Shades of Grey The Road to High Saffron
Reviews
I've missed reading Fforde's books! The worlds he create, the humor he has, we are all so lucky to have a voice like his.
Eddie Russet was planning to take his exam, marry Constance Oxblood, never ask any questions, and live a useful life. But then he and his father get shipped to the Outer Fringes, where everything is a little weird, and among other unpleasant people he meets Jane, who (between attempts to kill him) lets him in on the fact that there's a lot to question in the world… and not just why they're forbidden to manufacture spoons. If that summary seemed a bit confused, that's more or less how I felt reading the book. I really wanted to like Shades of Grey; I very much enjoyed Fforde's Thursday Next series, and a friend had recommended it to me, so I had high expectations. Unfortunately, it just didn't quite work for me. But I think that's in equal parts because of me as a reader as it is about the book itself. About the book itself, well, I'm not sure prose is the best form for this story. It's a story about color -- specifically, it's sort of a dystopia, taking place 500 years after Something That Happened (Significant Caps abound) and now people are entirely different (I was never quite sure how, but they can see only tiny bits of the color spectrum, one color each, and the society is organized around how much of what color people can see; and there were other things, mentions to how they look at paintings of the Previous and see exaggerated differences between the sexes and creepily large eyes; they have barcodes growing on them, are susceptible to mildew and spores, and often get limbs torn off and sewn back on, so… huh). It's hard to represent those things, especially the importance of color and how much of it people can see, in a completely non-color, non-image medium. There are also a lot of weird and whimsical elements, which might have worked better visually, too. But aside from that, I've come to realize in the last couple of years that I'm a very, very structure-based reader. Which means, among other things, I have no interest in stories where the protagonist isn't actively engaged. If the main character isn't trying to do something, even just figure out what's going on, or actively wants to avoid whatever he or she is supposed to do, or whatever, I get bored. I know some characters and some stories don't require the protag to act in as huge a way as others; the fact that epic adventures loan themselves to, well, epic struggles is part of why sci fi and fantasy appeal to me so much. But I get that not every story has that; not every story needs that. But, as a reader, I need something to latch on to -- a sense that there's a story going on, and not just a person drifting through events. Or if the character is drifting, at least a sense that the character cares about the events and would like to figure out why they're happening. Eddie Russet spent three quarters of the book not doing that. He wanted to marry Constance, but didn't spend much time on it -- he wasn't in love with her or anything, she was just the best option, so he was only attempting to woo her because it seemed like he ought to. He did want to pursue Jane, but for most of the book was intimidated out of it. Weird things kept happening to him and around him, but for the most part he wasn't too concerned about it. His society considers it unacceptable (not to mention impolite) to question things, so he didn't, just sort of collected awareness of the things going on around him. The last quarter of the book does pick things up. Eddie finds himself with yet another potential… well, not love interest, but marriage prospect. As he attempts to get away from her, he agrees to lead a dangerous expedition, and on the course of that he figures out a few things, has a few more shown to him, and is finally forced to make real decisions, pick a position, and stick with it. Not shockingly, that was my favorite part of the book! My other, much more minor, issues: I had trouble keeping track of who a lot of the minor characters were, and I found much of the book just over the edge of Weird For the Sake of Being Weird. Then again, I know a lot of my friends enjoy that a lot more than I do. So basically, it boils down to this: if, like me, you are really into the pacing and structure as elements of what you read, this might not be the book for you. But if you enjoy voice and tone, this book very easily could work for you. It's just a case where I don't think what I've read is a bad book, it just isn't a book for me.
I found the ideas in this book fascinating, though there were so many unfamiliar ideas that I sometimes had trouble keeping track of them all. But learning more about this world and its rules as the book went on was fun and kept me interested. There were lots of characters and concepts that were only touched on, which I really wanted to know more about. I'm not sure if they'll be expanded more later or if it's intentional that not everything is spelled out for you. I really enjoyed the humour, and the combination of the style of humour and the strange rules and situations of this world led to lots of fun reading.
Equally brilliant and boring. I had no idea what it was about before embarking on this journey—none whatsoever—but I was quite excited as the person who recommended it to me loved it so much. I’m glad I finished it despite wanting to give up a couple of times. Don’t get me wrong: I think the world-building is incredibly clever, I appreciate the irony and—as another reviewer put it—the “divine ridiculousness”. But I didn’t find it very funny, engaging or immersive. Jane was the only character I found remotely interesting. The pace wasn’t to my liking, and at times I got so bored that I forgot to process the information and had to reread half a page. Still, there is something truly special about this book and I might go back and read it again in a few years.
What a great, fun read! Fforde has yet again managed to create a parallel universe, complete with ingenious ideas and rich details that make the colour-based world feel completely real. I have to say I was a bit disappointed when this book was published as I thought the next Fforde release would be a Thursday Next novel but reading this has been a fantastic experience:-) The book is packed with the usual Ffordeness: great characterisation & plotting, originality, a great find a minute, wordplays... and an ending that leaves you asking for more!
