SHADES OF GREY
Jasper Fforde
Viking Adult
Fiction
ISBN: 9780670019632
At first, Jasper Fforde’s latest book, SHADES OF GREY, is a difficult read. It is set in the distant future, in a world nearly unrecognizable technologically and culturally. But as we follow the story of young Edward Russet, poised for adulthood in a civilization that discourages his inquisitiveness and imagination, we are eased into Fforde’s strange world and captivated by it.
Chromatacia is ruled by the Colorocracy, a social hierarchy and government based on the amount of color perception each individual and family has. Eddie Russet comes from a less-than-powerful red family. But his half-promise to Constance Oxblood, if it comes to fruition in marriage, would be a move up in the hued ranks for him and, because of his high hue perception, insurance that the Oxblood line would increase their red in the next generation. Unfortunately, the young couple’s plans are thwarted when Eddie and his father, a swatch guard, are moved out to the Outer Fringes to an odd village called East Carmine. In just four days, Eddie’s life is threatened numerous times, his half-promise to Constance is challenged, he falls in love with a violent and sarcastic revolutionary Grey named Jane, impregnates a Purple named Violet deMauve, and comes close to uncovering the mysteries on which his society is based.
From carnivorous roads and predatory trees to the shortage of spoons and the narcotic effects of the color green, from ghosts and ghost towns to leapbacks and reboots, the Chromatic world is a strange and uneasy one indeed. Fforde, in introducing readers to this world, poses more questions than he offers answers. In almost 400 pages of reading, we never learn who Munsell is, what his epiphany was, or anything about the event that changed the world. A close look at the book’s end pages reveals this is the first in an intended series following Eddie and Jane, and then it becomes apparent that Fforde may just be laying the groundwork for the action that comes later. Yet, even with the unanswered questions, Fforde’s Chromatacia is rich and vivid enough and the tale quirky and compelling enough to satisfy.
Eddie’s adventure becomes more interesting as the story unfolds. But it does require some patience from readers. In creating this darkly fantastical future, Fforde has envisioned not just new and unfamiliar technologies and a radical form of government but characters who seem not quite human, or at least a different form of humanity. Their eyes and cortexes work differently from ours, and their statures are generally smaller than ours as well. Despite their dissimilarities to us and their world to ours, SHADES OF GREY is a satirical comment on current state of affairs reminiscent of other dystopias.
This book is clever, absurd and witty, and the color references are non-stop. Fforde plays with themes of oppression, the accuracy of history and archaeology, economics and romance. Plus, there are murders to solve and Eddie’s coming-of-age ceremony to attend. At times, SHADES OF GREY gets bogged down in its own details, and while not a masterpiece of literature, it is an enjoyable and creative novel that takes science or speculative fiction in a new direction.
--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman
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