She blinded herself, in short, by pretending for a while that human beings are not divided into exterminators and exterminates, with the former, at any given moment, predominating. Will-power is useless without a sense of direction. Hers was at such a low ebb that it no longer gave her the instructions for survival. At the other end of the social scale, General Gamart’s “hovering experimentally” at his wife’s party could almost be because he was becalmed beyond the familiar waters of Wodehouse.

Life as a business proprietor is not stress-free. Mrs Green is a busy, busy woman. Many are the factors she is required to balance in her running of the business. Yet summer comes but once a year, and after all what good is living in a seaside village if the sea is invisible? His fluid personality tested and stole into the weak places of others until it found it could settle down to its own advantage. It’s a peculiar thing to take a step forward in middle age, but having done it I don’t intend to retreat.”I feel at a loss about this book. I finished it three days ago, and my thoughts about this little 1978 Booker-nominated novel still haven't settled in a definitive manner. They haven't settled at all. This is a bloodless yet nonetheless tragic martyr story meant to radicalize you to stand up for the dreamers and underdogs who want to believe morality and good-naturedness can be enough to succeed. Fitzgerald is watering the garden and here we are nearly 40 years later still needing her message because failure is not the end all and should not deter us, only embolden us to continue on the scaffolding of the fallen. Innocence may falter and is likely a kiss of death, which is tragic but only if we allow it to be. This is such a lovely ode to literature as well, and Lolita and its subversive powers figures prominently in the plot. Often for hilarious purposes. I love this book, plain and simple. It is brief but powerful and so eloquently written, and Fitzgerald has crafted a minor masterpiece. Connectedly: every fifty years or so “it had lost, as though careless or indifferent to such things, another means of communication” (river navigability, bridge, railway, and tidal wall).

There's more depth, strength, and occasional waspishness than appears at first glance - in the book and in Florence herself, even though she’s not really the driving force. What an ugly little book this is. The town seems ugly, not at all picturesque (at least as described), and the people who live in it are even worse; small minded, uncultured, unfriendly and toady. Why would anyone want to live there, or choose to open a business there? And yet Florence Green stood tall until the last moment, only leaving Hardborough when her very last farthing is needed to buy her way out of the morass that her impertinent refusal to bow before the quality has landed her in. The writing is deceptively simple. While it starts with a light feel, about half way you realize you’ve skipped your way into a tragedy. When you’re done reading, you feel like you’ve read something Russian, like Chekhov maybe, which has left you contemplating personal values and the cruelty of human nature.Another Fitzgerald? Hmm, will take some time to get over that Miserable Ending - and not sure if the pleasure of her writing will offset any further nasty plot twists. A good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life, and as such it must surely be a necessary commodity.” Are you talking about culture?’ the [bank] manager said, in a voice half way between pity and respect.” A man won a (profitable) bookshop in a raffle, and then decided to run it with an Icelandic friend he only known online (maybe from GR, who knows?): My Review: Florence Green is my current idol of Resistance. She has lived quietly and unassumingly in Hardborough, a small East Anglian seaside town, and realized that her life was simply passing and not being lived. So she took her small inheritance and opened a bookshop.

Every summer and Easter, we holidayed in another village, a seaside one. A home away from home. We felt like honorary locals, but I doubt the villagers thought of us that way. Fitzgerald describes people from there, too.There’s another person who would be at home in an Iris Murdoch novel: tentacles extending far outside the community, with indirect ability to affect the lives of all, while maintaining the veneer of vague disinterest and occasional philanthropy. She ought to go down to the beach. It was Thursday, early closing, and it seemed ungrateful to live so close to the sea and never look at it for weeks on end.