This is an ambitious blend of genres and themes that combines an immensely creative dystopian world with aspects of fantasy and surrealism. Fforde transports you into a well built universe right from the first page with a humourous and satirical tone that lasts through the entire book. One of the wackiest and most imaginative stories I've ever read and definitely a new favourite. Shades of Grey is set in a society with a class system based on the colour that a person can perceive. There are the Purples who claim the highest spot on the colour hierarchy, the Yellows who keep and set the peace, the Reds who are on the lower end of the spectrum and to which Eddie belongs. And then, at the very bottom of the hierarchy are the Greys who represent the Proletariat in Ffordes satirical take on class struggle and revolution. Shades of Grey is a blend of so many things; Fforde twists and turns typical genre tropes, entices with a compelling mystery, and develops characters that are full of depth, flaws, and reality. Eddie is a protagonist that you can root for, and the dynamic relationships he forms with the people of East Carmine forge discovery, betrayal, and love. It is well balanced in action and character study that I couldn't put down. One hundred percent recommended for those who want something new and weird but also presents an important perspective on relevant topics.
I have to admit that I didn't like this one quite as much as the Thursday Next series. That doesn't mean that I didn't like it. I did. It just means that this is a very different novel than those. When the novel began I was fascinated by the new and very different world that Fforde was establishing. He states in a postscript that it was very difficult to do so. However, it is almost impossible to discern that difficulty when reading the book. It reads as if this world had already been firmly established for the centuries the characters believe it to be. I didn't mind that Fforde took as long as he did in building and establishing this new world. He managed to do so and move the plot along. By the time the end of the book came around (I won't say anything more, spoilers) I was totally into the story and really want the sequels to come out sooner than they are projected to. It's an interesting take on the distopian novel. It's got fantasy flare but fits with the "take down of an overarching control organization" that seems to come along with every distopian novel. I definitely recommend this book.
I had a hard time with the beginning of Shades of Grey. The universe Fforde has created is so unusual, it took a lot of time to explain, and the first half of the book feels slow. Having read other Fforde books, I had high expectations. I slogged through, and by the half-way point the setup starts paying off. A lot of things that seemed like one-off jokes at the beginning come back with interesting results. By the end I understood the world and enjoyed it. I'm now invested enough to look forward to the next in the series. I listed to the audio version, and that may have been part of the problem. Fforde makes up words and uses them in unusual ways including visual puns that are missed through the audio. Shades of Grey reminded a lot of Douglas Adams, more than Fforde's previous works. Funny and dark. Worth the effort.
I was really excited to read this book, but in the end it left me a little cold. The story is of Eddie Russet, a twenty-year old (who never seemed that old to me, I would've placed his behavior and maturity firmly in the teenage years), who lives in a rigid futuristic society where social hierarchy is decided by color perception, what color you can see and how much of it. As he moves to a new town and wanders around, he falls into a wealth of mysteries that he takes it upon himself to untangle -- which will, by the end of the trilogy presumably, lead to the destruction of the corrupt social system. The world building and mystery elements were probably the best parts of the book. I was compelled to keep reading, as I did want to know what happened. But ... there was something so lackluster and dry about the characters, it really killed the book for me. No one had any affection for each other -- actually, most of the characters were absolutely rude and self-serving the entire book with little to no redemption. The main character, Eddie, never had a very deep thought, it was all whatever the plot required of him at that moment. He seemed to just wander aimlessly around town from one appointment to the next, and everything just sort of happened to him. We were never given much introspection or much insight into Eddie's thoughts, which, given this was told from a first person point of view, felt lacking. The dialogue was very odd, very stilted and, like I said, dry. At one point I decided this was a meta-decision, that the futuristic society had purposefully sucked from its citizens all empathy and emotion, and they were supposed to sound vaguely robotic (and weirdly, almost stereotypically British. Guv'nor? Really?) But whether it was intentional or not, the distance the dialogue and character interaction shoved between the story and its reader undercut all the emotional moments in the book for me. Eddie and his father seemed more like colleagues or something, than actual father and son. When a side character dies, I didn't feel anything, as he had been an almost robotic-sounding jerk the entire novel. (There were also way too many side characters to keep track of, many of which did hardly anything for the plot, considering the amount of back story given them.) The main relationship, between Eddie and Jane, was particularly unbelievable, as Jane was not a realistic character. I just didn't buy anything she said or did. She didn't feel like a real person. Someone mentions your nose and asks you on a date, so you rip their eyebrow off? Someone speaks to you, so you throw a knife at their face? It was too much exaggeration. It wasn't that I didn't like her as a character, it's that I flat-out didn't believe her as a character. And that was the same for everyone. Some books, the characters become real people in your head. In others, they never move beyond names on a page, and for me, this book was the latter. So yeah. Too many characters and too much extraneous information bogged the book down, making the climax feel emotionless and dry. There was a good story in here, though, which was why I left the book feeling disappointed more than simply uninterested. It was interesting, and there were some cool twists, but there was an emotional disconnect for me that I just couldn't get past. If the dialogue had been written better, and had the characters been more fully realized and less two-dimensional, I think this would've been a four-star book for me and worthy of a reread. But I never reread books because the plot was fun -- I reread books because I want to slip back into the characters' world and hang out with them for a little while longer. With this book, these characters, I just wasn't made to care enough.
