Rating: 5* of five

n  TODAY 30 JAN 21 this near-perfect book is $3.49!n

2019 UPDATE There's a 2017 film that's pretty nearly the book on film. If your library participates in Kanopy's free streaming service, the film is available there.

The Publisher Says: In 1959 Florence Green, a kindhearted widow with a small inheritance, risks everything to open a bookshop - the only bookshop - in the seaside town of Hardborough. By making a success of a business so impractical, she invites the hostility of the town's less prosperous shopkeepers. By daring to enlarge her neighbors' lives, she crosses Mrs. Gamart, the local arts doyenne. Florence's warehouse leaks, her cellar seeps, and the shop is apparently haunted. Only too late does she begin to suspect the truth: a town that lacks a bookshop isn't always a town that wants one.

My Review: Florence Green is my current idol of Resistance. She has lived quietly and unassumingly in Hardborough, a small East Anglian seaside town, and realized that her life was simply passing and not being lived. So she took her small inheritance and opened a bookshop.

A good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life, and as such it must surely be a necessary commodity.

Of course, she takes out a loan against the freehold of her premises to start the business. The sums are risible by today's standards, since this is 1959, but they seem enormous to Mrs Green. She sets out to stock her business with the remainder stock of her former employers in London, then contacts publishers' sales agents to visit and display their wares:

Those who made it {to her shop} were somewhat unwilling to part with...what Florence really wanted, unless she would also take a pile of novels which had the air, in their slightly worn jackets, of women on whom no one had ever made any demand.

This being 1959, a certain degree of wincing at this self-deprecating, or merely invisibly sexist, humor is to be granted; but Fitzgerald wrote the novel in 1977 or thereabouts, as it was first published in 1978. Was this mildly misogynistic sally meant to be read with a raised eyebrow, or was she simply oblivious to its sexism? I don't know, but I'm guessing it wasn't ironic based on the tone of the tale. It's very funny either way.

Life as a business proprietor is not stress-free. Mrs Green is a busy, busy woman. Many are the factors she is required to balance in her running of the business. Yet summer comes but once a year, and after all what good is living in a seaside village if the sea is invisible?

She ought to go down to the beach. It was Thursday, early closing, and it seemed ungrateful to live so close to the sea and never look at it for weeks on end.

It's always seemed odd to me how many people I know here in my own seaside city who simply don't pay the slightest attention to the ocean that surrounds us!

Mrs Green has failed to do one crucial thing in opening her shop: Get the town's Great and Good on side. In fact, when she is invited to the local county set's meeting place, she receives a very simple and direct order to cease and desist her plans to open her shop in the Old House, which it transpires the local grande dame wishes to put to another use. To everyone's blank surprise, she does not back down. The invisible battle lines are drawn:

She had once seen a heron flying across the estuary and trying, while it was on the wing, to swallow an eel which it had caught. The eel, in turn, was struggling to escape from the gullet of the heron and appeared a quarter, a half, or occasionally three-quarters of the way out. The indecision expressed by both creatures was pitiable. They had taken on too much.

The battles go in Mrs Green's favor...until they quite memorably do not. The quality do not like being told no.

But the battles are waged fully! Mrs Green is not one to lie down and say die!

Courage and endurance are useless if they are never tested.

The tests are, in the end, simply more than Mrs Green has the resources to withstand. The state gets involved. The lawyers and the banks are not on her side. The town isn't willing to pull themselves out of the primordial muck of How Things Are Done to rally to her aid.

It was defeat, but defeat is less unwelcome when you are tired.

And yet Florence Green stood tall until the last moment, only leaving Hardborough when her very last farthing is needed to buy her way out of the morass that her impertinent refusal to bow before the quality has landed her in.

For that reason, I recommend this book for your 45-hating, Resistance fighting, Yule giftee. It will give them a rock to stand on.

She had once seen a heron flying across the estuary and trying, while it was on the wing, to swallow an eel which it had caught. The eel, in turn, was struggling to escape from the gullet of the heron and appeared a quarter, a half, or occasionally three-quarters of the way out. The indecision expressed by both creatures was pitiable. They had taken on too much.

For some reason I was under the impression that this was going to be a feel-good novel about a woman who opens a bookshop in the little village where she is a relative newcomer, and, after having overcome several obstacles on her way, triumphs in the end.

For the longest time I was thinking that although it was certainly better than Offshore and I enjoyed the mildly humorous descriptions of the characters, it still felt rather safe and predictable, with the only element of surprise being a poltergeist, but eventually it went into a totally different direction and now I am sad. Even more so because Florence (the main character) comes away with completely the wrong idea about a certain person, and all due to someone else's blatant lies and scheming.

