A story about a woman who opens a bookshop in her village and meets resistance from the establishment. It's my first book by PF. I find her interesting and will read more. Thank you Susan Hill for pointing her out to me.

This book reminds one that there are still places that mark time differently. Not the inexorable march to greater tolerance and technology that is forced fed into the modern conscience, but one that is set into time immemorial. One such place is Hardborough, a small coastal town in England. Into this environment, recently widowed Florence Green has the not so grand idea of opening a bookshop. Despite residing in this town for a decade, she is treated as an interloper. One would have thought that instead of opening a tasteful and prudent bookshop she was going to act as a madam in a brothel. In a place this hardscrabble it would have been easier to peddle flesh than books. Even in modern times, 50% of all small businesses close down in 5 years. With so many factors working against her, how can Florence survive?
t
As a pensioner, whose husband has suddenly passed, Florence Green is at a crossroads. Should she carry on with her life or should she try something new? With her indomitable spirit and plenty of time on her hands, Florence makes the decision to open a bookshop. She has a love of books and anyways this town needs something to spark it from its doldrums. This setting reminded me of the “Married with Children” episodes that took place in England, involving Lower and Upper Uncton. Little does Florence know but her plan to provide culture for her provincial town will have quite a few obstacles.

tHer main obstacle is Violet Gamart a fussbudget, who acts as the chief authority of the town. She is renowned for her parties, in which the luminaries of the town are invited and mingle. She takes her role as chief benefactor of the arts seriously and does not want that power questioned. To complicate matters, Violet has set the Old House a dilapidated building in downtown as ground zero for her arts center, a building that Florence is in the process of purchasing. On the false pretense of providing culture for the community, Florence is invited to one of Violet’s parties where the trap is set to persuade her to not buy the property.

tIn addition to human resistance, there is a spiritual and natural component impeding the bookshop. There is a ghost, describe in the delightful English parlance as a “rapper” that haunts the Old House and makes its appearance known. For a person who lacked the stones that Florence does, this apparition would have provided enough reason to abandon her pursuit. Another element that is conspiring against her is the climate itself. Wet, dewy conditions are hell on buildings and the things that reside in them. Along with consistent flooding, this location is far from ideal to house books, stationary and cards.

tWhile the odds seem stacked against the protagonist, she does have a few allies. My favorite, the plucky prepubescent assistant Charlotte Gipping. Despite her age, Charlotte takes little guff from the patrons and has the challenging task of assigning the limited supply of library books to the eager customers. She is straight forward and honest in the way that children who have been groomed to be adults since birth tend to be. She has limited interest in books as a whole but cares a great deal about the shop and Florence. Another ally is the shadowy figure, Edmund Brundish. Brundish is a man who is living in the past. From his ornate, palatial estate to his flowery letters, he is a man that is seen as a dinosaur. Even with his wealth and heritage, he is whispered about like a specter instead of a living person. He is the living embodiment of an English gentleman who has let his estate fall into disrepair. There is one value that Brundish admires more than any other and that is courage. In following her own path, Edmund sees Florence as one of the most courageous creatures he has ever met.

tWith the arrival of the controversial literary sensation, “Lolita”, Florence is left with a dilemma. How will this close-knit conservative town take this work of literature? With a financial component involved as well as a societal one, Florence is left to act. Her decision could result in a boom or bust. She decides to bank on the idea of sex and scandal selling and places a large order in. Her decision proves lucrative as sales from that one book enable some breathing room. Alas, much like that rapper in the Old House, unforeseen machinations have already taken place. Whether or not Florence would have a successful business was a fait accompli. Maybe I expect too many happy endings or have just watched too many Hallmark films recently but the ending bummed me out. Despite being a decent enough story, I have to lower my star rating to a 3 for making me think of Calvinism and its concept of predestination. Also the English educational system in the late 1950s was bunk.

No os voy a engañar, empecé “La librería” de Penelope Fitzgerald, publicada en 1978, con cierto temor al haberme encontrado con todo tipo de diversas opiniones en estos años. Debo decir, que por fortuna, mi encuentro literario con esta novela ha sido una muy grata y preciosa experiencia. Tengo pendiente ver la famosa adaptación al cine que realizó Isabel Coixet, la cineasta catalana, de la que he recibido muy buenas opiniones; mientras, dejadme que os explique qué es lo que hace especial a esta obra.

