Character Exchange Program: Characters Wanted Quiz

Answer: Lost in a Good Book

Thursday realized that book characters could jump into "our" world in the first "Thursday Next" book, but it wasn't until the second, "Lost in a Good Book", that she got herself into the Great Jurisfiction Library, containing all books ever written or going to be written (and a few others besides).

There she hears about book characters swapping roles for vacation-time. The Cheshire Cat himself shows her the ropes, although he is now the "Unitary Authority of Warrington Cat", due to a shift in county boundaries.

Answer: Miss Havisham

"It is Miss Havisham, abandoned at the altar and living her life in dreary isolation dressed in her tattered wedding robes, that steals the show." - a quote by Millon de Floss (one of Fforde's many puns, this one referring to "Mill on the Floss", by George Eliot). Havisham, from "Great Expectations", is the literary character appointed to guide Thursday through the rigors of fictional existence. With her help, Thursday is able to delve into backstories, visit early drafts, deleted characters, or nonsensical discarded chapters.

Answer: To Kill a Mockingbird

The Cat credits "To Kill a Mockingbird" with the #1 rank, largely because "it was the only one that really translated well into Arthropod" (a Ffordian race with dominating consumer demographics). Harry Potter was hitting full stride with "Goblet of Fire" at the time of Fforde's publication, 2002, but the series is set in the 1980's, so in Thursday's world, Mr. Potter has only just been born.

FYI: The Cat's ranking for "Jane Eyre" was as follows: 728th favorite fictional book, 82,581,430 total readings to date, 829,321 people reading it currently, and 1,421 people reading it "as we speak".

Answer: The Questing Beast

*** Spoiler! *** Yorrick Kaine, running for Prime Minister, is revealed as the fictional baddie in real-people world. Makes sense; most elected politicians are a bit surreal, aren't they?

"Ah!... The Next Girl! Seen the Questin' Beast, what what?"
"I'm afraid you've missed it"...
"Dem shame indeed, eh? Ill find it, you know. It is the lot of the Pellinores, to go a-mollocking for the beastly beast. Come, sir -- away!" says Sir Tweed.

Answer: The Chronoguard has eradicated her husband

Goliath Corporation has their hand in everyone's cookie jar these days. In "Well of Lost Plots" the corporate behemoths manage to have Thursday's husband, Landon, eradicated; i.e. they went back in time and killed him off as a toddler. Only Thursday remembers that he ever existed as a man, and she has a fatherless baby to prove it.

Answer: Uriah Heep

In Fforde-world, Uriah Heep began as Uriah Hope, from "David Copperfield", but only after Fforde's abominable plot twists did Hope become the Heep we hate today.

Emperor Zhark is a helpful, if obnoxious, character of Fforde's imagination, destined never to die because his fans keep telling his author death is not an option. (Literary parallel to be drawn with Mr. Doyle and his Sherlock Holmes???)

Answer: Caversham Heights

She takes on the role of Mary Jones in "Caversham Heights", complete with semi-stalker Arnold. Also visiting Caversham Heights is Captain Nemo, of "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea". He had been awaiting his glorious literary return in a sequel, but alas, Verne died before it was completed, so Nemo and the Nautilus just float around Caversham.

Answer: The absence of breakfast

Thursday says, "all the boring day-to-day mundanities that we conduct in the real world get in the way of narrative flow and are thus generally avoided. The car never needed refueling, there were never any wrong numbers, same names, or having a word annoyingly on the tip of one's tongue."

Answer: Hamlet

Thursday brings home Hamlet, the original, as there are now a plethora of copy-cat-Danish-Princes floating around England. The emotionally conflicted Hamlet winds up falling for Emma Hamilton, who is also visiting Thursday's mother.

Thursday also returns home with her new son, Friday, her pet Dodo, Pickwick (a regenerated version "from the days when reverse extinction was all the rage and you could buy home cloning kits over the counter") and Pickwick's heathen son, Alan.

Answer: The Faerie Queen

"The Faerie Queen," by Spenser, is the most boring book ever, according to Mr. Fforde and his Thursday. *** Spoiler! *** Thursday discovers that her Granny Next, who has been helping her for the past four books, is in fact Thursday herself. (Fforde likes to play with matters of time continuity!) Thanks for playing!