The only reason I forced myself to plow through this book to the end (after having started it for the second time), was because of the glowing reviews, and because I had bought it and didn't want to waste my money. With the exception of a few clever phrases, it lacks all of the qualities which make for a good novel: character development, continuity, tension, plot. The overuse of acronyms is disruptive, and the typeface is difficult to read. The best thing about this book is that it's blessedly short.

Our book group read this work last month, but it was not a success with the group as a whole. Members were confused, disengaged, and bored. Most did not understand the understated, deadpan humor. However, I read the book twice; once I understood its point, I developed real affection for the quirky characters and chuckled a lot.

Still I couldn't escape the feeling that the work is a mere sketch, rather slight, very underdeveloped dramatically. Because the characters were so sketchy, it was difficult at first to care about them. Fitzgerald is obviously very intelligent; she suggests a great deal, so the reader must infer and interpret and read between the lines. The reward for doing so is an understanding of the quirks of organizations--how they become obsessed with trivialities, gossip, power relations, etc-- and a feeling for the poignancy of the "stiff upper lip" stoicism of people who had everything to lose, and a pleasure of watching slightly eccentric individuals interact. The work is short but flavorful.

If you love language, quirky and vividly drawn characters, delicious irony, and above all, if you want to spend some time with the creative work of someone possessing an exquisite gift for writing, read this book.

But if to you, any good novel must have "character development" or a gripping plot, perhaps you should go elsewhere. (Hey, come to think of it, the character development in this novel is wonderful, especially given how short it is. Oh and the plot, though full of low human foibles and often trivial struggle does take place against the backdrop of the last century's supreme struggle between good and evil. And the funny folks depicted apparently bear some resemblance to those who were actually in charge of getting this story out to the world.

While reading, I started to laugh whenever an official of any sort was introduced, because they were almost instantly reduced to an absurd abbreviated title (RPD, DPP, and the truly absurd ADDG). Friends, I believe this is a joke. At some point, these people's identities have been subsumed by their occupational roles. They are more RPD and DPP than they are "Sam" and "Jeffrey".

One measure of a book for me is how preoccupied by it was I (or not) in the days after I finished it. This one ran on and on in my head. for days and days. I can't wait to read more Fitzgerald.

I very much enjoy Ms. Fitzgerald's work, of the nine novels she wrote I have read 8, with The Booker Award Winning work "Offshore" remaining. Presuming those that bestowed the Award were correct, and the other reviewers of "Innocence" are also correct, if I were to rank the 8 novels I have read this is number 8, and is likely to be number 9 when "Offshore" has been completed.

Ms. Fitzgerald often has left a book with the ending open, at times in an initially jarring manner. This is again the case with "Innocence", and the ending is not alone. This work is lengthy when compared to most of Ms. Fitzgerald's works, and its length allows for more of the wonderful characters she creates, and the usually odd circumstances they create, or are victimized by. In this case, with one exception, even when well done, I generally felt nothing or actively disliked the players.

The exception is Barney, one of the most unusual, colorful, and unconventional characters Ms. Fitzgerald created. When a female is described when smiling, as having the perfect teeth for an Ogress you are reading about someone interesting. Barney is overwhelming in everything she does, there are no half measures, and the world of half tones is invisible to her. Snap decisions based upon a handshake suffice to sanction or condemn a marriage, choose a mate, and serve as a basis for her turning her life 180 degrees in less than a moment.

There is one other prominent player in the book, and he is the Doctor. However he is as annoying as he is prominent, and there is nothing entertaining or clever about him. He interacts with a variety of people who are all uniformly one dimensional, and are impossible to care about, much less dislike, they, like the story, drift along.

But as I said there is Barney. You have to love a woman who asks a pregnant friend, "Do you want a girl, or a little teapot?" Ms. Fitzgerald is a wonderful writer, and even this book is better than many other writers I have read. The previous works have just been so much better, that this was a disappointment.

