Quote:
Originally Posted by Victoria
I thought Florence knew better too - she wasn’t just naive. She tells the bank manager she’d learned the business very thoroughly as a girl, and the fundamentals hadn’t changed. But she doesn’t total the columns in her accounts because she doesn’t want to know the answer. She resists Milo’s suggestion to carry the book if it isn’t a “good book” even though it will sell. When it sells beautifully, she doesn’t bring in more commercially successful books. She even resents the space the cards and other bread and butter items take up, though they sell.
I think she loses the discipline because she’s an avoider. At the beginning of the book she recognizes that the heron and the eel had taken on too much and were doomed by “the indecision expressed by both creatures”. She even avoids her own age. Though she’s lonely, she won’t get in touch with her old friends because she doesn’t want to admit that “the girls” have gotten older.
PS
Since Florence is anti-hero, it seems to me that Fitzgerald’s loyalties were firmly with the local folk. I wonder if that has anything to do with her background. I intend to read a bit more about her now that I have the internet back.
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Victoria, you have added some interesting perspective. I felt Florence was embellishing her past experience in a bookstore to appease the bank manager. I was also frustrated at how she didn't want to know more about the financial books; she didn't seem too upset when Christine sold the expensive cards (sorry can't remember specifically what the item was) for pennies compared to the price. One thing that surprised me is how long she was in the town (8 years?) before she decided to take this action to open the bookshop, but in this small village I suppose that still makes her a newcomer.
I think you have nailed my biggest disappointment. I wanted Florence to be a hero - learn lessons from her experience and apply them, triumph over her circumstances of widowhood, win the battle against the cold and heartless Violet.
I liked issybird's description of the characters as flat. I wanted them all to grow in color.