So, I've finished reading Shades of Grey and walk away from it feeling as though I've just read a Play-Dough creation of 1984, Soylent Green (1973), and an intensely Borg episode of Star Trek. There are threads and elements of all three sources running through this work - with a great touch of new creation from Fforde's imagination - but I'm not sure they are all working together yet for me. Since this is the first of a series, I'm hard-pressed right now to say what threads of each of these are going to lead where (is the Soylent Green thread limited to the Green Room or the far more sinister line that this idea takes in the film?). Are the Ishihara's never really challenged or repeated? Will the "boy meets girl, boy loses girl" strain stop without the final phrase?
I still find the dystopian framework to be too depressing for words and that alone could keep me from reading any future installments. Well, not really, but I like to think it would. There are precious few books or series I haven't finished.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Letting Authors Shift Gears
I have recommended Jasper Fforde's "Thursday Next" series to so many folks, have used it in an honors reading seminar, and love it when I find someone else who has enjoyed these great books. So this year my Christmas present to myself was his newest work Shades of Grey.
It has many of the same features I liked about the Thursday Next series - creativity, turning expectations and conventions on their head, good characters and plot - but I am struggling with the whole genre of dystopian fiction. I can't imagine myself in a world where the powers that be "take a dim view of irresponsible levels of creative expression" (p. 176). The "irresponsible" level of "creative expression" is love poetry, by the way.
Mind you, I am enjoying the book very much - very creative work for the first third I've gotten under my belt so far - I'm just struggling with the dystopian bits. I wonder if I'm just too much of an optimist to fully enjoy this work. More as I continue the read.
Mind you, I am enjoying the book very much - very creative work for the first third I've gotten under my belt so far - I'm just struggling with the dystopian bits. I wonder if I'm just too much of an optimist to fully enjoy this work. More as I continue the read.
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