In the introduction, David Nicholls compares Fitzgerald to Muriel Spark, which I found interesting, because Muriel Spark has long been one of my favourite authors. Can't say I see the similarities myself. Spark has a kind of cheerful heartlessness that Fitzgerald is lacking, if you can lack something that isn't there. Maybe I should say that Spark lacks the kind of compassion that Fitzgerald has?


Edit 18 June 2022: adding my text update under the spoiler tag in case it is disappeared:

August 5, 2020 – page 76
43.18% "They lingered at the front door saying that they must not let in the cold air, while the General's old dog, which lived in single-minded expectation of the door opening, thumped its tail feebly on the shining floor; (p. 30)"

Много исках да харесам историята. И не само защото става въпрос за книжарница и книги и любовта към тях или заради красивата корица.
Наистина се опитах, но макара и много минимален брой страници, бях напълно разочарована. Наполовина от бавното и безинтересно представяне на диалога, до много неприятния край.
Щеше ми се да беше кратка сладка история, но корица ме подлъга и ми вдигна очакваният.

Не я препоръчвам.

★★½

Siamo nel 1959.
Florence Green, rimasta vedova, decide di scuotere la sonnolenta cittadina di Hardborough aprendo una libreria.
Coraggiosa e caparbia nel voler affrontare gli ostacoli messi sulla sua strada soprattutto da Mrs Gamart, donna avvezza alla manipolazione.

Di solito evito la narrativa che utilizza nel titolo la parola “libro” e i suoi derivati.
Di solito si tratta di romanzi dove si snocciolano frasi ad effetto sul piacere della lettura.

Non è questo il caso ma c’è poco da dire mi sono annoiata da morire.

Speravo, forse, che leggendo la storia di una libraia avrei potuto rivivere la mia esperienza ma non è stato così!!

I libri ci sono, la libreria pure ma il motore della storia è più che altro la forza dei prepotenti.
Mi è mancata la magia, quella che ti fa immergere in una storia tanto da riuscire a sospendere il tuo presente.
Succede...

Arriva il momento in cui tutti noi ci dobbiamo rassegnare a mettere la parola fine.

A few weeks ago I read Walter Benjamin's essay, Critique of Violence. The depth and rigour of his analysis was exacting and ultimately very rewarding. Along with the entire essay, I tweeted a line from it - For a cause, however effective, becomes violent, in the precise sense of the word, only when it bears on moral issues. Someone said that they didn't understand it and someone else misunderstood it and asked me several irrelevant questions. It left me thinking, how do you explain an alternate to morality to someone who has no understanding of any other method as a guide to human conduct.

I found my answer in The Bookshop. ...morality is seldom a safe guide for human conduct. The beauty of this sentence is that it is tied to a prefix - She did not know that . The prefix makes it relatable if you are not used to abstract thinking. With The Bookshop, Penelope Fitzgerald takes the commonplace and highlights the profundity in it.

The plot is quite simple. A widow opens a bookshop in small town that doesn't want it. It's a short book. There are no big words or serpentine sentences. If I had to categorize this novella into a genre, I'd call it explainer style absurdist fiction. The 'absurdity' is in the slight unconventionality of the middle-aged Florence Green. Slight because her intentions are always within grasp. You see her feisty side:

Dear Mr Thornton,
Coward!
Yours sincerely,
Florence Green.

Yet soon you are reminded that it is not a characteristic cast in stone. Because If Florence was courageous, it was in quite a different way from General Gamut, who behaved exactly the same as when was under fire as when he wasn't, or from Mr. Brundish who defied the world by refusing to admit it to his earth. Her courage, was after all, only a determination to survive.

The style reminded me of Kafka's first written and unfinished novel Amerika. The blurb of my edition referred to its un Kafkaesque blitheness and sunniness. The absence of a vermin in a dark room doesn't make it 'sunny'. In comparison to his other works, there were hardly any absurdities in Amerika. That made it more accessible to the readers who are unwilling to trust their minds. The kind of readers who cannot view the experience of reading The Metamorphosis as a personal journey. "What is the author saying?", people wonder instead of, "What does this mean to me?"

Kafka wished to remove interference with the readers perception and it lead to the vaguer Metamorphosis. Fitzgerald took the other direction, she tied down her abstractions. In many ways, this allows the reader to form his/her own judgements of the book. Kafka's oddities has caused a "hate him" or "he's god" attitude among confused readers. You will not get confused with Fitzgerald. This makes her approachable while still disseminating intense notions.

