{"id":483,"date":"2011-12-05T20:24:16","date_gmt":"2011-12-05T20:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/?p=483"},"modified":"2012-02-27T14:20:31","modified_gmt":"2012-02-27T14:20:31","slug":"shades-of-grey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/?p=483","title":{"rendered":"Shades of Grey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shades of Grey<\/em> by Jasper Fforde<\/h3>\n

The North Austin Reading Group met on December 5th<\/sup> at the North Village Branch of the Austin Public Library to discuss Jasper Fforde\u2019s Shades of Grey<\/em>.\u00a0 Eight people attended; all had read Fforde before.\u00a0 All started the book and 6 finished it.\u00a0 The book was published by Viking Adult, December 2009.\u00a0 It is available in hardback, paperback, audio book and on the Kindle.\u00a0 One innovation, \u201cThe Shades of Grey Cheat Sheet,\u201d can be found at http:\/\/www.jasperfforde.com\/grey\/images\/cheat.pdf<\/a>.\u00a0 It\u2019s a two-page list of some of the high points of a difficult-to-describe book.<\/p>\n

This element\u2014being hard to describe\u2014made the book ideal for a discussion group.\u00a0 The setting is of a dystopian post-apocalyptic society (the Something that Happened) with a pecking order determined by one\u2019s sensitivity to and perception of color.\u00a0 The \u201cNew Order\u201d had undertaken \u201cThe Great Leap Backward\u201d and enforced a plethora of rules for which no one really understood the rationale.\u00a0 The Greys were the lowest social order; Reds were next up, and so on up the chromatic scale.<\/p>\n

There is a great deal of social satire and humor of an especially British flavour.\u00a0 Most of the group enjoyed it, but a few knew they were missing some things.\u00a0 One member didn\u2019t finish the book because the humor didn\u2019t appeal to him.\u00a0 Another had nominated it for the Hugo because he especially enjoyed the humor and imagination displayed.<\/p>\n

An animated discussion illustrated why the members enjoy this group so much.\u00a0 One discussed Fforde\u2019s background in film as making his work \u201cvisual\u201d and giving him a lot of knowledge about the technology of color and the ability to translate this into his writing\u2014and then went on to contrast Fforde, Mi\u00e9ville and Stross (who is visually impaired) as to the relationship between being able to write visually and relative commercial success.\u00a0 Another member knows everything<\/em> about Crayolas (see http:\/\/www.crayola.com\/colorcensus\/history\/<\/a>chronology.cfm<\/span>, for example) and has a nearly-complete collection of them.\u00a0 This was followed by a discussion of the development of color scale by Arthur Munsell (hue, value and chroma) and subsequent systems (RGB, CMYK, L*a*b, etc.) and how a \u201crebel\u201d in Fforde\u2019s society might prefer a different color scale than the administration.<\/p>\n

One member especially liked the ambiguity: \u201cWhat exactly is<\/em> he making fun of?\u201d\u00a0 Another reread the book to \u201csavor the language.\u201d\u00a0 She \u201clooked forward to the end of each paragraph for something wonderful\u2014or bizarre.\u201d\u00a0 Most agreed that \u201cthere are no coincidences in Fforde\u2019s books.\u201d\u00a0 Everything is thought out, written and rewritten, edited and, according to one member, literally ripped out of his hands by the editors.<\/p>\n

In summary, this is considered by most to be a funny, enjoyable and imaginative book, and they are looking forward to the next in the series even though it won\u2019t be out until 2014.\u00a0 But be ready for a humor that is sharp and with a British flavor.\u00a0 Don\u2019t expect belly laughs.\u00a0 Well, maybe a few . . . .<\/p>\n

After the meeting, the group enjoyed dinner at the Korea House on West Anderson Lane.<\/p>\n

— Tom Sciance<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde The North Austin Reading Group met on December 5th at the North Village Branch of the Austin Public Library to discuss Jasper Fforde\u2019s Shades of Grey.\u00a0 Eight people attended; all had read Fforde before.\u00a0 All started the book and 6 finished it.\u00a0 The book was published by Viking Adult, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=483"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":506,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483\/revisions\/506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}