Isn’t it a shame that this novel has an unfortunately similar title to another well known series. Fortunately for you, readers, the subject matter in Fforde’s Shades of Grey is very different to that other series and I also don’t feel the urge to go through it with a red pen and correct all the errors. (Read: you will not be getting a rant about fan fiction and BDSM during this post.)
Shades of Grey is set in a world not so different from ours, but ‘the Something that Happened’ has rendered it a post-catastrophe one, ridged with rules, and social hierarchy. It is never clear why natural colours are waning from the world, or why artificial colour is mined from the pre-calamity relics and synthesised to add colour to towns and gardens. But there is a lot about Fforde’s Shades of Grey that is surprising in it’s original world building. While on the surface it is a book about society being ranked by what colours you can see best and the social projects of affording to repaint the town for social status, it is also quirky and a book about spoons being prized commodities, and the night being dangerous (and full of terrors… yes… I’m sure you can guess what I’ve been watching recently) and man-eating plants.
While this isn’t the most exciting novel I’ve read, it feels like a good beginning to a larger story and it is agreeably pleasant and eccentric while feeling original.
Shades of Grey – Jasper Fforde
Shades of Grey drops you straight in the middle of this 1950s-like world, where manners are important because they are a transaction with everyone you come across. It’s a world where you are marked and watched and have points (which translate as a sort of currency to be able to marry or move house) and those are some of the most precious things you possess. If you are particularly badly behaved you get sent to a sort of social rehab but nobody is sure where it is, or what happens to you after that.
The perceptual biases – in what colour you can see – has resulted in a social hierarchy which everyone is subjected to. Greens rank higher than reds and everyone who can see colour ranks higher than the greys (who are no better then servants) and it is discouraged to allow marriages to happen between certain colours. Because of course, genetics pass and mixing the colours can water you down to a grey. Everyone living in ‘the Collective’ knows how things work and don’t mention or see anyone who lives outside of their idea of what society is. Think – if I don’t acknowledge it, it doesn’t destroy my world view because if I see it, I can’t explain it through the rules I know to be true.
Colour isn’t just a valuable commodity to paint or decorate with it is also medicine. It can also be an intoxicant. Staring at a particular shades of green or “chasing the frog”, is the equivalent of taking drugs. Think keeping a vanity case with a lime green paint swatch from B&Q in it and stealing glances at it.
Rather then being a giant comment of social hierarchies this book is a little more concerned with it’s own workings. While there are some glaringly obvious injustices and maladies which our protagonist struggles to place in his understanding of the world this is more of a book about trying to fit in rather then fighting to be part of the difference. But because it is so involved with itself in giving us carnivorous trees and spoons and postcodes assigned at birth and the social intricacies of marriage while tapping out stories on the water pipes after dark in morse code – the first half is a little slow narratively.
Now I don’t think this is a bad thing because writing this post has become more about the world building than the narrative. This is a lot of information to take in, it is unfamiliar and sometimes seemingly backward and it gives a lot of wiggle room for our protagonist, Edward Russett to develop as a character. But while the novel potters and putters it has a great helping of humour for light relief in the similar vein of Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams which distracts from the pace.
Eddie is a gawky unpopular teenager trying to exist in a very ridged society and have a life that isn’t awful and praying that he scores highly on his colour Perception test so he can get a good job. So the first half of the novel where Eddie gets thrown into an unfamiliar environment with unfamiliar people is exactly where the reader is.
It’s a much gentler ride to some of the novels I’ve read recently where I have spent a third of the novel being bombarded with stuff while getting a handle on a complicated narrative and it is welcome relief. Sometimes you just want a gentle book right? You want a book that is a little slapstick, a little fond of word play, a little eccentric, and brilliantly written. You want something that’ll make you smile and is a little absurd and Shades of Grey is that book.
For one reason and another, East Carmine has no Swatchman (like a doctor) and Eddie’s father has been charged with the duty of standing in. East Carmine is on the very outskirts of the collective and is very different from where they have lived previously. En route they take a brief stop and Eddie sees Jane – a grey – and falls head over heels for her midst an emergency (a man – a high raking purple – is having a heart attack). Through this chance meeting once and then again in East Carmine, Eddie begins to learn that the society he lives in is not as straightforward as he believes. East Carmine is corrupt and the Collective may be a greater evil than ever imagined.
All manner of hidden secrets come out of the woodwork in this novel and I feel a little sorry for Eddie at times, he starts as a very naive young man, who is genuinely trying to make a good go of it, and just so happens to meet one of the most jaded and cynical of all people in his world. While the narrative isn’t as remarkable as some and the pace can be slower, the execution of Shades of Grey is incredible and the world building is in a class of it’s own. Although it currently stands alone – Fforde has said that there will be more.
This is a quirky, unusual read that I think is great light relief from heavier books or simply a wonderful gateway into uncharted genres.
The Shelf Wanderer 