--
April 24, 2015

Oh my.....this is a dark little story. Afterwards, it leaves you thinking. Devastating. Real. I believe this could happen. I am grateful that the ten-and-a-half-year-old Christine, the shop assistant, is woven into the story. I needed her and I needed to experience the relationship between her and Florence Green, the bookshop's owner. The whole story is told over a short passage of a few months from 1959 to 1960 in a small Suffolk town on the North Sea. It is interesting to note that the author herself owned a bookshop!

This is less a story about books than about people.

I will add one quote: "....the girl (Christine) had been given too much authority, a poison like any other excess. The only remedy in this case was to give her more."

The audiobook I listened to was narrated by Eve Karpf. The performance is good but nothing exceptional. I had to rewind several times; she reads too fast. I wanted to be sure to catch e-v-e-r-y single word.

The audiobook has a short preface written by Harmione Lee, but read by Stephanie Racine. It is the exact same preface found in Offshore! There is also an insubstantial introduction written and read by David Nicholls. The two function as fillers.

I would have enjoyed this novella more if it wasn't so sad. Florence Green decides to open up a bookshop in an old house in a small English town. Things go well at first, and Florence even starts a lending library. Unfortunately, one of the society ladies in town has her own plans for that building and does everything in her power to undermine the shop. The novel is amusing in its depictions of small-town life and politics, but it is so bittersweet that several times I sighed in frustration. Cheer up, Florence. You fought a good fight.

I had never read any Fitzgerald, sad to say, and was only impelled to read this after having watched the recent and delightful (perfectly cast!) film adaptation. Although several liberties were taken to the text (most notably, changing the bleak ending to a perhaps more satisfying come-uppance on the town), both book and film remain charming and worth investigating.

This is such a good book.

Curt, poignant, understated, witty, charming, ruthless.

Every time I picked it up I felt myself slowly sink into its chilly English waters and upon rolling my eyes over its crisp sentences I’d abandon myself to the tug of its current and let it drag me serenely away.

The very small town of Hardborough earns its name ten times over. Surrounded by bogs and marshes, smothered by nasty weather, groped by touchy tides, and filled with bitter, selfish, gossipy souls. And ghosts, let’s not forget the ghosts. The book offers a gloomy outlook on human nature; G-d knows we're alone in this thorny enterprise called life and the best we can hope for is to care deeply about something.

Its symbols are a bit heavy-handed and I would perhaps have liked certain characters to be handled differently… but pooey! This is one of the most moving books I’ve read in a long time and I loved every second spent in its company.

Ditch Amazon for this one and go buy it from a small town bookshop - believe me, you'll feel better for it.

Hace tiempo, una amiga me dijo “tía, vamos a ver la nueva de Coixet”. Y yo, que confiaba -y sigo confiando- en su criterio, la seguí sin vacilar. Vi la película con fascinación, su fotografía, su banda sonora, su reparto; todo. Estaba extasiada y se lo agradecí a mi amiga, porque quizás sin ella jam��s hubiese sabido de la existencia de La Librería. Después de una noche estupenda, ya calentita en mi cama, me puse a mirar qué opinaba la crítica, y para mi sorpresa, me topé con que la película estaba basada en un libro. Sobra decir que fui corriendo a conseguirlo. Supongo que las editoriales aprovecharon el tirón, porque a los pocos días encontré una preciosa edición conmemorativa de Impedimenta. Estaba feliz con mi nueva (y cara) adquisición. Sin embargo, al subirla a instagram recibí muchos mensajes de personas diciéndome que, aunque habían disfrutado de la película, habían aborrecido el libro. Entré en pánico. ¿Me había gastado 21 euros en algo que no valía la pena? Algunos me dijeron que el libro era aburrido, que no pasaba nada y que era una auténtica tomadura de pelo. Habiéndome gastado ya el dinero, solo me quedaba leerlo para resolver semejante misterio. ¿Me gustaría o lo aborrecería? A partir de aquí, spoilers.

La librería cuenta la historia de Florence Green, una mujer viuda de unos cuarenta años que decide abrir una librería en un minúsculo pueblo costero apartado del mundo. Dicho pueblo se caracteriza justamente por lo que no tiene. Florence adquiere un edificio que lleva años abandonado, comido por la humedad y que incluso tiene su propio poltergeist, Old House. Pero pronto se topará con la resistencia muda de las fuerzas vivas del pueblo que, de un modo cortés pero implacable, empezarán a acorralarla. Contratará como ayudante a una niña de diez años, la única que no sueña con sabotear su pequeño negocio. Un día, alguien le sugiere que ponga a la venta la polémica novela Lolita y, según la propia sinopsis, se desencadena en el pueblo un terremoto sutil pero devastador.