La historia nos plantea uno de esos sueños que toda lectora o lector hemos tenido alguna vez en nuestra vida, abrir una pequeña librería. Florence, nuestra atípica protagonista, decide emprender esta aventura en un minúsculo pueblo costero, donde no hay ninguna otra librería, comprando un local abandonado, sucio y donde, quedaos con este curioso dato, habita un poltergeist. Pero este no será el mayor de sus problemas, y es que la gran mayoría de sus vecinos, paulatinamente, van inmiscuyéndose en sus asuntos e intentan sabotear su negocio.

Estamos ante una obra agridulce pues durante toda su lectura me ha invadido una sensación agradable e inclasificable dado que lo que nos cuenta la autora no es precisamente una situación positiva pero el estilo narrativo, la presentación de los hechos realizada de una manera tan detallada y pausada, logra un ambiente tan sumamente tranquilo que resulta relajante y totalmente acertado. He conectado en exceso con su estilo y con lo que nos quiere transmitir.

La pragmática prosa con la que Fitzgerald nos relata las peripecias de esta trágica aventura, en ocasiones deriva en momentos cómicos en los que es inevitable echar unas cuantas risas ante los obstáculos a las que se enfrenta Florence. He quedado prendada de esta sencilla trama y aún más curiosa y necesitada de leer “Lolita” de Nabokov, novela mencionada en el libro que termina siendo determinante en su devenir.

Para finalizar, solo puedo animaros a darle una oportunidad, yo, tengo claro que seguiré leyendo y descubriendo a esta autora que me ha dejado con tan estupendas sensaciones. Quizá no sea para todo tipo de lectores por su ritmo narrativo pero por lo demás creo que es una buena lectura entre literatura más densa o que requiera de una atención particular. Dejaos llevar por una historia costumbrista, de personajes donde podemos apreciar y odiar ciertas actitudes en un ambiente que podría haber sido idílico.

I started to read this because I was in the mood for a cozy book about a quaint English village bookshop, but soon found out I was in for something else altogether. While there are those touches of quaint cozy English village life (of which I know nothing personally), it's mainly about the rancor and spite that rises to the surface of the village when the bookshop opens.

It's a small book, not overly ambitious, but it's also perfectly proportioned and written with a master's touch. There's a quick and somewhat shocking scene near the beginning depicting the protagonist helping a farmer hold the unruly tongue of a horse, and once I read that scene I had all the respect in the world for Mrs. Fitzgerald.

I haven't read all her novels yet, but the three that I have read all have a sureness of touch in vivid evocation of her scenes, with just enough oddities of style to make one continually perk up one's inner ears while reading.

Something else that attracted me to her was that she didn't write her first novel until she was almost 60, and ended up writing just 5 or 6 before she died.

Took a little long to finish this because I misplaced my copy of the book. First became aware of this when I watched a movie based on the novel and it interested me. Quite good writing, plot and character development and I am happy to say that the movie took few liberties with this well-written book. Not a long book but it is not short on enjoyment!!

I was a bit disappointed in this one. I expected to really love it. It's about books and a bookstore and it takes place in England which are three of my favorite things but somehow it just didn't work for me. There isn't anything wrong with it. It's well enough written I just couldn't connect at all. I couldn't get invested in the characters or the outcome. Perhaps the fault lies with me and not the book. I will give this author another chance soon.

For sure, no one ever feels alone in a bookshop
book shop is a dream come true for a woman who loves reading
a middle aged woman who has passion and persistence
but while the beginnings are always promising, the ends are quite different

Read on Scribd!

The Bookshop is a short novella, following the life of a widow called Florence who one day travels to the coast of Suffolk, England to open up a new bookshop. It's the year 1959 and the local residents aren't too impressed to have Florence and her new business present in the town. It was interesting to see the coastal setting, as well as the old British currency of its day being mentioned constantly. What let the story down for me was the overall behaviour of the residents towards Florence. They can all be snarky and bitchy towards her, which I didn't appreciate. I would have liked to have seen more of a plot twist thrown in, as the pacing was choppy at times.

‘They’re saying that you’re about to open a bookshop. That shows you’re ready to chance some unlikely things.’

