The Well of Lost Plots, by Jasper Fforde (genrebender prose, 2003)

[lb_lee]

“Dear Mr Spratt, It has come to our attention that you may be attempting to give up the booze and reconcile with your wife. While we approve of this as a plot device to generate more friction and inner conflicts, we most strongly advise you not to carry it through to a happy reconciliation, as this would put you in direct contravention of Rule 11C of the Union of Sad Loner Detective’s Code, as ratified by the Union of Literary Detectives, and it will ultimately result in your expulsion from the association with subsequent loss of benefits. I trust you will do the decent thing and halt this damaging and abnormal behaviour before it leads to your downfall. ”

Blurb: Third book in a series. Thursday Next takes refuge in the Book World to lick her wounds and be pregnant in peace. Unfortunately, she's a disaster magnet, so she ends up uncovering a Jurisfiction conspiracy, helping two Generics become well-rounded characters, and fighting an introject mindworm in her psyche who's determined to destroy all her happiest memories.

Why is it worth your time?: If you liked/disliked the other Thursday Next books, you'll feel the same way about this book for much the same reasons. It's fun, sometimes a little too pleased with its own cleverness, but crammed to the brim with interesting ideas, English literature, and fictionality. Also, this is likely the only book in the catalog that merits the "memory work" tag but has nothing to do with abuse. Here, Thursday is fighting for her memories, but the source of it the loss is the villain, not herself. Much of the emotional high points come from watching her fight the rising amnesiac tides. Also, introjects of her eradicated husband, the vanquished villain of the first book, and the current villain all show up in her dreams, interacting with each other and Thursday, helping or hindering her.

Plural Tags: introjects, abuse not mentioned, fictivity, memory work, nonswitching, otherworld

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Available in paper, ebook, and audiobook formats. Translated into German, French, and Spanish.

Misc Notes: The series continues but I need a break from this series. Shotgunning three 400 page books was too much!

Comments

Content Warnings

[lb_lee]

This series remains challenging to content warn for, due to its Monty Python absurdism, but violence, major character death, mind horror of the memory loss type, pregnancy and morning sickness, and a close shave where Thursday, amnesiac of her marriage and pregnancy, gets very drunk and comes on to a neighbor. Thankfully, that last bit turns out okay.

[acorn_squash]

Hmm, I might read that. Prior to this my only knowledge of The Well of Lost Plots was from, inexplicably, a fanfiction in which the author used it to explain why she was abandoning the story.

[lb_lee]

So far, I think this one is the most solidly constructed of the series. The series is worth a read, I'd say!