Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
I think that was me, Victoria  . The evidence I place before the court is that final sentence in the book. If Florence thinks she failed because no one wanted a bookshop she did not understand what happened. They may not have wanted a bookshop enough to protest at the unfair treatment Florence received. (Would anyone really expect that from Hardborough? She had lived there eight years, she should have had some idea what to expect.) But the fact that the bookshop actually made any profit at all - for over a year - suggests they wanted one enough to use it if it was there.
The extenuating circumstance surrounding that final sentence is that it is not entirely consistent with what went before. For the rest of the book Florence shows little sentiment regarding books, except perhaps the Everyman editions, so maybe we should disregard this final moment as Florence being too upset to be coherent in her thoughts - which would be quite understandable. And since the author was quite happy to ignore reader expectation is so many other parts, perhaps she does the same with this last sentence.
I quite agree that Fitzgerald leaves much of the book unresolved, but that last sentence bothers me. |
I concede your point,
gmw but argue that it’s circumstantial
. In comparison, I offer the ‘hand on knee of a stranger on the way to your lover’s funeral’ passage of our last book. Now there was some damning evidence.
At the risk of tramping on sacred ice, it seems your biggest pick with Florence’s is really that she didn’t love books, and you consider that a major crime. I do agree with you that the story isn’t about books or reading, but were we led to believe it was, other than by the title? I suppose our theme set up that expectation too....
Seriously, I can relate to your sense of betrayal though. I was hugely let down by
The Natural after it was billed as possibly the greatest book ever written about baseball. Huh
Even if it’s a great American classic, (I can’t see why), it felt like a snake oil of a portrait.