An idyllic little bookshop stuffed with old hardbacks displayed on handcrafted shelves in an aging building--possibly haunted--on a crisp ocean coastline seems to be a common denominator in many bibliophile fantasies. A love of literature often leads to a desire to spread said literature into desiring hands and much is the dream of Florence Green in Penelope Fitzgerald’s 1978 novel The Bookshop. However, a dream is often deferred when it does not align with the desires of the ruling elites and we live in a world where innocence may be glorified yet gored in actuality. So goes Fitzgerald’s outstanding little novel that spits in the face of capitalist society while acknowledging cruel realities. This is a world where gentleness does not equate kindness and ‘Morality is seldom a safe guide for human conduct.’ On the surface it would seem a cozy novel of small town England but there is a mordant melancholy at play observing the way the privileged can trample anyone underfoot if they so desire. Yet, within this slender volume there is a tragic ode to the working-class heroines, the dreamers and those with the courage to grasp their dreams. It also hits a fantastic chord of my own existence that harmonized deep within me. It also has a bold and bittersweet ending that I absolutely loved and wished more authors were daring enough to pull off. Fitzgerald’s The Bookshop is an utterly charming and devastating microcosm of society that casts its keen, observational wit on class privileges and their social and political weaponry, the varying fates of those who interact with the social ladder, and the harsh truths of reaching for a dream in a world primed to grind up dreamers in its gears.

‘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.’

There is such an impressive breadth of scope in this tightly packed little novel. This is largely due to the way Fitzgeralds’s prose is masterfully both economical and hearty at once with such a delicately incisive gaze as to pack her message so tightly and powerfully that every sentence hums with brilliance and insight. It was nominated for the Booker Prize, and rightfully so, though she would not win it until the following year with Offshore. Still, Fitzgerald manages to do in around 150pgs what most do in double the space, crafting a beautifully engrossing surface-read with a stunning depth to be mined in subtle turns of phrase and clever nods that truly embody the meaning of ‘show not tell’. She also makes great use of an objective authorial perspective where many truths and impressions are not apparent until they are reframed through the disheartening disclosures at it’s calamitous conclusion. In short, this is a minor masterpiece and I will never stop thinking about it.

This novel particularly resonated with me as Florence Green’s bookshop also features a lending library which strikes a perfect intersectional bullseye into my own life working in a small, independent bookstore as well as serving in the local library as an aide (huge shoutout to actual librarians, you all are the best [especially you, Annaka, thanks for actually reading these]). The two are very similar but not without dissonance that I sashay through on a daily basis as I often walk from one job directly to the next several days a week (I do the social media for the bookstore, @readersworldholland as well as serve on the social media committee for the library which only compounds the trip down the rabbit hole of dissonance between parallels for me). Basically my entire life is books, and I am happy for it. So when Florence’s lending library faces issues of privacy when unruly patrons begin rummaging through other people’s holds, believe you me I was on the edge of my seat ready to rumble about best practices and the importance of maintaining patron privacy (I was particularly thrilled when the young bookshop employee, Christine--whom my heart goes out to like fireworks over a scenic bay--raps a patron over the knuckles with a ruler for snooping).

There is also the constant barrage of customer questions and complaints that downright tickled me and rang true. For instance, a certain Mr. Thornton is the first on the lending list, but rumored to be a slow reader much to the indignation of waiting patrons who are quick to make their annoyances heard and also the outlandish clamoring for privileged rights to jump line in the holds list that, as a library employee who works specifically with inter-library loan holds and registration, had me in stitches. Not to mention the awkwardness of bookstore life with local authors and artisans insisting on their place amongst your stock or the weird complaints and reasons for returning books. ‘Sometimes the customers don’t like the books when they’ve bought them,’ Florence says, which reminded me of a time when I worked for Barnes and Noble and a customer returned a boxed set of the Percy Jackson series because--and you can’t make this stuff up--it didn’t come with a disclaimed that the Greek god’s were not real, which she said would make her son stop believing in a Christian God (she also told my manager I shouldn’t be working there if this was what I recommended for children—welcome to Holland, Michigan, USA folks!). So thank you, Fitzgerald, this book made me feel seen in my work-life and I love you for it.

But enough about me--my sincerest apologies--and on to the novel. Fitzgerald has created a working-class heroine/martyr with Florence Green, a sort of David vs Goliath of aging dreamer vs the systemic wealthy society in a small English village. Hardborough is ‘an island between sea and river, muttering and drawing into itself as soon as it felt the cold’ where books apparently hadn’t been sold ‘since Dombey and Son was serialized’ (the nod to Charles Dickens’s book also reveals the origin of the character name Florence, who appears as the daughter of Dombey in the work). There is all the small town nostalgia to go around in this deteriorating town, but it also serves as a astute microcosm of English society where the wealthy have ancestry claims, audiences with the House of Lords and other nefarious connections that help them retain their power and do whatever they wish, such as Violet Gamart who serves as a villain of sorts in her quest to banish Florence from the Old House where she has rightfully moved into as workplace and residence. Florence’s opening of the bookshop stirs Mrs Gamart to think the place could have been used as an Arts center, and instead of simply regretting not acting on it during its decade of desolation decides to slowly but surely unseat Florence and claim the space for her own.

