Tuesday, December 10, 2019

The Bookshop - Penelope Fitzgerald

I was surprised to learn that Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Bookshop was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1978, surprised primarily because the book is so short that it does not allow for its multiple characters to be much developed before the book reaches a quick ending. I should say, too, that I stumbled upon the well-received 2017 movie version of the book a few weeks ago and watched that film before reading the novella (it’s between 118 and 163 pages long depending on which edition is chosen). The movie was more depressing than it was sad, but even then I was intrigued enough by some of the characters that I decided to read the book in order to learn more about them and their motivations. But it turns out that the screen play does a better job of exploring the characters than the book does – and that’s not at all what I expected to find.

The Bookshop is the story of Florence Green, a middle-aged widow who in 1959 moves to the fictional English seaside village of Hardborough to open the only bookshop in town. It is only after she buys the Old House and opens the shop that Florence learns that one of the most influential women in Hardborough wants to close her down and use the Old House for her own purposes. It is no small accomplishment that the bookstore ever manages to open its doors in the first place, as the Old House is a damp old wreck when she moves in and is even haunted by the Rapper, a noisy ghost that refuses to vacate the property. 

Penelope Fitzgerald
Florence does manage to open the doors even though the only hired help she can afford is a ten-year-old girl who comes in on Saturdays and after school every day. Florence, though, gets lucky when the little girl turns out to have excellent organizational skills that can be put to good use in a bookstore – especially a shop whose owner knows so little about running such a place herself. And when Florence decides to feature Vladimir Nabokov’s brand new (to England) novel Lolita in the shop window and sales take off, it looks like she just may make a go of the shop after all. 

The ruthless Mrs. Gamart, however, never gives up her campaign to rid the Old House of its books and bookstore-owner so that she and those who think like her can convert it into an arts center. She is always there, more or less in the background, pushing others to do her will, and before long Florence is forced to take the threat seriously. Can she actually be evicted from the Old House despite the fact that it is both her only home and source of income? More importantly, will she?

Bottom Line: The Bookshop has an interesting story to tell but the sparseness of so many of its characters makes it difficult to believe. That Mrs. Gamart is an amoral woman whose personality intimidates her ex-military officer husband is obvious. What is not so obvious is why a seaside tourist village is filled with so many people just like her. I suspect that if that backstory had been explored in The Bookshop, I would have enjoyed it much more than I did.  

8 comments:

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    1. I realize that this one was Booker-shortlisted 40 years ago, Jeane, but I'm just not seeing what the judges must have seen in 1979. I realize it was early in the author's career and that this may have been a breakthrough work for her, but I just don't get it. Very disappointed.

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  2. Lack of time for characters to really develop and feel alive is one of the reasons I avoid short stories and novellas. I like to really FEEL a character. To do that, it seems like you need to spend some significant time with them. That's probably why I like series so much.

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    1. I very much agree with you but for some strange reason I really love short stories and am almost always unimpressed with novellas - probably because too many novella writers try to do too much with their limited number of pages. Short story writers seem to have a better feel for the inherent limitations of their genre.

      And I could not live without having a few series going all the time. Series characters have a way of becoming very, very real to me.

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  3. I read this some years ago and like you wondered what all the fuss was about. It could've been a very interesting book and there were elements but all in all I was left a underwhelmed.

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  4. I'm with you. This book didn't fill me with any love, and I didn't really connect with any of the characters. I just thought it was a little depressing and sad.

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    1. Too, I thought that all the characters were very stereotypical and one-dimensional, even the one or two "good" people in the story. A town full of villains like this one was is not something I can believe in much without a whole lot more detail than Fitzgerald offered us.

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