue.

It feels like there's a nod to both Brave New World and We (Modern Library Classics), though I've never read anything quite like this. Once again, Fforde takes us into a cleverly devised fictional world, filled with his satire, humor and social commentary. A world where the cause of death could be "mildew", "Nightloss", or accidental beheading by the guillotine at the linoleum factory.

Green is the drug of choice, and beige is quite rightly Hell, and I can't even begin to expound upon the Perpetulite.

"I'm not a big fact person," said Mr. Crimson, who was honest, even if a twit. "Unproved speculation is more my thing ... "

This book is the first in a trilogy. Enjoy.

Ever since I picked up a copy of The Eyre Affair at a used bookstore in Chicago, I've been a bit obsessed with Jasper Fforde. Now on my second copy of The Eyre Affair (the first was lent and never returned) and with an addiction to the audio versions of his books as well, I hunger when I hear of a new publication.

I have been looking forward to Shades of Grey ever since the teaser went up on Fforde's website. Unfortunately, the publication date was released, delayed, delayed again, and then finally established (of course, no matter when the release date is, it is always too far away). Lucky for me, the appearance of an advanced reader's copy at the bookstore I work at meant no more waiting.


For those of you unfamiliar with Fforde's work, he has written the Thursday Next series, the Nursery Crimes series, and now, Shades of Grey (the first in a trilogy). If you haven't read Fforde before, start with the Thursday Next novels, move to Nursery Crime, an then pick up the newest. While Thursday Next is certainly my favorite, Fforde's bizarre worlds and witty British humor are enjoyable in each of his series. Enough of this chatter- on to Shades of Grey.

Shades of Grey starts off slowly. Fforde's new world is complex and confusing and it takes a good quarter of the book to establish an understanding of world and how it works. This initial section sets up the entirety of the book and if you hang in there, you will be rewarded. Fforde's new world is wonderful; it has amazing potential which I hope will be reached in the sequels now that the whole messy business of explaining things is over.

The protagonist, Eddie Russett, is a fine, upstanding young man who truly wants the best for people. While he is not the sharpest tack in the tin, he understands the purpose of rules and governments, and how they can be used or abused. His easy going and generally genial nature allows him to befriend a host of individuals. Jane balances him well. She is smart, knowledgeable, volatile, and emotional. Together they create a dynamic pair who you hope will succeed in their plans (which I will not reveal to you).

With an intricate new world, endearing characters, and a political problem to be solved, Shades of Grey is a novel exploring the evils and corruption of governments and societies. But this intense science-fiction is tempered by Fforde's delightful humor, so even those fictioneers who scoff at utopian novels may find something to love.

I love Jasper Fforde's books. I've been looking forward to "Shades of Grey" for months now - and the day I bought it was made even more special in that I was lucky enough to attend a reading and book signing of his. And? He's smart and funny - just like his books.

The thing about a Jasper Fforde novel is that you don't need to just suspend your disbelief...you need deny that your disbelief ever existed. Fold it up, tape it shut and put it someplace for safekeeping while you enter a world that is like ours but different in ways you can't imagine and would never expect.

Sometimes there will be a Toast Marketing Board, and sometime nursery rhyme characters will be police detectives. And sometime spoons will be one of the most valuable commodities in the world.

Sounds quirky, yes. But in an incredibly smart way...where the reader (ok, me) enjoys the 20% of literary/cultural references that are throughout the book but doesn't feel stupid in missing the rest. These worlds end up making a fabulous kind of sense...and one that takes the reader to a much deeper level than expected.

"I didn't set out to discover a truth. I was actually sent to the Outer Fringes to conduct a chair census and learn some humility. But the truth inevitably found me, as important truths often do, like a lost thought in need of a mind."

Eddie Russett, the main character in "Shades of Grey" is our guide to this world, the world that remains after "Something That Happened". Something that led to a social hierarchy that is based upon how much and what kind of color one can see. That led to a world where fear of lightning and giant swans is universal. Where there is a set of Rules that dictate what one wears, who one marries and what one does for a job.

