BELOW WRITTEN MAY 2013:-
Chômu Press (May 15 2013)
I have real-time reviewed an earlier version of JANE here, but I do intend to conduct a review of this new book in due course. In these special circumstances and bearing in mind other matters earlier described by me here and here, I shall wait until I have absorbed as many other reviews of it as possible, in order to give one all-encompassing panoply of a review. This hopefully will prove to be another constructive review-experiment to match my recent RTRcausals-with-images. The new review method that I shall apply to JANE will weave among the ‘synchronised shards of random truth and fiction’ emanating from a whole world’s reaction before being factored into my own revised reaction!
A picaresque review for a picaresque book.
When I receive my copy of this book from Amazon, I shall post a picture of it in the comment stream below from where my eventual review of it will also be linked.
Edit: Matters now indeed continue in the comment stream below.
The Des Lewis Gestalt Real-Time Reviews 
I have only encountered one review of JANE so far: http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-907681-22-6#path/978-1-907681-22-6
I feel that there is something self-contradictory about this review.
Referring to the book with such expressions as ‘compelling’ and ‘entrancing narrative voice’ and then ending the review with some critical innuendo about Jane’s life being ‘monstrously dull’ bewildered me.
Just this minute received my copy of JANE and taken this quick photo of it. It is truly wonderful as a tangible artefact and any photo on the internet cannot possibly do justice to it. More from me later no doubt, when I experience, for the first time, this enticing production of the novel…
Cover artist: Nimit Malavia
I was so enticed by the arrival of the physical presence of this book today, I couldn’t resist reading at least the first chapter. I thought this would serve — either through whatever text amendments may have occurred since my reading of it in 2009 or by the aesthetic ‘feel’ of this new book — to remind myself about how the reader’s first entrance into the ‘Warriors of Love’ world actually felt like. And it is indeed even more a tingling experience, whether one is drawn naturally to the striking emotional-sexual and historic-dynastic mores narrated by means of the characters and plot or, like me, one needs to acclimatise to those mores. I continue to feel that the descriptive prose and dialogue seem perfect for what one instinctively knows they are intended to convey … with a spiritual and/or pungent texture of words as well as a mellifluously smooth clarity reaching towards an original vision.
My picaresque review proper will commence in due course and will be linked from this thread.
PS: Many of the other novels in this twelve novel series have already been written, I believe. Each is complete and readable in itself, I understand, while interlinking in an incredible way.
To be on the safe side, and to make this book that I’ve bought truly mine to read, I have now consumed the second chapter. I am not going to repeat the exercise of dealing with the plot as I go through chapter by chapter – as I did with my on-line real-time review of the novel’s earlier version – nor do I intend to read this substantive tome quickly – but each time I see a new independent review of this Chomu book, I shall refer to that review and report upon my own re-reading at whatever stage that re-reading may have reached – although what I am doing now is not exactly a re-reading as I’m sure the text seems to have become even more refined in its engaging, sometimes complex, lucidity and its containment by this wonderful physical book makes the experience like a new literary pioneering on my part.
The imparted blossoming of young Jane, the fiscal inspector, in the heady, sometimes spiritual, sometimes bristling, happenings of Empire, Lust and Love reads like a traditionally classic novel that could equally have graced the bookshelves of any age: of yore, of today and of some distant future.
May the Goddess stay with me…and you.
I have sealed the deal with this book – personal acclimatisation complete – having enjoyed the third chapter as a prelude to my picaresque review. I am now convinced this version of JANE is significantly enhanced from the version I originally read in 2009. I would not have thought that was possible but, evidently, it is. Contrastively, I seem to be accompanied by a feisty female version of a picaresque Henry Fielding narrating adventures in War & Love and by an entrancing Goddess ‘music’ that emanates from both the words on the page and the narration’s narrator, Jane herself. All this serves to turn the pages autonomously, as it were, but I shall resist them while the first three chapters sink in and the views of other readers hopefully ensue. The only people I know for certain who have so far read at least some of this book are me and, presumably, the Publisher’s team.
I hope the author or publisher don’t mind me quoting two short passages from Chapter Three:
*
“Wisdom, my mother had taught me, is the Empress’ most precious gem, yet you may find it in the keeping of whores and cart slaves.”
*
“‘What’s the sign you’re forming with the fingers?’ I asked.
‘The sign of Mortalia,’ Modesty replied. ‘Three fingers downwards for the M, finger and thumb crossed to make o-r.’
‘Mortalia?’
‘She’s an Essex Goddess, her realm is the borderland between the living and the dead. She protects the living from the dead, and the dead from the living.’
‘So the sign wards off ghosts?’
‘So it’s said … Let’s hope it works. This day we’ve surely created a few more of them.'”
*
The author’s own website: http://petjeffery.co.uk/
While awaiting the next independent review of JANE, so that I can proceed with my re-read of this novel, I have been reading Volume Six in the Warriors of Love duodecology. Its title is DAISY’S DAY and I am privileged to have a private pre-publication copy of it. I seriously think this will end up in my top ten all-time favourite novels. For me, it is enchanting as well as refreshingly experimental in a strangely non-experimental way.
Review of “JANE by PF Jeffery”: http://paintthistownred.wordpress.com/2013/09/19/book-of-the-month-jane-by-p-f-jeffery/
“It is a work of towering imagination, staggering wit and vital energy.”
While waiting for what I think is the first major review (linked above) – I actually reached as far as page 121 in my ‘re-reading’ of JANE and then stopped. I can now continue this ‘re-reading’ for a chapter or two until the next review meets with my attention. I am pleased to say that my ‘take’ on JANE has been even further inspired by AJ Kirby’s review….
From a recent review of JANE here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/924425174?book_show_action=true&page=1
“It is truely inspiring and eye opening read, and a journey I think we should all go through.”
And another here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/943767641?book_show_action=true&page=1
“This novel has swagger. Post-apocalyptic fantasy exploring a hyper-feminist society through the youth and eroticism of beaucrat Jane. P.F.Jeffery’s writing bounces with intelligence, charisma, and humor (an absolute pleasure to read)- but still finds the time to critically analyze itself, and feminity, and sex, and love, in a very gentle and confident way.”
In recent months I have been reading private copies of two novels later in the ‘Warriors of Love’ duodecology: Daisy’s Day and Daisy’s Month.
These are uniquely charming. Magnetising.
JANE, meanwhile, can only speak for herself. With that critically slow-burning fuse of the first novel in the series.