CRAFT ESSAY #3 - The Bookshop

Craft Essay #2:

The Book Shop, by Penelope Fitzgerald

Penelope Fitzgerald’s short novel The Book Shop is a psychologically astute comedy of small-town manners. What fascinated me most as a writer was her mercurial use of point of view, which moves from the omniscient to the close third person, usually aligned with the protagonist, Florence Green, but occasionally with other, supporting, characters.
The novel begins with the omniscient narrator’s insightful introduction of Florence—“She had a kind heart, though that is not of much use when it comes to the matter of self-preservation”—foreshadowing the doomed struggle ahead. The narrator briefly describes Florence’s appearance (“small, wispy and wiry”), and goes on to tell us a little about the aptly named town of Hardborough, circa 1959.
This omniscient narrator, who is so familiar with Hardborough’s history and inhabitants, could very well be the town historian, or the town gossip, though he/she is never identified as such. It’s fun to imagine the story being told years later (say, 1978, when the novel was published) by this highly observant townsperson, perhaps beside a fire in the local pub.
This sense of a narrator looking backward can be found throughout the novel. On page 20, notice the use of such phrases as “at the time” and “in the 1950s.” The narrator is speaking from a vantage point well beyond the time frame of the story. The narrator is, therefore, privy to the tale’s sad outcome, and occasionally drops clues like seeds that later flower. These can come in the form of an observation, as on page 30, where Florence notices a storm warning flag “against a sky that was pale yellowish green.” Only two pages on, Florence interprets an encounter with the local fish shop owner as “a warning” from the powerful local socialite Mrs. Gamart, who has designs on the old building Florence has recently purchased for her bookstore. While Florence does not take the threat very seriously (“it was absurd to imagine that she was being driven out, and that the hand of privilege was impelling her”), the narrator, in his/her choice of details, knows better.
Fortunately, the narrator also has a sharp sense of humor, particularly when it comes to the provincial ways of small town England. The repeated description of Mr. Drury as “the solicitor who was not [Florence’s] solicitor” wittily reminds us that Hardborough had only the two attorneys in 1959. The introduction of Mrs. Gamart’s husband, known as “the General” (p. 20), not only provides amusing insight into his personality—like a character in the hectic plays of the time, he “hovered, alert and experimentally smiling”--it also reveals the narrator’s contrasting sophistication (he/she is familiar with trends in theatre).
But for most of the novel’s duration, the narrator remains close to Florence, allowing us into her thoughts and feelings. Though she lacks the narrator’s advantage of history, Florence is nevertheless quite perceptive. Her meetings with the officious banker, Mr. Keble, are wonderfully observed, and on page 21, when the General tries to impress her with his knowledge of obscure poetry, Florence notices that “clearly he had tried to make this point before, perhaps many times.” That “perhaps many times” is both funny (in an understated, British way) and sad.
We also learn, via the narrator, that Florence is unusually sensitive to the nuances of power in the context of her relationships. When speaking with Mr. Thornton (the solicitor who was not Mr. Drury), she wishes she were taller “so that she could look down, rather than up, during interviews like these” (p. 37). When dealing with her precocious 10-year-old assistant, Christine, Florence (again, via the narrator, who chooses what to reveal) obsessively monitors the balance of power in their relationship. On page 55: “The first admission that there was something [Christine] didn’t know encouraged her employer a little. Christine saw immediately that she had lost ground.” (Taken out of context this seems to be from Christine’s POV, but in context it feels more like Florence’s—she is extremely perceptive about the girl’s state of mind.) One of Florence’s more taxing encounters is with the reclusive, powerful Mr. Brundish. Florence has more or less left it up to the respected old man whether or not to stock Lolita in her book shop. When Brundish approves of the controversial book, Florence is relieved “at a decision in which she had no part.” Then, “to reassure herself of her independence, she took the single knife, cut two pieces of cake, and offered one to Brundish” (p. 82). In scenes like these, the narrator allows us to witness Florence’s insecurity, thereby emphasizing the novel’s theme of “a kind heart” not being of much use “in the matter of self-preservation.”
The big question for a writer reading The Book Shop is: why does Fitzgerald move the POV around, from omniscient to close third person, and from close third person aligned with Florence to close third person aligned with someone else? In the course of one scene, we get glimpses into the minds of not just Florence but also Mrs. Gamart, or the General, or Mr. Thornton. The author does not bother to distinguish these switches in POV with chapter breaks. The narrator, as in an old-fashioned novel, moves around at wil. How conscious was Fitzgerald of these maneuvers? Did she map out the scenes and move the narrator around like a general moves his troops? Or was it purely instinctual? Did she just know, as she sat there writing, that she needed to dip into Mrs. Gamart’s mind for a line or two in order to better move the story along? She could easily have limited the narrator to Florence’s POV and provided a piercing psychological study of a middle-aged woman and her struggle to assert herself against the forces of society. But I think she was after something bigger: a dissection of the town itself, for which she needed to give us these brief but revealing glimpses into the small minds surrounding Florence. In fact, I get the feeling that Fitzgerald, who may have borne a strong resemblance to Florence Green in 1959, and who clearly harbored a deep love of literature, savored those moments when her narrator aligned him/herself with the foolish members of a community that did not want a bookstore.