"...since one's career path was never decided by ability or intellect, it didn't much matter anyway. Lessons were generally restricted to reading, writing, French, music, geography, sums, cooking and Rule-followment, which meant sitting in a circle and agreeing on how important the rules were. Most pupils referred to the subject as "nodding."

Eddie obeys without question...and then he meets Jane Grey. The game changer. The one who gives Eddie his red pill/blue bill moment. After which things will never be the same.

This book follows the general path of many post-apocalyptic novels. The reader is given a guide to this new world, a world that has been set up to correct that which was wrong in the old world; a world that may appear idyllic on the surface. And there is some element, some hidden truths that the force in power never wants revealed and will usually resort to evil means to maintain the façade.

But this book is different. This book takes a look at the previous world, our world, in a way that is not only insightful, but that is funny. To take a quote from the author on his website, "Irrespective of how bad life can be, there is always humour. Always."

True to form, it's not always the kind of humour one might expect. "I suggested a better way to queue once," I said in a lame attempt to show Travis he wasn't the only one with radical tendencies, "a single line feeding multiple servers at lunch."

"How did that go down?"

"Not very well. I was fined thirty merits for `insulting the simple purity of the queue.'"

And a book that can deal with a post-apocalyptic society AND sneak in a quote from "Point Break"? I love it.

I don't know what the "Something That Happened" was. I suspect I might not find out until the last book of this series. But I'm fine with that. I will gleefully enjoy the ride until we get there. And my disbelief? I'm sure I will dust it off the shelf someday.

Far in the future -- after Something Happened -- the world has become a literal Chromatocracy. It's a fascist state in which everything about your life is determined by what colors you can SEE.

That's the unconventional postapocalyptic setting for Jasper Fforde's "Shades of Grey," a very eccentric little book about a guy who discovers that there's more to life than your hue rating and following the Rules. It's a bit hard to get into, but just think of it this way -- if Terry Pratchett had written a more comic version of "1984," and decided to have his narrator spend the book being eaten by a tree, it would be this book.

Eddie Russet seems to have a good life -- he's semi-engaged to string heiress Constance Oxblood, he's hoping to improve queues, and he's going to score well on the Ishihara color test. But after a prank gone wrong, he finds himself temporarily exiled to the Outer Fringes to count chairs. Not only does he discover that the Rules are more relaxed out there, but he encounters Jane. Aside from having a retroussé nose, Jane is everything he's been raised to abhor: rude, violent, and openly defiant of their rigid society despite being Grey.

But of course, our naive hero (who sometimes tends to bumble into the wrong places at the wrong times) begins to question everything in his world -- especially since one local resident just may have been murdered. As Eddie investigates, he discovers that there are a lot of other questions about his world that need answering: just what was the Something that Happened? What is Reboot? Why is spoon manufacturing forbidden? And will he be trapped in matrimony to the horrible Violet DeMauve?

For the record, the world of "Shades of Grey" is definitely ours... albeit after Something Happened. Previous civilization has been forgotten, spoons are rare, swearing is illegal, people can be cured (or become junkies) by looking at swatches of color, and Mildew and Nighttime can kill you. Oh yes, and the insanely elaborate Rules that must be rigidly followed.

Jasper Fforde has drenched his books in satire, but "Shades of Grey" adds a darker, sharper tone to his humor. Racism, government corruption, classism, slavish following of the system, "apocryphal" people -- these and more are mocked roundly, but in such a funny quirky way that it's never preachy. The one problem with "Shades of Grey" is that it's rather hard to get into -- Fforde's world is very complex, rarely explained, and he spends a good third of it introducing us to it.

