The Bookshop

Synopsis: 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.

Review: Strangely I didn't find this an easy read and I'm not entirely sure why except to say that Penelope Fitzgerald has her own style of writing which is not necessarily immediately accessible. You do get the feeling that her words have been chosen carefully and as such there are meanings behind meanings and your brain can spend a bit of a time splashing about in the sentences .. perhaps I just wasn't concentrating hard enough .. I kept having to do the re-reading sentences thing as the prose is quite spare. She's a writer of great skill and precision though, not one word is wasted. The concept is a great one .. who could fail to be interested by Florence and the bookshop she has opened amid local opposition .. I just saw the word 'bookshop' and I was there with bells on. I've read similar stories before, small minded people in small towns who are able, through their lofty connections, to put rather large spanners in the works of decent, hard working, honest folk but here it's dealt with in a different more subtle way and as such the ideas seem fresh and original.

'She had a kind heart, though that is not of much use when it comes to the matter of self-preservation. For more than eight years of half a lifetime she had lived at Hardborough on the very small amount of money her late husband had left her and had recently come to wonder whether she hadn't a duty to make it clear to herself, and possibly to others, that she existed in her own right. Survival was often considered all that could be asked in the cold and clear East Anglian air. Kill or cure, the inhabitants thought - either a long old age, or immediate consignment to the salty turf of the churchyard.'

It's not at all the book I was expecting, I was hoping for something a bit more Maeve Binchy probably with chatty gossipy customers and lots of book talk (a sit-com version of my weekly visits to Waterstones most likely ) but all the characters were rather mysterious and impenetrable. At first, as I say, I found it difficult and it didn't grab me but before I was halfway through I was hooked and enjoying it. The pressure put on Florence to relinquish her plans is not so much heavy as relentless. You couldn't call her feisty but she's not a woman to be easily swayed or diverted from her path so a rather strong battle of wills ensues. There's a mystical element weaving through it too, as the bookshop has a live in poltergeist or a 'rapper' as it's known locally (or 'unusual period atmosphere' as the house agent would have it) and it's also a humorous book, not lol but plenty of out loud smiling. One of the characters I really enjoyed reading about was ten and a half year old Christine who helped out at the bookshop after school, a real gift of a character, sparky but vulnerable. It's only short and I found I was really getting into it when it finished, I wanted to know more about some of the characters which is always a good sign. It's a book to be re-read often, I'm sure I'll gain more from it each time.