Great Quarantine Reads: the other SHADES OF GREY series

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   The youthful station master wore a Blue Spot on his uniform and remonstrated with the driver that the train was a minute late, and that he would have to file a report. The driver retorted that since there could be no material difference between a train that arrived at a station and a station that arrived at a train, it was equally the stationmaster’s fault. The stationmaster replied that he could not be blamed, because he had no control over the speed of the station; to which the engine driver replied that the stationmaster could control its placement, and that if it were only a thousand yards closer to Vermillion, the problem would be solved. To this the stationmaster replied that if the driver didn’t accept the lateness as his fault, he would move the station a thousand yards farther from Vermillion and make him not just late, but demeritably overdue.”

- Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde

Such wonderful writing populates all of Shades of Grey from front to back. The novel’s teen protagonist, Eddie Russett, settles himself into relegation in a new town within Chromatacia. This is the name of the book’s post-apocalyptic society, where class placement is based on the colors one can see. Rules and hierarchy come from the tenets of Munsell, the society’s founder. In our present world Munsell was an artist and inventor of a color system. The novel’s Munsell may not be so different from his real namesake. The difference is marked by Chromatacian’s interpretation of Munsell’s work. It makes for a fresh, thinly veiled allegory of Christian legalism and maddening idealistic bureaucracy.

   [Rule #] 9.3.88.32.025: The cucumber and the tomato are both fruit; the avocado is a nut. To assist with the dietary requirements of vegetarians, on the first Tuesday of the month a chicken is officially a vegetable.”

- Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde

The humor of Fforde’s first installment in an as yet un-continued series is cued naturally by great forbears like Alice in Wonderland, The Phantom Tollbooth, and A Series of Unfortunate Events.

   ....If you enjoyed laughing in the face of death, you might like to have a crack at High Saffron. One hundred merits, and all you have to do is take a look.”

“I understand there’s a one hundred percent fatality rate?”

“True, but up until the moment of death there was a one hundred percent survival rate. Really, I shouldn’t let anything as meaningless as statistics put you off.”

- Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde

Why do I include Alice in Wonderland AS WELL AS The Phantom Tollbooth as literary ancestors to Shades of Grey? Isn’t it redundant to include them both? After all, the humor of “Phantom” has oft been labeled derivative of “Alice.” Well, Alice in Wonderland is the definitive godfather of prose-so-clever-millennials-can’t-get-enough, so it deserves due credit. But “Phantom” so much more pointedly emphasized the tragedy of lost knowledge and lost emotion. This aspect makes Shades of Grey a closer descendant of “Phantom.”

The perceived tragedy of lost knowledge and emotion (and therefore humanity, I guess) puts Shades of Grey in an additional and very powerful (even if and when beaten to death) fiction family – dystopian young adult. Logan’s Run and Fahrenheit 451 come to mind as old thematic benefactors, but it is really Lois Lowry’s The Giver which most informs the Shades of Grey plot. If you haven’t read The Giver, I implore you to immediately. “Giver” birthed a new generation of dystopian YA novels, most prominently including The Hunger Games, Divergent, and The Maze Runner. The most entertaining member of this family though is undoubtedly Fforde’s book. Shades of Grey contains a humor that most of its contemporaries avoid. The humor’s contrasting effect helps to illuminate “Shades’” darker implications in a less insistent way, and possibly a more realistic one. The silliness of Chromatacia is a punctuation of how deeply wrongly it was built.

   Progressive Leapbacks had stripped so much knowledge from the Collective that we were now not only ignorant, but had no idea how ignorant. The moving stars in the night sky were only one small part of a greater understanding that had gone for good. And as I stood there frowning to myself, I had a sense that everything about the collective was utterly and completely wrong. We should be dedicating our lives to gaining knowledge, not to losing it.”

- Eddie Russett in Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde

Chromatacia’s rigid hierarchy and myriad regulations leave a void that Eddie Russett feels a need to fill. Independent thinking is discouraged by the rules, but just as significantly (maybe more significantly,) genuine emotion has been washed out as well.

   Those that can be troubled to muse upon the meaning of life are generally disappointed when they figure it out.”

- The Apocryphal Man, Negligible Senescence–Baxter #4 (NS-B4) a.k.a. “Mr. Baxter” from Jasper Fforde’s Shades of Grey

The Apocryphal Men are alleged walking historical references, a seemingly invaluable resource to the uninformed general population. But Eddie Russett is young and discovering a passion that Chromatacia has been trying to erase. If the meaning of life is disappointing, as Mr. Baxter teaches, Eddie still wants to confirm it for himself. His longing for more, though shunned, is heavy and real. Other citizens even quietly sympathize with him.

“ Never underestimate the capacity for romance, no matter what the circumstance.”

- Stafford from Jasper Fforde’s Shades of Grey

Even Eddie’s own father precedes his son with social taboos by marrying for love instead of the best color combination. Perhaps Eddie has inherited his internal struggle against a soulless social rubric.

This struggle leads him to a dark underbelly, as might be expected. It also leads him closer to bright revelations. Like The Giver, Shades of Grey strikingly critiques the dullness that often arises from communism, religion, bureaucracy, oligarchy, and most other social messes that humans (try to) organize. That dullness obfuscates sinister under-layers and suffocates truly free living. Such things need not be ignored, but addressed, lamented, or relished. Eddie Russett pushes in the right direction of self-discovery, beginning to break from his pigeonhole.

SPOILER BELOW

“  Why didn’t you take the train? You’re almost certainly going to disappear off into the outfield tomorrow. And I know you can’t possibly want to marry Violet.”

“Do you want to know the real, honest, totally truthful answer?”

He nodded.

“Because there’s someone else here in East Carmine. Someone hopelessly unsuitable. It’s all a really bad idea and will lead to trouble of the worst sort. But no matter what, every minute in her presence makes my life a minute more complete.”

“Yes,” he said, looking across at Imogen, “I know exactly what you mean.”

- Eddie and Dorian in Jasper Fforde’s Shades of Grey

END OF SPOILER

Cynics, like myself at times, may see that passage as young existential nonsense. But I believe Shades of Grey’s commendable point is whether existence or fate or a hybrid of both, human purpose and meaning are better examined and explored than dictated. That might seem like such a basic idea, but it’s especially important for young readers who feel stifled. And it may only seem basic because of how I conveyed it, but Jasper Fforde is a far better writer than I.

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Note: Shades of Grey is also alternately titled, as part of the coming series, Shades of Grey: The Road To High Saffron