The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [208]
“So what’s the most-read book?”
“Up until now or forever and all time?”
“For all time.”
The Cat thought for a moment.
“In fiction, the most-read book ever is To Kill a Mockingbird. Not just because it is a cracking good read for us, but because of all the Vertebrate überclassics it was the only one that really translated well into Arthropod. And if you can crack the Lobster market—if you’ll pardon the pun—a billion years from now, you’re really going to flog some copies. The Arthropod title is tlkîltlílkîxlkilkïxlklï, or, literally translated, The Past Nonexistent State of the Angelfish. Atticus Finch is a lobster called Tklîkï, and he defends a horseshoe crab named Klikïflik.”
“How does it compare?”
“Not too bad, although the scene with the prawns is a little harrowing. It’s the crustacean readership that makes Daphne Farquitt such a major player, too.”
“Daphne Farquitt?” I echoed with some surprise. “But her books are frightful!”
“Only to us. To the highly evolved Arthropods, Farquitt’s work is considered sacred and religious to the point of lunacy. Listen, I’m no fan of Farquitt’s, but her bodice-ripping potboiler The Squire of High Potternews sparked one of the biggest, bloodiest, shellbrokenist wars the planet has ever witnessed.”
I was getting off the point.
“So all these books are your responsibility?”
“Indeed,” replied the Cat airily.
“If I wanted to go into a book I could just pick it up and read it?”
“It’s not quite that easy,” replied the Cat. “You can only get into a book if someone has already found a way in and then exited through the library. Every book, you will observe, is bound in either red or green. Green for go, red for no-go. It’s quite easy, really—you’re not color-blind, are you?”
“No. So if I wanted to go into—oh, I don’t know, let’s pull a title out of the air—‘The Raven,’ then—”
But the Cat flinched as I said the title.
“There are some places you should not go!” he muttered in a reproachful tone, lashing his tail from side to side. “Edgar Allan Poe is one of them. His books are not fixed; there is a certain otherness that goes with them. Most of Macabre Gothic fiction tends to be like that—Sade is the same; also Webster, Wheatley and King. Go into those and you may never come out—they have a way of weaving you in the story, and before you know it you’re stuck there. Let me show you something.”
And all of a sudden we were in a large and hollow-sounding vestibule where huge Doric columns rose to support a high vaulted ceiling. The floor and walls were all dark red marble and reminded me of the entrance lobby of an old hotel—only about forty times as big. You could have parked an airship in here and still had room to hold an air race. There was a red carpet leading up from the high front doors, and all the brasswork shone like gold.
“This is where we honor the Boojummed,” said the Cat in a quiet voice. He waved a paw in the direction of a large granite memorial about the size of two upended cars. The edifice was shaped like a large book, open in the center and splayed wide with the depiction of a person walking into the left-hand page, the person’s form covered by text as he entered. On the opposite page were row upon row of names. A mason was delicately working on a new name with a mallet and chisel. He tipped his hat respectfully and resumed his work.
“Prose Resource Operatives deleted or lost in the line of duty,” explained the Cat from where he was perched on top of the statue. “We call it the Boojumorial.”
I pointed to a name on the memorial.
“Ambrose Bierce was a Jurisfiction agent?”
“One of the best. Dear, sweet Ambrose! A master of prose, but quite impetuous. He went—alone—into ‘The Literary Life of Thingum Bob’—a Poe short story that one would’ve thought held no terrors.”
The Cat sighed before continuing.
“He was trying to find a back door into Poe’s poems. We know you can get from