Fforde is my favourite (and possibly only) living author. His books are so funny and distinct from all others that reading them is refreshing, like a cool stream of coherent nonsense, or paradoxes that revel in their own natures. You could throw the word 'meta' around trendily to describe them, but that would be a cheap shot, and one which demeans the effort that must go into their writing. The two Nursery Crimes novels, of which this is the first, represent his earliest writing projects as far as I know. They were polished up over time to be released after Thursday Next, his leading character, had made her debut and launched his career, and represent an author at the peak of his daffiest comedy. There may be a third and concluding novel one day, although everyone stopped holding their breath from fear of asphyxiation long ago.
'The Big Over Easy', or TBOE, is a novel that does its best to defy description. It's set in an otherworldly version of the classically regarded metropolis of Reading, home of the only Nursery Crimes police department in the world, as Nursery Rhyme characters are apparently real there, as are talking bears and all other kinds of odd phenomena. The story revolves around the death of one Humpty Dumpty, a formerly walking and talking egg, but did he fall off his wall naturally or was he pushed? The story is actually about a dozen things more than that arc, but it is the title arc so it gets the primary descriptor role. If you suspect it might be noir-ish from the title, you're not in the wrong.
This is a completely different kind of book to 'Shades of Grey', a book so close to the source of all puns and jokes that it becomes almost primordially funny while still maintaining a decent storyline. It's incredibly impressive. Not only funny, it takes a juvenile sounding concept and straps it to a procedural case and a host of other grittier problems to make it a novel for a broad audience. It's remarkable that a story which features Wee Willie Winkie, a golden goose, and a four thumbed alien from the planet Rambosia can still be for all ages but it is. Abundantly.
Why read 'The Big Over Easy'? It's a noirish detective/monster/fantasy/comedy full of jokes that demands to be read in its entirety without interruption. On many levels it and 'The Fourth Bear' represent Fforde at his absolutely best (so far). Oh, how I longed for the third novel for so long, but it is apparently still a long way in the future, gestating. It would be nice if Thursday Next could be delayed for it to happen but maybe Fforde is still collecting the necessary jokes? Are there that many more jokes in the world? We will have to wait, and wait, and finally see!
O.
Note: Closely allied with 'Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency' in my mind, if that helps in the understanding.
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