Book Review: The Bookshop, once short-listed for the Booker Prize, is wonderfully written with memorable characters from the courageous, determined Christine to the indolent, spineless Milo. It's intelligent and insightful. But the book's arc is so minimal that it's not a "slice of life" but a "sliver of life" novel. Our heroine, though kind and friendly, is feeble and naive, out of her depth, almost friendless. She's set up for failure, but she can be feisty and does have moments of insight: "It sometimes strikes me that men and women aren't quite the right people for each other." We learn that the small town English are small minded, gossipy, and untrue. Bad neighbors. A bookshop succeeds in the neighboring town, so it is not the books that are the problem, but the generous and forgiving widow herself. Her neighbors return her kindness with cruelty.
We applaud her resistance, her sass: "I don't know that men are better judges than women, but they spend much less time regretting their decisions." But we don't see her persist, she's not a long suffering Job-like character, she does not long endure the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune by taking arms against a sea of troubles. Her battles are valiant, but her war is short. Her pain may be harsh, but it is soon over. Her small-town neighbors quickly turn on her, like jackals on a helpless antelope. When she creates a window display of Lolita, the stage is set for meaningful conflict, however, the widow and window encounter surprisingly little resistance, less than that faced by many bookshops which stocked that still-controversial title.
The characters in The Bookshop are marvelously drawn. From the prickly and reclusive Mr. Brundish (hermits unite!) to Christine, the prickly, lovable, persevering-unto-exhaustion, 10-year-old heroine who stole my heart. The small town atmosphere, horrible as it is, is admirably created.
Ultimately, The Bookshop is gloomy and depressing, but the book doesn't lay a foundation to justify that ending. The great authors of the depressing, such as Thomas Hardy or Bernard Malamud, create a story so that the gloomy ending is inevitable, understandable, perhaps unpleasant and disappointing, but the correct conclusion to the tale. The story's aspiration leads to the ending. In stories involving suicide, the critical reader asks: did the character kill herself or did the author kill her? This ending raises a similar question. But perhaps The Bookshop is too small to bear such weight, it's just an overgrown short story, and I'm being unfair. I'll stop. The book is well and wonderfully written, worth reading for the skill of the author. She's clever and discerning, but there's insufficient excellent story to accompany the excellent writing. Was Fitzgerald settling scores? Did she want to demonstrate what she knew about running a bookshop? This made me want to go read some Thomas Hardy to cheer myself up. [3★]
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