Florence, on the other hand, is an unassuming middle-aged woman with a dream and enough money to make it happen as long as the bank is willing to provide a loan. Having been widowed during the War (Fitzgerald frequently takes a sardonic approach to the British military, even boldly approaching outright mockery through the representation of General Gamart as a bumbling fool only fit to follow orders) she now hopes to make her mark on the world with a meager bookstore, since ‘to leave a mark of any kind was exhilarating’.

n  She was in appearance small, wispy and wiry, somewhat insignificant from the front view, and totally so from the back. She was not much talked about, not even in Hardborough, where everyone could be seen coming over the wide distances and everything seen was discussed.n

Florence is a portrait of innocence in this world and a figurehead for the passed-over, something that does not fare well with the machinations of society. But innocence begets innocence, and her supporters include the Sea Scounts--a club of young boys that help her clear her space and set up the store--and the utterly delightful 10 year old Christine Gipping who is the sole bookshop employee for most of the novel. I was charmed by this detail as my own 10 year old daughter enjoys spending an evening a week with me in the bookstore, pouring through novels in the corner and learning how to close down the shop (I also read this novel in its entirety while in the store, which I felt fitting).

Many are quick to call Florence courageous--most notably the mysterious and wealthy Mr Brundish who is not only a foil to Mrs Gamart but also goes to great lengths to defend and support Florence’s enterprise--however ‘her courage, after all, was only a determination to survive.’ Survival is the utmost importance in a world with cruelties such as Mrs Gamart abound, one Florence is beautifully yet naively ignorant of as it is said she has not understood that the world is split between ‘exterminators and exterminatees.’ This is also a patriarchal society, where men of self-appointed impotent importance say things such as ‘but silence means consent’ to get their way, and her abilities are shortchanged simply due to being a woman.

All the more insidious are fellows such as Milo North, who outwardly seem kind and supportive but inwardly are only looking out for themselves. Milo is said to work for the BBC in London (less and less, it would seem) which has fixed him in his smaller pond of a town as seemingly a patron of the arts and someone to be admired. Milo is a social ladder climber, though a lazy one at that, and demonstrates how simply adhering only to self-preservation and choosing the path of least resistance is a more profitable journey than someone who actually works hard for a living. Milo schemes and betrays like a proper Judas, but to his credit warns Florence the whole way that her trust in others may be her undoing. The climbers are rewarded regardless of morality and work ethic, which the dreamers find a wall of systemic gatekeeping blocking their path.

Amusingly, the least worrisome of characters around town is the poltergeist that haunts the Old House. This inclusion is wonderfully charming as it is just an established fact that a ghost—dubbed ‘the rapper’ for their frequent and prolonged pounding sounds—exists and while they make themselves known from time to time it is hardly an intrusion. The true terrors of Hardborough are not a specter in the night but the daylight beasts of privilege and their conviction of deservedness to it.

Fitzgerald pulls no punches in this one, yet the working-class martyrdom is still upheld as the righteous path. Florence comments that customers will return books if ‘they’ve detected a distinct tinge of socialism.’ which offers a glimpse into the political leanings of the novel and perhaps reframes the embarrassment Florence has of wearing a red dress (red scare, folks) to the social gathering of ancestral elites at Mrs Gamart’s impressive home. Florence is not in this for the profit, and when asked by her exasperated bookkeeper if she even cares to understand how profit systems works ‘she guiltily wished she did.’ There is a purity here that wishes to transcend its capitalist society, but Fitzgerald has no interest in sugarcoasting rebellion.

Mrs Gamart has connections, which Brundish warns Florence though she foolishly claims to not be intimidated by it, and the goodwill of innocence will find no quarter in a world of bankers and politicians. Mrs Gamart not only can lodge a barrage of legal complaints, inspectors and even meddling with school records or Christine, to antagonize Florence, most of which come to nothing in the short term but amalgamate to a damning record in the long run. However, she has connections to law-makers who can sneakily ram Bills through such as one giving legal custody of the Old House if she so chooses. ‘I’m talking about an order for compulsory purchase,’ Brundish accuses her, ‘you may call it an eviction. That is a fairer term.’ The sharp criticism of elites and their unbridled power leaps from the pages.

There's something sublte but effective in the way that Gamart's attempt to open an Art Centre comes as a Public Library is also being opened in town. A library would have training for collection development and programming, whereas Ms Gamart's--a traditional value wealthy elite with the weight of government behind her--would be strictly her control over what she feels the community should and should not have as art.

