What small town wouldn't appreciate the appearance of a new bookshop? Especially a town lacking any other literary diversion. Apparently the folks of Hardborough wouldn't. When Florence Green decides to buy an antiquated building left empty for years in a small provincial seaside town, it causes quite a stir among the residents. The Old House is a small property on the seafront that comes complete with its own warehouse and a poltergeist, or 'rapper' as it is known in Hardborough. Of course the warehouse proves to be damp year round and not suitable for stocking extra books, but Florence has found the Old House to be not only a decent place to live but a good place to open a bookshop as well even with a 'rapper'. Unfortunately Hardborough has other ideas.
"In 1959, when there was no fish and chips in Hardborough, no laundrette, no cinema except on alternate Saturday nights, the need of all these things was felt, but no one had considered, certainly had not thought of Mrs Green as considering, the opening of a bookshop."
Somehow Florence seems ill-suited for the endeavor. Widowed and living in the town for more than eight years she had a "kind heart, though that is not much use when it comes to the matter of self-preservation." She lives on a small amount of money left to her from her husband. Physically she is small in appearance and wispy and not at all substantial. She is not lacking in courage however, which is what she needs when she not only puts forth her idea, but presses on and does what she says. The bank manager questions her ability to run a bookshop, though in her more youthful days she worked in a London shop. Her biggest obstacle, however, comes in the form of Mrs Violet Gamart the town's cultural arbiter. Violet has had the idea that the Old House would serve as the perfect place to open an Arts Centre. The town's residents had been so used to the building standing empty for so long they had become complacent about it, and along comes Florence putting them quite to shame by rushing into opening a shop.
Initially it doesn't do too badly. There's the tourist trade in the summer, and the local Primary is in need of reward books for successful pupils. Books by former SAS men seem to fly off the shelves and there are requests for a lending library to be made available. The lending library becomes somewhat problematic when Florence leaves the books with their pink slips in them for the customers to see. Everyone wants the new biography of Queen Mary, being an "A" book, but for every "A" book there are even more "B" and "C" books that no one has an interest in. Unfortunately most people end up with "B" and "C" books, which causes an uproar amongst the customers. Still, Florence does well enough to hire a shop assistant in the form of a 10-year old schoolgirl. Christine Gipping doesn't actually like reading books, only issues of Bunty, which is just as well really. Christine is very plain speaking for such a young girl and a little eccentric in her working methods, but she does very well all things considered.
Despite their best efforts not all goes smoothly. There's an interest by local artists to show their work in the shop even though there's barely enough room for the books. One man even goes so far as to bring his watercolor canvases along to hang up without Florence's approval. And when Florence decides to sell copies of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, a book she hasn't read herself but has on good authority that it's the masterpiece it's purported to be, I was sure there would be moral indignation over selling such an explicit book that would cause Florence much grief. It does end up causing her grief but not for the reasons you'd think. Because she orders so many copies, which fill her shop window, the crowds of people stopping to look cause an obstruction of traffic on the main street. A lawsuit is filed. That alone is telling just what sort of town Hardborough is. Hard indeed.
I'm afraid Hardborough's residents can be narrow-minded and nasty, constantly undermining Florence's hard work and efforts, and that alone will give you an idea to what happens to Florence's bookshop. Even with so much turmoil, Penelope Fitzgerald's The Bookshop is a quiet, unassuming sort of story. It's not an especially happy one, but there are moments of black humor and sharp irony where you just have to laugh. I wasn't quite sure what I thought when I finished as there is a sense that the story is somehow left unfinished, but I was happy to have finally read Penelope Fitzgerald. I do like her understated and restrained writing style and ability to tell an absorbing story with well drawn characters. Another reader summed it up well when they said it was a perfect slice of life. That is perhaps the best way to describe this short novel. I am definitely looking forward to reading more of her work and will be browsing my bookshelves soon.
Thanks to Cornflower for giving me the nudge to finally read her, as this was the book chosen for Cornflower's Book Group. You can read more about the book and join in the discussion here.