Mientras más leía libro, más hechizada estaba. La narración me parecía tremendamente bella y me enamoré desde la primera página. Sabía que no era aburrida y que había más entre líneas, lo notaba en el ambiente. Luego lo comprobé cuando descubrí que ni siquiera el nombre de Florence Green fue una casualidad. “Green” simboliza a alguien inexperto, ingenuo, inocente, como lo es nuestra Florence. Pero no solo es así, no es tan plana, en serio. Ni lo son los habitantes del pueblo (al menos para mí, son simples, pero no planos). Volviendo a Florence será inexperta y buena, pero también valiente e ingeniosa. No todos abren una librería en un pueblo nada interesado en tener una. Y es que el propio señor Brundish le asegura que tiene coraje “en abundancia”. Y vaya si lo va a necesitar, porque aparece en escena Violet Gamart. ¿La antagonista, quizás? O puede que el antagonista sea el pueblo entero, no sé. La señora Gamart está empeñada en que Old House sea un centro para las Artes y no parará hasta conseguirlo.

La librería no es un libro autobiográfico, pero sí bebe de la vida de la autora. Y es que ella estuvo viviendo en un pueblo costero. Llegó un momento en el que debido a numerosas deudas, tuvo que vender y los habitantes del pueblo que en un primer momento fueron amigos, le dieron la espalda. Qué casualidad, como a Florence. Y encima, la autora también era viuda. Me negué a creer que el libro sería aburrido. Y mientras lo leía, solo podía pensar “están pasando demasiadas cosas a la vez”. Sí, todo está metido en un ritmo muy lento, el libro es muy pausado pero al mismo tiempo están pasando mogollón de cosas (o al menos, así lo percibí yo): la apertura de la librería, las sonrisas falsas, la hipocresía, la presión social, los abogados incompetentes, el sobrino de la señora Gamart, Milo, la increíble Christine (y su hermosa relación con Florence), la inesperada amistad del señor Brundish, la expropiación de Old House… Y todo eso ocurre en menos de 200 páginas. Incluso la muerte pulula entre esas páginas.

¿Por qué la gente disfrutaba de la película pero no del libro? Tengo una teoría, aunque yo no soy una experta ni en cine ni en literatura, así que seguramente esté metiendo la pata. Solo soy una chica que vio la película y leyó el libro. Creo que tanto la película como el libro son agridulces. Pero el libro muchísimo más. La película, aunque con conclusiones parecidas a las de la novela, deja un pozo de esperanza y coraje (esa escena con Florence y Christine mirándose, Old House de fondo). Pero ¿qué da Penélope en su libro? Un pozo de tristeza y decepción. Acabar el libro es un bofetón de realidad. Cuando Florence se aleja del pueblo lo hace con vergüenza y dice "me voy del pueblo en el que viví años y no ha querido una librería”. ¿Qué está diciendo el libro? Que da igual que seamos como Florence, buenos, ingenuos, con buenas intenciones. Da igual que seamos buena gente. Ya lo dicen en el libro y lo dicen en la película, y ese para mí es el quid de la cuestión, el mundo se divide en exterminadores y exterminados, y los que predominan son los primeros. Pero en la película aún hay esperanza y en el libro solo amargura. Resulta que la vida es dura e injusta, ¿qué os parece? Eso fue lo que me transmitió el libro y por eso lo amé.

Una perla inaspettata questo breve romanzo di Penelope Fitzgerald (in realtà letto nell'edizione italiana Sellerio, che qui non trovo), che rischia l'equivoco: si sa che i romanzi inglesi che parlano di villaggi pittoreschi, ragazze in bicicletta, librerie, prati verdi, scogliere ventose e tazze di tè piacciono molto alle lettrici e oggi se ne pubblicano a iosa (e se ne traggono film, spesso scioccherelli). Qui, però, tutto questo è solo la superficie. Non si tratta di una lettura frivola. È una cosa seria, serissima. Una donna non giovane e non bella, nemmeno tanto colta forse o quantomeno non fornita di una straordinaria personalità, però una donna con la testa sulle spalle, onesta e coraggiosa, decide di aprire una libreria (siamo nel '59) in un paesino dell'East Anglia che non ne ha. Il progetto si rivela tutt'altro che semplice e c'è chi rema contro. Perché? Sta tutto qui, e non posso rivelare nulla. C'è ironia, naturalmente, dialoghi taglienti pieni di sarcasmo britannico, ma anche poesia e grazia (indimenticabile il personaggio della bambina, angelica all'apparenza, ma sveglia, cinica e precoce) e finale amarezza: perché a un certo punto il lettore si rende conto che non stiamo parlando di come sono verdi i pascoli inglesi o di com'è piacevole leggere un buon libro accanto al caminetto acceso, no, qui stiamo parlando di come va il mondo.
Una storia breve, semplice e geniale.