📚 'Rather Dated' March: Penelope Fitzgerald’s ‘The Bookshop’ 📚

[MotherofPearl]

Welcome to the Mumsnet 'Rather Dated' book club. This month we are reading and discussing Penelope Fitzgerald’s ‘The Bookshop.’ Please do add your thoughts when you are ready.

About the threads:

We are reading and discussing fiction from the 1930s to the 1990s that would have been described as 'contemporary' in its day. We are reading one book a month. Spoilers are permitted!

We started the chat thanks to a thread where we kicked off with a discussion of Penelope Lively, The Road to Lichfield.

Currently we have these separate threads:

November: Anita Brookner, A Start in Life
December: Margaret Drabble: A Summer Bird-Cage
January: Elizabeth Jane Howard, The Beautiful Visit.
March: Winifred Watson, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.
April: R.C. Sheriff, The Fortnight in September.
May: Elizabeth Taylor, Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont.
June: Margaret Kennedy, The Feast.
July: Mollie Panter-Downes, One Fine Day.
August: Elizabeth Von Arnim, The Enchanted April.
September: Barbara Pym, An Academic Question.
October: Dorothy Whipple, High Wages.
November: Elizabeth Bowen, The Last September.
December: Monica Dickens, The Fancy.
January: E.M. Delafield, The Messalina of the Suburbs.
February: F.M. Mayor, The Rector’s Daughter.

Link to the main thread:
www.mumsnet.com/talk/what_were_reading/5029141-the-mumsnet-rather-dated-book-group-all-welcome-to-join?page=2&reply=133984693

Great review Stella. It's funny, I thought of 'slice of life' but hesitated and didn't write it down. We have read other books that have captured a moment. 'One Fine Day' perhaps? That book is also short and succinct and it's another favourite of mine.

It seems to me as well that this is a painful episode in Florence's life that she may move on from, as inaptonym suggests. She may have made a false start in Hardborough but could reinvent* *herself yet? I don't think she seems very much fond of books either. I'm surprised she didn't read 'Lolita' herself and conferred with Brundish for his opinion.

I think my issue with the book is not so much the bleakness, but that I failed to feel any kind of emotional connection with the story or the characters, least of all Florence herself, though at the end I was sorry for her in a detached sort of way. This may well be my problem rather than any sort of deficiency in the book.

The Rector's Daughter was also bleak in its way, but it really packed an emotional punch (not in at all a sentimental way). I was devastated by its ending, but with this novel I only felt a vague sense of 'what a pity.'

Yes, wonderful review, Stella. It’s interesting (tragic) that PF had such a rackety, hand-to-mouth existence for most of her adult life, shouldering the burden of a hopeless husband and struggling just to keep body and soul together for the family, but I think that gave her the ability to write so revealingly about failure and humiliation, and also to be one of life's quiet, devastatingly accurate observers. She sees the little details that other writers often don’t notice, I think.

I can’t find it online now but I’m sure I’ve seen the infamous episode of the Book Programme where Robert Robinson patronised her appallingly - when she’d literally just won the Booker Prize! Yet she kept on going despite that kind of disgraceful behaviour. Thank goodness.

I'm thinking about what you're saying about emotional detachment to the story and to Florence in particular, MotherofPearl. Interesting. Perhaps that's why I'm reading it again :)

I completely understand what you’re saying, @MotherofPearl , about the emotional detachment as compared to for eg The Rectors Daughter, and I do agree. It’s almost the difference EM Forster (??? I think it was him) meant when talking about flat v rounded characters, although I’ve always found something a bit lacking and wrong with that analysis. A better way of describing it, for me anyway, is that I see F M Mayor as sort of inhabiting her characters, inside looking out, whereas PF ( and, I think , Jane Austen) are observing minutely , kind of outside looking in. I don’t think any way is better, and it doesnt affect how much I like a book.

How utterly infuriating of Robert Robinson, @Terpsichore . And I always liked him in Ask The Family.

Interesting to think about genre. I think despite its 'smallness' this book is definitely Lit Fic with very big themes of Good vs Evil ('exterminators and exterminatees' in its own terms) rather than being human-sized the way The F.M. Mayor was (though also beautifully written, and un-sentimental as you say @MotherofPearl )
That's probably why the 'slice of life' label also feels off - for me, that implies more attention to the mundane for its own sake, rather than to further character, setting or theme, as here.
In hindsight, probably not the most appropriate choice for a 'Slightly Dated' book club! 😅

Nicely put.

@Terpsichore I tried to find it too and couldn't, but I did find this brilliant article here.

@StellaOlivetti I think you've caught it exactly with the difference between outside looking in, versus the writer inhabiting the protagonist from the inside. I suppose it shouldn't make a difference to the reader but it seems to, for me. I can't help but feel that it marks me out as rather middlebrow in my tastes, or perhaps rather shallow!

Forgot I came on to link this 1998 R4 interview with Fitzgerald which has the 😮detail of publishers just lopping the last 8 chapters off her debut novel.
Also much that applies to The Bookshop too, 'I think we need a lot of courage...to get through an average life'.

I don't think there's anything shallow about your preference @MotherofPearl Emotional distance may be more typical of Lit Fic as a genre but isn't it equally a hallmark of violent action thrillers, puzzle-box type mysteries and other genres seen as 'low brow'?
I bounce off a lot of Lit Fic because I value plot and character and can't be sustained by the prettiest prose alone through a novel. In the Meridian interview, Fitzgerald said her approach was to nail down the title, beginning and ending, before writing the rest, which is probably why I do get on with her books.
Out of curiosity, has anyone read any of the other Booker nominees from that year, and if so, what did you make of them?

I’ve read The Sea, The Sea and love it, although it’s often reviled, I think, and seen as ‘problematic’ among Murdoch’s novels. It couldn’t be more different to PF. But I love Murdoch generally so 🤷‍♀️

Also God on the Rocks, and love that too. I’d have said it was slightly more YA-ish but interestingly, not totally dissimilar to PF in its quirky, offbeat feel.

I’ve read The Sea The Sea, and quite a lot of other Iris Murdoch.
I’ve read Bernice Rubens’ The Brothers, and Jane Gardam’s Queen of the Tambourine, but nothing by K Amis or A Brink.
How funny, I’ve just noticed I’ve only read the women!

I don’t remember what I thought about the Jane Gardam, but I loved The Brothers. And I really like Iris Murdoch too.

Thank you, both! I've not read any of those books (or authors, even) although the women are all on my TBR.
Booker prize lists can be very odd. Still processing the info that Fitzgerald was on the 1998 panel that gave the prize to Ian McEwan's Amsterdam - a truly terrible book.

New to the Rather Dated club- it's a great idea! I enjoyed The Bookshop- like others have said, found the ending downbeat but I liked the wry humour throughout. For me, the saddest part wasn’t so much the closing of the bookshop but that Florence ended up believing that Mr Brundish had betrayed her instead of defending her- that friendship was the only proper bit of lightness in the book, apart from Christine. And Milo North- what a dick. I'm tempted to watch the film just to see if they've kept the ending just as downbeat as it is in the book, I'm guessing not...

Hi @Whosawake Yes! I agree with you that it was a terrible moment when Florence thought she had lost Brundish's support. Milo North was an awful creep and did a lot of damage. I just typed 'Milo Dick'...it suits him!