“Ain’t No Rainbow Shining on Me, Shades of Grey Are the Colors I See”*: The Book List

While reading Jasper Fforde’s complete oeuvre in 2008, the back of the books contained an advertisement for Fforde’s upcoming novel, Shades of Grey. I was geeked, of course: as you may remember, Ffrode was my Best Discovery of 2008 and The Eyre Affair won Best Book of 2008. I find his work simply delightful: it’s imaginative, witty, and the underlying themes of all books (including this one) are to question authority, maintain individuality, and do what you can to improve society, not what you’re told you should do (which often doesn’t benefit society at all, just the elite). So, not only are they fun to read for their alternative reality/fantasy/futuristic bent, but Fforde’s trying to say something. He’s not just zany.

Anyway, the advertisements for Shades of Grey? Well, one said July 2008, another said July 2009. But both dates rolled on by without the book forthcoming. My friend and I would periodically check for updates (she recommended Fforde to me initially), and it was my friend who finally saw that Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron would be released in late December 2009. I pre-ordered it and waited. I was a bit nervous, I admit: the book had been pushed off from publication for more than a year, so that could portend some serious problems with the plot, character development, pacing, or a host of other problems.

I’m pretty happy to say that the book was worth the wait.

I want to be fair, though: the book, while good, could’ve used some tightening. It reads a bit slow during the first third of the novel; the story seems to be casting about to find its ground, and the introduction of the new world that Fforde created is a bit confusing. Simply put, society in Fforde’s new universe is arranged by what an individual can see on the color spectrum, ranging from the lowly Greys to the lofty Purples—they are all know, collectively, as the Collective (see what I did there!?). Strict adherence to the Rules are the path to a calm in unremarkable life, and the rite of passage at the age of 20 can either lift you up (depending on how you test and what your visual color range is) or throw you down. Apart We Are Together is the credo of the society, and the book’s main protagonist, Jane G-23 (a Grey) and Eddie Russett (a Red), unite in a struggle to allow freedom of ideas, expression, and the right to choose a path in life (instead of having one assigned to you). (ETA: This all comes, by the way, after Something That Happened, which is implied to be how our society destroyed itself and caused a massive upheaval that sorted itself out into Munsell’s Epiphany, the man who presumably set the new world order.) While all this is crystal clear to me now, the beginning was a bit muddy. Not fatally so, but it’s evident that Fforde may have struggled a bit as to how to introduce the world. The back-of-book adverts give me roughly the same story that appeared in the finished product, but I believe that Eddie and Jane are younger than originally envisioned. At the start of the novel, both have not taken the Ishihara (the rite of passage and, of course, the test for colorblindness); the initial summaries of the book had Eddie already in the working world when Jane came into his life.

I felt that the book hit its stride when certain shortages are discussed; the obvious parallel was oil shortages. The discussion of these problems began to nudge out Eddie into a starker light, which propelled the book immensely. From there, the characters solidified into people as opposed to products of this strange society, and Jane evolved from being the girl with the striking retroussé nose to an intelligent and solitary revolutionary; Eddie evolved from being a Red color dunce to a leader who would do more than take his place in the Collective. The high stakes that change carries are clearly demonstrated in the latter half of the book: the privileges of position and leadership can lead to death or covert insurrection from within. The power of leadership can lead to selfishness or selflessness. I will be kind with this book and also not spoil the ending, but I’m happy to say that the back of the book announces that there are at least two more forthcoming Shades of Grey novels. I feel that once Fforde hits his groove he’s incredibly hard to knock off, so I’d expect the second and third books of the series to be considerably stronger. Unless, of course, this is Fforde being cheeky and there won’t actually be a Book 2 and Book 3, but there’s too much unresolved and too much revolution to set into motion at the end of Book 1. The story as a standalone could work, but the final chapters set us up for new adventures.

And what is, you may be asking yourself, High Saffron? Again, I won’t spoil, but I will say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Or at least seemingly good intentions.

Onto the book list.

Finished:

1) The Broken Teaglass by Emily Arsenault
2) The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield
3) The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peal Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
4) Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron by Jasper Fforde

Re-read:

Empty

Currently Reading:

1) Shakespeare’s Wife by Germaine Greer
2) Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser

Waiting To Be Read (Already Purchased, Got as Gifts, Borrowed from My Husband or Otherwise Accessible without the Use of Funds, But Not an Assurance That I Will Read These Before I Buy More Books):
1) The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future by Robert Darnton
2) Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher
3) Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin
4) Under the Dome by Stephen King

*”Shades of Grey”, River of Dreams, Billy Joel.