If Jasper fforde ever creates a large enough body of work, the guide to it would
be more fun to create than anything since the Lord Peter Wimsey Companion (of
which the book version is about sold out, but the CD is about to be released). And
without the need to learn French or Latin.
In Lost in a Good
Book alone, there's reference to everything from SSword in the Stone to
The Princess Bride and that's omitting the really obvious borrowed
characters (snitched from anyone from Lewis Carroll to Dickens to
Austen).
I offer an explanation of one reference in exchange for
anyone who can explain a couple of others to me. I'd sort of grasped this before,
but didn't know until our Antarctica trip that the English version of Monopoly
apparently goes way back, far enough that most Brits think theirs was the original
version (they're wrong). That's why Thursday's husband is Landen Parke-Laine as
opposed to Landen Parke-Plaice. (Incidentally his parents are Bilden and
Houson.)
What I don't get are Thursday's brothers. I know enough
Britspeak to get the names of Thursday Next and her mother Wednesday (if there are
any English readers here, Americans are more likely to say "next Thursday" than
the other way 'round) bu I still don't see what's funny about Anton Next and Joffy
Next. Am I just being stupid?