Thursday Next is one of my favourite literary creations. She is a very flawed heroine with a VERY complicated life and thanks to the genius of her creator, Jasper Fforde, we get to see different aspects of her exemplified through her fictional counterparts. This allows him, as a writer, to emphasise the various parts of her personality and really explore the depths of her character. As a result, she is one of the most fully developed literary creations I have ever read.

The premise of the books is that it is possible to travel into the fictional world and Thursday is part of the Jurisdiction organisation which polices this world. This is metafiction at its very best and one of the things I love about the books is that it makes me question when, if ever, it is right to change a book, whether it is for a TV adaptation, or if facts are being altered to suit fiction. (I explored this idea in a previous blogpost, which can be found here.) Perhaps without intending to, Fforde prompts us to question our preconceptions about both our own world and the fictional ones we love to travel to.

In terms of why I would have dinner with her, I would love to hear Thursdays' thoughts on some of the characters I have read about over the years. What does she make of the goings on in the Discworld? Is Mr Darcy proud or shy? Is Nancy Drew really such a good detective? Is Poirot as endearing as he is on the page, or is he an insufferable know-it-all? She could answer so many of my questions and if I were able to have dinner with her, then it would mean that her world is real and therefore, all the characters I have fallen in love with over the years would also be real and I could meet them and have them be a part of my life beyond the confines of their fictional worlds.

In escaping to the Book world, Thursday does what I have always longed to do and whilst I understand that her world is not without its own dangers, there are times when the realm of fiction is much more appealing than the real world!