Rating: 
Summary: A Sad Vignette
Review: "The Book Shop" is not really a novel, but a tiny microcosm of a time and place long gone and yet still unfortunately true--a small English coastal town in the late 50s, where the efforts of one spunky widow to open up the village's only book shop are menaced by one nasty bully in the form of the town's most influential woman.In very few words, Penelope Fitzgerald creates an atmosphere of almost overwhelming ennui...one can feel the fog coming off the sea (maybe a metaphor for the close-mindedness of most of the town's citizens) and feel the tension that is closing in on our heroine, Florence Green. With mighty strength, Florence doggedly tries to make a go of her book shop by steadfastly ignoring her enemy, Violet Gamart, who wants the premises for an "arts center." The end is unbelievably sad, and more so because really, in four decades, nothing much has changed about human nature. This is a strange and depressing book, not to everyone's taste. I found it fascinating and well-written, but it takes some doing to get through it. This is my first Fitzgerald novel, and I am now interested in seeing her style in her other books. I cannot comment on whether this is representative of her other writings, but I would defnitely recommend giving it a try.
Rating:
Summary: A Sad Vignette
Review: "The Book Shop" is not really a novel, but a tiny microcosm of a time and place long gone and yet still unfortunately true--a small English coastal town in the late 50s, where the efforts of one spunky widow to open up the village's only book shop are menaced by one nasty bully in the form of the town's most influential woman. In very few words, Penelope Fitzgerald creates an atmosphere of almost overwhelming ennui...one can feel the fog coming off the sea (maybe a metaphor for the close-mindedness of most of the town's citizens) and feel the tension that is closing in on our heroine, Florence Green. With mighty strength, Florence doggedly tries to make a go of her book shop by steadfastly ignoring her enemy, Violet Gamart, who wants the premises for an "arts center." The end is unbelievably sad, and more so because really, in four decades, nothing much has changed about human nature. This is a strange and depressing book, not to everyone's taste. I found it fascinating and well-written, but it takes some doing to get through it. This is my first Fitzgerald novel, and I am now interested in seeing her style in her other books. I cannot comment on whether this is representative of her other writings, but I would defnitely recommend giving it a try.
Rating: 
Summary: The ideal book to give to someone locked in a room...
Review: as it can slide easily under most doors, and is an excellent read. It will become a precisely drawn world to live in for a few hours before devoting yourself to trying to get out of the room again. The characters were sharply drawn, and the ending grabbed at my throat a little. My only complaint is the same one I have about Hardy: the author, despite having a keen sense of humor, seems to think that life is inevitably a rather sad affair - which, who knows, maybe it is - but how one dramatizes that inevitability is a different story. Here the little doomsday machine that the author creates for her beloved people doesn't seem to arise naturally from the personalities of the characters or the general state of their world, but from the author's belief that things just can't work out for people. In a historical novel like The Blue Flower, the end is already a matter of fact, so no one can accuse her of contriving to scuttle the ship, but here I felt like maybe she had taken an axe down to the hold herself. A beautiful piece of writing nonetheless.
Rating:
Summary: Gentle Comedy/Tragedy
Review: Fitzgerald's novel is reminiscent of one of my favorites, Vita Sackville-West, in her ease of manner with her characters. Fitzgerald knows Florence. . . Steven King (and probably others) says that some of his stories have a life of their own and come to him fully formed and all he does is write them down. Fitzgerald writes as if she had lived the story herself. The Bookshop is not a "comedy of manners", but there is still an Austin flavor to The Bookshop--it is a softly humorous character study in which not a whole lot happens. Regardless of that, I had to turn the page, had to continue my relationship with Florence and the town of Hardborough. The plot is simply that Florence, after being widowed, decides to open a bookstore in Hardborough. She's only lived there eight years, and as such is still a newcomer, which might account for some of the resistance met in her venture. Between a poltergeist, an angry Community Chairwoman, a general stubbornness of Hardborough to accept her shop, and normal business woes, Florence finds the path to being a bookseller is not a smooth one. The Bookshop has no great plot climax, no surprises or thrills, no exciting endings. . .it's just life, Florence's life, and as such is a gentle and pleasant read ,though not "light" for it has elements of the tragic to it. I look forward to reading Fitzgerald's other novels.
