The plot has many parts, which I'll briefly summarize: The homicidal Gingerbreadman has escaped. Goldilocks is dead. An anonymous bear lurks at the periphery of various crimes. And all over England, mysterious explosions kill champion cucumber growers.
Only after reading The Fourth Bear did I realize what was missing from The Big Over Easy: chaos. Simplicity does not become Fforde. He is at his funniest with barely manageable stories. And what he really excels at is the sideshow, however tangential. The Fourth Bear is stuffed with such delicious vignettes: Prometheus's wedding planning, Jack's marital problems, and -- best of all -- Mary Mary's hilarious but heart-warming "date" with the blobular alien Ashley.
The dialogue is sparkling, as when Jack faces off against an aggressive but dim-witted bear who is hustling porridge, the ursine equivalent of crack. Side characters (such as a grotesque Punch and Judy) appear briefly but can still surprise. And even the puns are well-aimed -- "cuclear energy" indeed!
It's hardly a criticism to say that the identity of the ultimate villain is more than predictable; only Fforde fans will leap to the right conclusion, based on Fforde's obvious biases, and they're not inclined to complain. A more serious complaint is Fforde's occasional but tiresome resort to meta-fiction. Breaking the fourth wall is a delicate business, and Fforde fumbles it more than a few times, bringing the plot to a screeching halt (as in an early therapy session between Jack and a self-proclaimed plot device). Fforde doesn't need such gimmickry. As he's shown with his Thursday Next novels, and again here, he already has more than enough tricks to entertain.
Copyright © 2009 Steven Wu 