Bookstore: I just want to open a bookstore

Author: (English) Penelope Fitzgerald
Translator: Yin Xiaodong
United Kingdom / UK
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: This is a nearly tragic novel about a "bookstore" (or perhaps more accurately, about "books"). The protagonist, Florence, seems to have decided to open a bookstore in a small town called Hamburg in search of something called "meaning." However, just as the unseen yet omnipresent "knocking ghost" in "The Old House," the forces representing all social strata in the town, personified by Mrs. Gamart, deliberately or unintentionally fill the bookstore with rejection and even hostility. Even the little girl who does an excellent job of categorizing books—Kristin—harbors resentment toward everything related to books. With the passing of the only gentleman who supported Florence and her bookstore, Mr. Brandonish, the bookstore also sadly closes. The author's writing is gentle and concise, enduring and poignant, with a tragic atmosphere permeating the novel. Florence is the protagonist of this book. Eight years after her husband's death, she suddenly decides to open a bookstore—stories always begin this way. Some idea interrupts your quiet life, as if seeking something called "meaning." She doesn’t actually understand books. One day, while translating that section, she was putting new books on the shelves, thinking about a line on the title page: "A good book is the precious blood condensed from the soul of a master, meant to be cherished forever for a life beyond life." Seeing words like "blood" and "soul," she placed the book between religious and home medical books. At that very moment, I was deeply moved—because she doesn’t understand, her love for books becomes all the more precious. It is precisely because this love exists that the faint sorrow of her life’s journey shines with a heartwarming light.