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

While the ending may leave a bitter taste in some mouths--I dare say it is intended to--I personally loved it and wish for more books to have the courage to do so. Failure is a theme I really respect, even if it recalls walking across my university campus one last time at the age of 20, listening to Dylan's One Too Many Mornings stifling tears with a cigarette swallowing that I had just been dismissed and failed out of our Literature program. It’s how life is, and rosy endings make for a docile society that thinks mere courage, morality and being ‘the good side’ can defeat a system hellbent on retaining power and decimating any opposition which it has endless and vast means to mobilize in order to do so. This gives you the teeth you need, and the true courage to stand tall even in the face of defeat.

This is a bloodless yet nonetheless tragic martyr story meant to radicalize you to stand up for the dreamers and underdogs who want to believe morality and good-naturedness can be enough to succeed. Fitzgerald is watering the garden and here we are nearly 40 years later still needing her message because failure is not the end all and should not deter us, only embolden us to continue on the scaffolding of the fallen. Innocence may falter and is likely a kiss of death, which is tragic but only if we allow it to be. This is such a lovely ode to literature as well, and Lolita and its subversive powers figures prominently in the plot. Often for hilarious purposes. I love this book, plain and simple. It is brief but powerful and so eloquently written, and Fitzgerald has crafted a minor masterpiece.

5/5

‘Courage and endurance are useless if they are never tested.’

Sometimes a book ends in such a depressing way that I struggle to recall what went before. This is one of those books. It makes it difficult to write a balanced review but I will try.

I did enjoy most of the book. The author writes really well and there are many light moments where she exposes the truth of human nature. The dialogue is skilfully done and the main character,Florence Green, always seems to be in charge of the situation. She is portrayed as an intelligent, brave and resourceful woman and there is a lot of enjoyment in the way she takes on the oppositional townspeople.

This makes it all the more surprising when, right at the end of the book, things take an unexpected turn. It is a realistic ending and one which probably helped get the book listed for an award. Sadly for me it was not my kind of an ending.

My third Fitzgerald and least favourite. Essentially, it's about the power struggle between two women. Florence is another of Fitzgerald's innocents, doomed to failure. A kind of child woman with a good heart but so lacking in practical acumen that opening a bookshop in a sleepy backward seaside village seems more like a wilful act of self-harm than an act of aspiration. Especially as we're never led to believe Florence has any kind of close affinity with books. She does battle with the power broker Mrs Gamart who wants the property for her own purposes. For me it lacked the subtlety of the other two as if Fitzgerald was fed up with being poor and wanted to earn some money. It's a book that's tailor made for one of those charming period Sunday evening BBC dramas. The characters here are drawn with a more heavy-handed brush. They are more obviously plot devices than living people. Most crudely personified in Milo, the sophisticated nephew of the novel's villain who works at the BBC but ends up replacing the ten year old Christine as Florence's shop assistant. He does what the plot tells him to do, however unlikely. The plot is also dependent on its central character's almost preposterous naivety. Suspension of disbelief became increasingly difficult to allow for the plot's implausible pivots, never more evident than when she hires Milo as an assistant paying him a pittance or when she's so quick to believe her most staunch supporter has ultimately betrayed her. The comedy too can be slapstick, like the series of wish-fulfilment letters Florence writes to her pig-headed solicitor. They are funny but I struggled to believe Florence would write them, another instance of the author bullying her characters into acting out of character for the plot.

That said, there are lots of fabulous set pieces- the anarchy that ensues when Nabokov's Lolita arrives and the poltergeist with whom Florence shares the premises - and some very good writing. Essentially, it's the one dimensional nature of the characters that lets it down. 3+ stars.

Gutted by that ending. Felt the doom, but still hoped for good things for Florence. I was reading an online version and literally didn't know it was the last page. Gutted!
Is this Fitzgerald's usual method - the blunt trauma ending - anyone?

I can't rate it either because nowhere near so much fun as Offshore, but this one has taken on a much weightier subject - in Fitzgerald's words: people fall into two divisions, the exterminators and exterminees.

I don't agree with this; but authors will do as they wish in their limited perspective of reality - after all this version of life has only 123 pages.

Another Fitzgerald? Hmm, will take some time to get over that Miserable Ending - and not sure if the pleasure of her writing will offset any further nasty plot twists.

Late addition - have decided on 5 stars - because despite the gloom - she has a point... This is how the Corporate world operates - like a machine. Fitzgerald's character of Violet Gamart, represents a very credible version of people with zero moral value - the Trumps and Putins of our modern age.