But his prose is nimble (as well as interestingly devoid of non-red coloring) and crammed with delicious puns and jokes. Fforde can't resist some book jokes when Eddie visits a library ("Over there was Catch-22, which was a hugely popular fishing book"), but most of them are based on the countless shades of various colors. He also weaves together a very complex, clever plot that takes some very unexpected twists along the way.

Eddie is a fairly likable... well, "hero" is giving him a bit too much credit, since he's a steadfastly ordinary guy in every way (except his ability to see red). But he's a pleasant, overcurious protagonist, and he has enough wit to not be boring. Jane, on the other hand, is a firecracker... which frequently blows up in people's faces. Exhibit A: she once ripped a guy's eyebrow off for asking her out.

"Shades of Grey" is a bit darker and sharper than Jasper Fforde's prior work, and leaves you eagerly waiting for the next books. If there's a color in the world, and no one can perceive it, does it really count?

It is inevitable that Jasper Fforde will one day write a book that does not crackle with brilliant invention, but this isn't it. This is a marvelous book.

Shades of Grey features many of the elements that make Fforde such a delightful and enriching read. It contains the Ffordean indomitable woman, the endearing fish-out-of-water central character, and perhaps most importantly that expertly handled, through-the-looking-glass perspective that rockets Fforde into the literary circle of Douglas Adams and Lewis Carroll. But moreover, in Shades of Grey Fforde demonstrates a new maturity. Other reviewers have alluded to the darkness of this novel, but I'm not sure darkness is apt. The humor, wit, and teasing sense of having a laugh with the reader remains intact. What is different here is depth more than darkness. Edward Russett's journey across the Outer Markers is at one time a delightful romp, a cautionary tale about boat rockers, and a call to action (or at least a healthy boot up the backside against inaction). This is more than wildly fun; it is Swiftian satire, a consistently entertaining, highly readable work of social criticism that veers from preaching whilst landing every blow.

Frankly, anyone who doesn't rate this book a five star, no-holds-barred winner should be slated for Reboot no later than Sunday . . . or fed to a yateveo tree.

Standing alone, not compared on Jasper Fforde's other brilliant books, this is a very good novel. I loved the use of color so blantant as meaning. It would be a great novel to have 8-10th graders read in school (I am an 8th grade teacher). There are some elements of the dystopia, great use of metaphors and analogies, sympathetic young adult character, a overwhelming sense of mystery, and an engaging narrative.

For the Jasper Fforde fans:
I loved the Thursday Next books, and liked the Nursery Crimes Series, but Shades of Grey is amazing. It is not as witty as Thursday Next, but makes you think more. I really hope this becomes a series.

Intriguingly creative, but unfortunately too predictable. The world imagined in this book, loosely based on Munsell's Book of Color Charts, is a Chromatocracy, governed by color perception which is measured by the Ishihara color blindness tests. The extended metaphor is wonderfully carried out, as in all the books by this author, but the plot and characters are fairly bland (monochrome?). Once the initial world is set, the action proceeds too mechanically. Indeed, the action barely proceeds at all. The author clearly intends to write multiple novels in a new series, so almost nothing happens in this one. I think authors who write series should charge only a fraction of what a normal book sells for (unless they are willing to write 900 pages e.g.JKR). I was desperately waiting for something to happen in this book, which is finally does, in the last chapter we get the interactions which should have happened in Chapter 3. I read online that the next book in the series won't come out until 2014. I can wait.

A stunning political satire set in oneof the most unique dystopic societies I've ever had the pleasure to read. Not to mention rollicking good fun. Jasper Fforde has written a well-paced book that gently unfurls a world seemingly totally foriegn to our own, a rigid society where how much colour you can see, and which, determines your social standing, your career and your marriage prospects. The rigid codes of morality and behaviour are reminiscent of the great 19th Century satires such as Austen, whereas the tight control of a people by its government would leave Orwell shaking. All of this written in Fforde's typical droll, action-packed style. I couldn't put this book down, and I'm on tenterhooks for the sequel. Give the sample a try and you won't be able to resist buying the whole novel.