★★★★☆ The Last Dragonslayer, by Jasper Fforde
Won't get fooled again! (But we will...)
The Last Dragonslayer
Jasper Fforde
Won't get fooled again! (But we will...)
I am an ardent Jasper Fforde admirer. He's funny and creative -- his novels are are like no one else's.
But... (and of course you knew there was a "but" coming) he's kind of exhausting. Reading The Last Dragonslayer reminded me of reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe when I was six years old. At six years old I was perfectly capable of understanding the English of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe if, for instance, it was read aloud to me. But the path from black marks on paper to comprehension was a new and fraught one for me to tread.
I am now 70 years old -- I have read thousands of books -- and yet, somehow, reading The Last Dragonslayer felt a lot like that youthful experience. Somehow, even though it is written in good English, each new sentence in a Fforde novel feels as if it was written in some new, previously undiscovered language that readers have to learn to decipher as they go along. Thursday Next is even more effortful. It's the extraordinary density of new and unexpected ideas that does it.
Like most of Fforde's novels, The Last Dragonslayer takes place in a land that is recognizably Britain. Place names like "Hereford" and "Wales" are familiar. In fact, the polity that governs the whole (to the extent that anything does) is called the Ununited Kingdoms. There is a giant exploitative corporation, Consolidated Useful Stuff, and masses of tedious regulatory paperwork.
There is also magic in the UK. It is old but diminished. Our 16-year-old foundling hero, Jennifer Strange, is a manager at Kazam, a small magic business, when word begins to come in from every precognitive in the UK that the last living dragon is about to die. This is a big deal because the last dragon owns, or at least lives on, a large parcel of valuable land, that will become available for human use when he dies. Jennifer gets involved. I can't say much more without spoiling. [spoiler1]
The Last Dragonslayer was fun. Once I have recovered by reading something less weighty, I intend to continue with the series.
The Last Dragonslayer on Amazon
Jennifer, turns out, predictably, to be the last dragonslayer. What is far more surprising is the overall message. ‘Greed is all powerful, greed conquers all. Greed channelled the Big Magic; greed set us free.’ I was not expecting this Gordon Gecko moral moment.