Thursday's reflection that if she's not married in the next five years she'll probably spend the rest of her life alone is a striking thing. Not because it's outlandish or strange or out of place in any book, but because it's exactly what much of my writing's missing: Character exposition for the sake of character exposition. Her thinking about her relationships kind of relates to her subplot with Landen, but that plot itself is secondary to the hunt for Acheron.
In the context of reading Infinite Jest, this moment of character building also stands out. Infinite Jest is, if nothing else, almost entirely character development with only the slightest whiffs of plot until the books final 200 pages or so (as I've heard it told). Thus, for all of its typical English-ness and standard style, The Eyre Affair beats a nice middle path between writing that's almost entirely plot driven, and writing that's almost entirely character driven.
As the 2/3 mark is hit, the action in The Eyre Affair's definitely heating up. Though, once again I really wish Beowulf would be given a fair shake.
After Mycroft burns the original Chuzzlewit manuscript, Acheron just moves onto another. His go to is Shakespeare, but since no original manuscripts exist he defaults back to 19th century works. Because in English literature there's the Bard and the Victorians. That's it. Everything in between and before isn't worth the vellum/paper it's written/printed on.
You wouldn't even need to go back as far as Beowulf, you could go with Chaucer. The Beowulf manuscript might not be an original, and neither may the surviving Chaucer manuscripts, but that mystery would only add to the suspense.
Or, hey, since they're both works that are over 500 years old, why not just speculate and say "yeah, that Beowulf/Canterbury Tales (use as desired) manuscript is the original"?
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