"Innocence" may be Penelope Fitzgerald's most conventional novel. It is the first of those (7) that I've read that I didn't finish in a day. As usual, it is character-driven with a rich assortment of characters, a precisely limned milieu (Tuscany in the mid-50s), and several desultory plots filled with misunderstandings. The focus of this rather Forsterian novel is not on the overconfident, tall young Englishwoman running amok in Italy. I'm not sure there is a focus. What clicks between the romantic leads, Chiara, an Italian countess just back from an English convent school and Salvatore, a hypersensitive-to-perceived slights doctor of Southern peasant origins, remains mysterious. The (not particularly prosperous) noble family throws up no objections, though an aunt's attempt to help the newlyweds nearly has fatal consequences. The doctor's father was an admirer of Gramsci and brought his son, then aged ten, to visit the dying Gramsci (for me the book's most memorable scene).

"Innocence" is a beautiful novel, clever and subtle. The picture of an Italian family in mid-1950's Tuscany is brought to life with astonishing economy and charm. Everything necessary to understand and empathize with the characters is there on the page. Penelope Fitzgerald was truly an artist.

Cutting straight to the chase after reading the very polarized views of other reviewers: Although Penelope Fitzgerald's slender novel contains much to admire, it is most certainly not composed to be a popular entertainment, and its successes will appeal more to admirers of "literary fiction"--and, hence, to "critics"--than perhaps to the general reader. Fitzgerald presumes the reader knows something, and cares, about the late 18th Century context; she hopes we might be stimulated by imagining contemporaries of Fichte and Kant discussing their ideas; she presumes that, to us, "romanticism" is more than a word or a line from Shelly and that, by recovering, or compiling, everyday details from a time and world long lost, she can help us understand the romantic sensibility and, ultimately, Hardenberg's--and our--ambiguous longing for "the Blue Flower."

I particularly enjoyed Fitzgerald's vignette approach--55 short chapters, each of which is a set piece, generally with a wry punchline--which allows Fitzgerald to view Friedrich von Hardenberg's improbable romance at odd angles. I for one marvel at this choice of subject, a decision by a professional author as seemingly improbable and hopelessly romantic as the subject itself.

And yet, despite the author's absolute mastery of her material, her strong cast of winning characters, and the wonderful--although irretrievably high-brow--sense of humor suffusing the entire narrative, I never felt myself emotionally drawn in. One reads on because each page is delightful, and, for many readers (obviously, me included) this is sufficient. But on the basis of slender narrative evidence, we are expected to understand, rather than led toward empathy with, Hardenberg and his inconceivable attachment. Perhaps Fitzgerald's plan was, in writing the simplest of love stories, to avoid cluttering the universe with additional examples of cheap sentimentalism, leaving us with a "mystery of love." In different hands, the novel clearly might have become just that--dismissively sentimental. Instead, she goes the other way: Fitzgerald is a cool observer keenly attuned, in a very modern sense, to the ironies her story poses, but she never truly enages our hearts.

_The Blue Flower_ is the story of the romance of Friedrich von Hardenburg, later famous as the German Romantic poet-novelist-philosopher Novalis, with a 12-year old girl, Sophie Von Kuhn. The story is told in brief chapters, from the points of view of several characters: Hardenburg himself, a female friend who may fancy herself a rival of Sophie's, Hardenburg's sister, Sophie's sister, and so on. The large cast of characters is wonderfully described, each character briefly and accurately limned, and all treated with humor and affection. In addition, details of how life was lived in 18th century Saxony are casually strewn throughout the book, and a very accurate-feeling picture of everyday life, and more importantly, how everyday people thought, is the result.

The main characters are odd but interesting: Fritz von Hardenburg is a young artist with Romantic attitudes: and at the same time realistically a brother and a son, and also a fairly conscientious apprentice salt-mine inspector. Sophie is a 12-year old girl of very little intelligence, and is unsparingly presented as such (indeed, her character is probably treated with less sympathy than any other in the book.)

