Bookshop (Flamingo) [Paperback]

Penelope Fitzgerald (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 3, 1998 | Series: Flamingo

Penelope Fitzgerald's wonderful Booker-nominated novel. This, Penelope Fitzgerald's second novel, was her first to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It is set in a small East Anglian coastal town, where Florence Green decides, against polite but ruthless local opposition, to open a bookshop. 'She had a kind heart, but that is not much use when it comes to the matter of self-preservation.' Hardborough becomes a battleground, as small towns so easily do. Florence has tried to change the way things have always been done, and as a result, she has to take on not only the people who have made themselves important, but natural and even supernatural forces too. This is a story for anyone who knows that life has treated them with less than justice.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Since 1977, Penelope Fitzgerald has been quietly coming out with small, perfect devastations of human hope and inhuman (i.e., all-too-human) behavior. And now we have the opportunity to read "The Bookshop," her tragicomedy of provincial manners first published in 1978 in the U.K., but never available in the U.S. The Bookshop unfolds in a tiny Sussex seaside town, which by 1959 is virtually cut off from the outside English world. Postwar peace and plenty having passed it by, Hardborough is defined chiefly by what it doesn't have. It does have, however, plenty of observant inhabitants, most of whom are keen to see Florence Green's new bookshop fail. But rising damp will not stop Florence, nor will the resident, malevolent poltergeist (or "rapper," in the local patois). Nor will she be thwarted by Violet Gamart, who has designs on Florence's building for her own arts series and will go to any lengths to get it. One of Florence's few allies (who is, unfortunately, a hermit) warns her: "She wants an Arts Centre. How can the arts have a centre? But she thinks they have, and she wishes to dislodge you."

Once the Old House Bookshop is up and running, Florence is subjected to the hilarious perils of running a subscription library, training a 10-year-old assistant, and obtaining the right merchandise for her customers. Men favor works "by former SAS men, who had been parachuted into Europe and greatly influenced the course of the war; they also placed orders for books by Allied commanders who poured scorn on the SAS men, and questioned their credentials." Women fight over a biography of Queen Mary. "This was in spite of the fact that most of them seemed to possess inner knowledge of the court--more, indeed, than the biographer." But it is only when the slippery Milo North suggests Florence sell the Olympia Press edition of "Lolita" that Florence comes under legal and political fire.

Fitzgerald's heroine divides people into "exterminators and exterminatees," a vision she clearly shares with her creator--but the author balances disillusion with grace, wit, and weirdness, favoring the open ending over the moral absolute. Penelope Fitzgerald's internecine if gentle world view even extends to literature--books are living, jostling things. Florence finds that paperbacks, crowding "the shelves in well-disciplined ranks," vie with Everyman editions, which "in their shabby dignity, seemed to confront them with a look of reproach." One senses that classic hardcovers would welcome The Bookshop, despite its status as a paperback original. --Kerry Fried --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From Library Journal

Florence Green, a widow, has lived for ten years in a small village in Suffolk, England. With a modest inheritance, she plans to open the first and only bookstore in the area. Florence purchases a damp, haunted property that has stood vacant for many years but encounters unexpected resistance from one of the local gentry, Mrs. Gamart, who has a sudden yen to establish an arts center in the same building. Florence goes ahead with her plan in spite of Mrs. Gamart and meets with some small success. However, Mrs. Gamart surreptitiously places obstacles in Florence's way, going so far as to have a nephew in Parliament write and pass legislation that eventually evicts Florence from her shop and her home. This work by veteran writer Fitzgerald (The Blue Flower, LJ 3/1/97), originally published in Great Britain, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1978. Both witty and sad, it boasts whimsical characters who are masterfully portrayed. Highly recommended.
-?Joanna M. Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Coll. of Continuing Education, Providence
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Flamingo (January 3, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0006543545
• ISBN-13: 978-0006543541
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (66 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,049,312 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good read, May 11, 1998

By 

Claude Rawlings (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Bookshop (Paperback)

I noticed that several readers objected to the bleak ending of this book. Fortunately or unfortunately, I already knew the ending because it was given away in one of the New York Times reviews (don't they tell them not to do that?), and so I was prepared for it. Ms. Fitzgerald seems to me to be a genius: She is almost uncannily observant in terms of both landscape and character (including animals in the latter), and she provides a smooth and pleasant read in the tradition of Anita Brookner, Elizabeth Bowen, and Elizabeth Taylor -- a perfect book for a rainy Sunday and, for me, as satisfying as a pot of good English tea. A bit too much cuteness creeps in at times ("a bit twee," as the English would say), and I found the poltergeist not convincing. (However, I was interested to read in Amazon.con's interview with the author that the poltergeist was based on an actual experience of the author's in a real-life small-town bookstore.) All in all, I belive Ms. Fitzgerald will be a wonderful discovery for almost anyone who loves English literature.

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Small-minded pettiness, October 25, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (potsdam, new york) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Bookshop (Paperback)

I had previously read, and been most disappointed by, Penelope Fitzgerald's novel The Gate of Angels. Thus, it is only because of its strong recommendations and very short length (if it's too bad, at least I won't waste a lot of time reading it) that I took up her novel The Bookshop. Dickensian in the naming of places (the book is set in Hardborough, which it certainly is) and some characters, but not in length (only 123 pgs), Lively tells the story of a middle-aged widow who invests her small inheritence in a bookstore, the only such enterprise in her new hometown. In so doing, she makes a few enemies, and is at last forced to succumb to the small-minded pettiness that rural communities can foster. This is a sad book, and it makes one grieve for how mean people can be when they wish. That said, it is an excellent novel, and ample food for thought

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What good writing should be, September 12, 2005

By 

Sam Shoemaker "Sam" (Paris, Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Bookshop (Paperback)

This is a perfect novel. Fitzgerald, whom I was only recently introduced to, writes with precision and grace. In The Bookshop she exposes the small-mindedness of people in provincial places. In Hardborough the townsfolk are cruelly reminded of their relative irrelevance and, rather than stretch toward loftier horizons, they take aim at the book's protagonist and quash her dreams. A piercing stab at all that is colloquial, this book is also a funny satire of small-minded people. I'm surprised Fitzgerald is not more widely read on these shores (U.S.). What a talent.