The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [629]
We had arrived at a viewing gallery overlooking the main debating chamber, which was a spacious hall of white marble with an arched roof suspended by riveted iron girders. There was a raised dais at the back surmounted by a central and ornately carved chair flanked on each side by four smaller ones. A lectern for the speaker was in front of that, and facing both the lectern and the dais was a horse shoe pattern of desks for the representatives of the various genres. The back wall of the chamber was decorated with a vast mosaic representing the theoretical positions of the genres as they hung in the Nothing. The only other item of note in the debating chamber was the Read-O-Meter, which gave us a continually updated figure of just how many books had been read over the previous twenty-four hours. This instrument was a constant reminder of the falling ReadRates that had troubled the BookWorld over the past five years, and every time the numbers flopped over—and they did every five seconds—the number went down. Sometimes in depressingly large amounts. There was someone speaking volubly at the lectern, and the debating chamber was less than a third full.
“The main genres are seated at the front,” I explained, “and the subgenres radiate out behind them, in order of importance and size. Although the CofG oversees broad legislative issues, each individual genre can make its own decision on a local level. They all field a senator to appear before the council and look after their own interests—sometimes the debating chamber resembles something less like a seat of democracy and more like plain old horse trading.”
“Who’s talking now?” she asked as a new member took the podium. He looked as though he hadn’t brushed his hair that morning, was handsome if a bit dim-looking, had no shoes and was wearing a shirt split open to the waist.
“That’ll be Speedy Muffler, the senator from the Racy Novel genre, although I suspect that might not be his real name.”
“They have a senator?”
“Of course. Every genre has at least one, and depending on the popularity of subgenres, they might have several. Thriller which is subgenred into political, Spy and Adventure, has three. Comedy at the last count had six; Crime has twelve.”
“I see. So what’s Racy Novel’s problem?”
“It’s a border dispute. Although each book exists on its own and is adrift in the intragenre space known as the Nothing, the books belonging to the various genres clump together for mutual protection, free trade of ideas and easy movement of characters.”
“I get it. Books of a feather flock together, yes?”
“Pretty much. Sensibly, Thriller was placed next door to Crime, which itself is bordered by Human Drama—a fine demonstration of inspired genreography for the very best mutual improvement of both.”
“And Racy Novel?”
“Some idiot placed it somewhat recklessly between Ecclesiastical and Feminist, with the tiny principality of Erotica to the far north and a buffer zone with Comedy to the south comprising the subcrossover genre of Bedroom Farce/Bawdy Romp. Racy Novel gets along with Comedy and Erotica fine, but Ecclesiastical and Feminist really don’t think Racy Novel is worthy of a genre at all and often fire salvos of long-winded intellectual dissent across the border, which might do more damage if anyone in Racy Novel could understand them. For its part, Racy Novel sends panty-raiding parties into its neighbors, which wasn’t welcome in Feminist and even less in Ecclesiastical—or was it the other way around? Anyway, the whole deal might have escalated into an all-out genre war without the Council of Genres stepping in and brokering a peace deal. The CofG would guarantee Racy Novel’s independence as long as it agreed to certain…sanctions.”
“Which were?”
“An import ban on metaphor, characterization and competent description. Speedy Muffler is a bit of a megalomaniac, and both Feminist and Ecclesiastical thought containment was better than out-and-out conflict. The problem is, Racy Novel claims that this is worse than