As far as I can tell, every character in the book (at least every even moderately prominent character) is historical, though it is hard for me to be sure how closely Fitzgerald's characterizations resemble the historical record. Knowledge of the historical events depicted here cast a sort of pall over the events of the novel: we know that Sophie will die very young, and von Hardenburg not much later. (Novalis first became famous for a series of prose poems written in Sophie's memory ("Hymns to the Night"), and his major work, the novel _Heinrich von Ofterdingen_, was left uncompleted at his death.) Despite this pall, the book is funny, engaging, and beautiful in a delicate-seeming fashion.

This is a wonderful evocation of the Romantic era in all its intellectual fervor -- and its immense folly. The clue to the whole book, I think, is on page 2 (except that you have to read Chapter 8 about Fichte to understand its full meaning). If reality is what we THINK it is, it's perfectly reasonable for Fritz to declare that Sophie is his "soul's guide" -- even if, in reality, she's 12 years old and dumb as a box of rocks.
The author uses well-chosen and vivid details (the ingredients of soups, the lapel inkwells used by students) to bring the poet's world to life, and to point up the contrast between his aspirations and the stifling family and social obligations he must contend with. But this isn't an earnest historical study; it's touching, and surprisingly funny too. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

is how I would describe Fitzgerald's "The Bookshop". It traces out the pattern of quiet lives in a small English town, especially that of Florence Green. Mrs. Green wants to pursue her dream of owning a bookshop (she worked in one as a child) and pushing her life forward in a new direction. The book entails her trials and tribulations of getting her shop up and running, and this is the context in which she interacts with other characters in the book (my favorite is Mr. Brundish). The Bookshop is not a plot-driven book, preferring to sketch out character studies, and offer observations about the pettiness and triviality in small town life. However, I didn't feel I was able to get to know Mrs. Green as much as I would have liked - to get inside her head more.

Readers who enjoyed Mme. Bovary, Main Street and Waterland should take the short drive to Ms. Fitzgerald's "Bookshop", being well-acquainted with the lay of the land. For the general reader, while "The Bookshop" is not a great book in my opinion, it is definitely a good one, well worth taking a look at. The book is like Florence Green herself: she may not be everything we've wished for, but she is certainly great company. I look forward to re-reading "The Bookshop" and Ms. Fitzgerald's other writings. (just my 2 cents - your mileage may vary).

I noticed that several readers objected to the bleak ending of this book. Fortunately or unfortunately, I already knew the ending because it was given away in one of the New York Times reviews (don't they tell them not to do that?), and so I was prepared for it. Ms. Fitzgerald seems to me to be a genius: She is almost uncannily observant in terms of both landscape and character (including animals in the latter), and she provides a smooth and pleasant read in the tradition of Anita Brookner, Elizabeth Bowen, and Elizabeth Taylor -- a perfect book for a rainy Sunday and, for me, as satisfying as a pot of good English tea. A bit too much cuteness creeps in at times ("a bit twee," as the English would say), and I found the poltergeist not convincing. (However, I was interested to read in Amazon.con's interview with the author that the poltergeist was based on an actual experience of the author's in a real-life small-town bookstore.) All in all, I belive Ms. Fitzgerald will be a wonderful discovery for almost anyone who loves English literature.

I had previously read, and been most disappointed by, Penelope Fitzgerald's novel The Gate of Angels. Thus, it is only because of its strong recommendations and very short length (if it's too bad, at least I won't waste a lot of time reading it) that I took up her novel The Bookshop. Dickensian in the naming of places (the book is set in Hardborough, which it certainly is) and some characters, but not in length (only 123 pgs), Lively tells the story of a middle-aged widow who invests her small inheritence in a bookstore, the only such enterprise in her new hometown. In so doing, she makes a few enemies, and is at last forced to succumb to the small-minded pettiness that rural communities can foster. This is a sad book, and it makes one grieve for how mean people can be when they wish. That said, it is an excellent novel, and ample food for thought