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This may have been discussed elsewhere, but I didn't find it using the search function. If this has been addressed, my apologies.
When Thursday and Miss Havisham enter the backstory of "Great Expectations", Miss Havisham mentions that she could bring the Ringling Brothers circus and a squadron of Harrier jump jets into the "negative pages" and it wouldn't matter.
Given that jets aren't in Thursday's reality, only airships/dirigibles, this is a fairly obvious bloophole. Was this intentional by Mr. Fforde?
My personal feeling was this was one of the author's many lines which test to see if the reader is paying attention.
Um, not sure if it would be a way out of the bloophole.... but what if Miss Havisham made a book jump to where these things were possible and then came back with a plane or clowns? (Tom Clancy, er.. Bravo Two Zero, not big with the circuses in these I guess)
Maybe the Library (& the "Universe of Fiction") exists "parallel to" ALL of the "real" universes, not just Thursday's, os that Havisham might have visited a "real" Earth where jets exist? Admittedly that doesn't explain why Thursday apparently didn't ask Havisham what she was talking about...
Oh, and as I don't recall seeing the name of Titivilus on any earlier posts _ Welcome to the Fforum.
Posted by: Anonymous User (---.brmngh01.mi.comcast.net)
Date: June 07, 2003 02:25PM
I grant that it is possible that a book in the Library could have been found by Miss Havisham which did contain Harrier jump jets.
To further buttress my belief that it was an intentional bloophole is the very fact that it was contained in a chapter dealing with bloopholes and their potential consequences.
Apparently, it was, in fact, a bloophole. Wonder who was sent to fix it?
From the Book Upgrade page (http://www.jasperfforde.com/upgdtn22.1.html):
"8: Go to page 310 and where it says:
"so I could have brought in a fleet of Harrier jump jets and the entire Ringling brother's circus and no-one would be any the wiser"
replace with:
"so I could have brought in a squadron of hurricanes and the entire Ringling brother's circus and no-one would be any the wiser"
Jet engines, unfortuantely, do not exist in Thursday's world. At the time that Miss Havisham made this comment, she wasn't aware of the fact."