Rating:
Summary: A good character study, but an unsatisfying novel
Review: Having lived for more than eight years in the East Anglian coastal town of Hardborough, Florence Green determines, in 1959, to purchase the aptly named Old House, a damp and decrepit and indeed haunted property more than 400 years old. Her decision to open a bookshop in the building, while approved by a certain Edmund Brundish, the town's most respected scion, is opposed by an unfortunately more influential resident of Hardborough, Violet Gamart, who has the vague plan of turning the Old House into an art center. Florence's defiance of Mrs. Gamart's will begins an undeclared war between the two women, only one of whom knows for certain that a war is in fact being waged. Penelope Fitzgerald's The Bookshop chronicles the quiet but persistent opposition Florence faces in opening and running the shop as well as her encounters with the odd cast of presumptuous characters who populate Hardborough.
The Bookshop offers some very nice writing, as Fitzgerald's description of a horse forced to submit to having its teeth filed: "Once released, the horse sighed cavernously and stared at them as though utterly disillusioned. From the depths of its noble belly came a brazen note, more like a trumpet than a horn, dying away to a snicker." But the book as a whole is not entirely satisfying. The characters are too outspoken to always be credible, including the precocious eleven-year-old who works in the bookshop with Florence. The poltergeist who punctuates the silence of the Old House with its rapping serves no obvious narrative purpose. And the jumps in the narrative, with motivations and intervening action left to the imagination, make the story feel incomplete.
Debra Hamel--book-blog reviews
Author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece
Rating: 
Summary: Holy sucky ending!
Review: Having received a bachelor's degree in English and about to receive a master's, I can usually come up with a better word than "sucky". However. There are some books you close with a satisfying snap--others just end. I just STARED at the last page, like when you look in the refrigerator, thinking 'Maybe if I stand here long enough, food will appear'. No new ending appeared.
The book was a little dull at first, but then became interesting in the middle as I got to know other characters and wonder how Florence will do with her new enterprise. I was hoping for a good ending to have made the read worthwhile. I won't "spoil" the ending--just go to your local library or bookstore and look at the last line; you'll see why it's not worth reading.
It's fine for a 'slice of life', not so great if you want a plot and a satisfying ending.
Rating:
Summary: Small-minded pettiness
Review: 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
Rating:
Summary: A good read
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: What constitutes A Meaningful Life?
Review: If you insist on happy ending, perhaps this isn't the book for you. It's no Rogers and Hammerstein musical comedy, that's for sure. Penelope Fitzgerald, winner of the Booker for Offshore, has crafted a small book dealing with the big issues of life with the skill of the master that she truly is. Set in the English countryside during the 50s, The Book Shop is the story of Florence, a small town widow who decides to do Something Meaningful with the rest of her life: she opens a bookshop. Encountering surprise resistance from some important people, the rest of the book deals with showing how Florence quietly pursues her dream.
Rating: 
Summary: "You may be confusing force and power."
Review: Middle-aged widow Florence Green decides to open a book shop in the small seaside town of Hardborough. The town's last book shop existed in Victorian times when the owner came to blows with an obnoxious customer about the delay in receiving "Dombey and Son." According to one local, "no one has been courageous enough to sell books in Hardborough" since that event. Florence Green has experience working in a book shop, and she imagines that Hardborough will be delighted to have a book shop of its own, so she takes her small nest egg and buys 'The Old House'--a long-vacant, damp, flooded property with historical significance.
When Florence's plans for The Old House become public knowledge, Mrs. Gramart, wife of General Gramart (the closest thing to royalty for the town) decides she wants the building to establish an Arts Centre. Mrs. Gramart "the natural patroness of all public activities in Hardborough" wants Florence to move into the soon-to-be vacant fish shop instead. Florence may understand books, but she doesn't understand a great deal about human nature. She dismisses Mrs. Gramart's desire for The Old House. It seems preposterous to Florence that Mrs. Gramart should want the property now that it's hers and no longer for sale.
"The Bookshop" is a perfectly contained and controlled story in which Penelope Fitzgerald captures the essence of small town life. Hardborough isn't a very pleasant place. It's full of small mindedness, petty revenges and the slow suffocation of neighbours knowing all one's business. Poor Florence means well, but her well-intended business plans suffer from the beginning. The shop is haunted, customers can't behave, and betrayal lurks where it's least expected. The character of Milo North is particularly interesting. It's rumoured that Milo has some sort of job in television, but as in all aspects of Milo's life, the facts are vague. Milo is a fascinating type, and again Florence's naivety leads her astray. She's unable to discern that "his fluid personality tested and stole into the weak places of others until it found it could settle down to its own advantage." "The Book Shop" is a delight, and Fitzgerald creates her tale with a deft hand and a delicate wit. Any brave soul who is considering opening a book shop should read this cautionary tale--displacedhuman
|
