[Catlady]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

Quite early in the book, at the party, there is the statement that "Mrs Violet Gamart, the natural patroness of all public activities in Hardborough, came towards them". Clearly, this included the arts because she was wanting Old House to be turned into an Arts Centre.

I would certainly see that a bookshop was related to the arts, given that literature is one of the arts. A definition from Wikipedia, which seems as good as any:

What I was wondering, though, was whether I missed something specific in the text to indicate Violet was threatened or upset by a bookstore in particular. Or is it your interpretation of the situation? If the latter, I would still argue that Violet simply didn't like to be thwarted and would have waged a campaign to get Florence out no matter what she was doing with the property.

This brings me to something else. Several people have stated that Florence doesn't love books, and I'm not sure why, except that the text doesn't specifically state that she loved books. She arranged her stock with discrimination, and while she didn't really care for the paperbacks, they were arranged in "well-disciplined ranks".

At the beginning of chapter 4, on the day of opening the bookshop, Raven called in and was critical of the job the scouts had made of the shelves they put up. Florence "would have no fault found. Besides, now that the books were in place, well to the front (she couldn't bear them to slide back as though defeated), any irregularities could scarcely be noticed."

That sounds to me like someone who loves books, to care about how they look on the shelves.

It reads to me like someone who loves organization and order--similar to Christine, who also doesn't seem to be overly interested in books but is a stickler about organization.

At the end, she kept two of the Everyman editions after selling the rest of her stock, one by Ruskin and one by Bunyan, each with its old bookmarker. She rescued those books because they wouldn't have sold and would probably only been thrown out. Isn't that love?

Maybe. I guess I don't see her loving books because she doesn't seem to read. I can't remember now--did she read Lolita herself, or only delegate the reading to someone else?