The well of lost plots by Jasper Fforde Page A

changed the ending of
Jane Eyre
.
    “Hello!” he said. “Welcome to the BookWorld!”
    “Thank you. Are you well?”
    “Just dandy! I got Oedipus off the incest charge — technicality, of course — he didn’t know it was his mother at the time.”
    “Of course. And Fagin?”
    “Still due to hang, I’m afraid,” he said more sadly. “The Gryphon is onto it — he’ll find a way out, I’m sure.”
    He was looking around the shabby flying boat as he spoke.
    “Well!” he said at last. “You do make some odd decisions. I’ve heard the latest Daphne Farquitt novel is being built just down the shelf — it’s set in the eighteenth century and would be a lot more comfortable than this. Did you see the review of my latest book?”
    He meant the book he was featured in, of course — Snell was fictional from the soles of his brogues to the crown of his fedora — and like most fictioneers, a little sensitive about it. I had read the review of
Wax Lyrical for Death
and it was pretty scathing; tact was of the essence in situations like these.
    “No, I think I must have missed it.”
    “Oh! Well, it was really — really quite good, actually. I was glowingly praised as ‘Snell is . . . very good . . .
well rounded
is . . . the phrase I would use,’ and the book itself was described as ‘surely the biggest piece of . . . 1986.’ There’s talk of a boxed set, too. Listen, I wanted to tell you that your Fiction Infraction trial will probably be next week. I tried to get another postponement but Hopkins is nothing if not tenacious; place and time to be decided upon.”
    “Should I be worried?” I asked, thinking about the last time I’d faced a court here in the BookWorld. It had been in Kafka’s
The Trial
and it turned out predictably unpredictable.
    “Not really,” admitted Snell. “Our ‘strong readership approval’ defense should count for something — after all, you did actually do it, so just plain lying might not help so much after all. Listen,” he went on without stopping for breath, “Miss Havisham asked me to introduce you to the wonders of the Well — she would have been here this morning but she’s on a grammasite extermination course.”
    “We saw a grammasite in
Great Expectations
.”
    “So I heard. You can never be too careful as far as grammasites are concerned.” He looked at ibb and obb, who were just finishing off my bacon and eggs. “Is this breakfast?”
    I nodded.
    “Fascinating! I’ve always wondered what a breakfast looked like. In our books we have twenty-three dinners, twelve lunches and eighteen afternoon teas — but no breakfasts.” He paused for a moment. “And why is orange jam called marmalade, do you suppose?”
    I told him I didn’t know and passed him a mug of coffee.
    “Do you have any Generics living in your books?” I asked.
    “A half dozen or so at any one time,” he replied, spooning in some sugar and staring at ibb and obb, who, true to form, stared back. “Boring bunch until they develop a personality, then they can be quite fun. Trouble is, they have an annoying habit of assimilating themselves into a strong leading character, and it can spread amongst them like a rash. They used to be billeted en masse, but that all changed after we lodged six thousand Generics inside
Rebecca
. In under a month all but eight had become Mrs. Danvers. Listen, I don’t suppose I could interest you in a couple of housekeepers, could I?”
    “I don’t think so,” I replied, recalling Mrs. Danvers’s slightly abrasive personality.
    “Don’t blame you,” replied Snell with a laugh.
    “So now it’s only limited numbers per novel?”
    “You learn fast. We had a similar problem with Merlins. We’ve had aged-male-bearded-wizard-mentor types coming out of our ears for years.” He leaned closer. “Do you know how many Merlins the Well of Lost Plots has placed over the past fifty years?”
    “Tell me.”
    “Nine thousand!” he breathed. “We