Let me start by saying that I devoured this book. I am sitting here looking at an extensive list of books I want to read this year, all scribbled down on my favorite neon yellow index cards as I read through A Novel Bookstore gathering reading suggestion after suggestion. The works of Guy de Maupassant (as previously discussed), Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford, a revisit of the works of Karen Blixen/Isak Dinesen, La Princesse de Cleves by Madame de Lafayette, The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy, The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano, Le Livre des Nuits by Sylvie Germain - and the list goes on and on. The book was an addictive reminder of all there is still in front of me to read. It was thrilling to both collect a list of books I have long wanted to read and books of which I have never heard but wish to know better now. The whole thing made me near manic with book lust.
The premise of the book is a simple one as expressed on the official site for the novel:
Rebelling against the business of bestsellers and in search of an ideal place where our literary dreams could come true, The Good Novel bookstore, where the passion for literature is given free reign, was opened in 2004. Tucked away in a corner of Paris, the store offers its clientele a selection of literary masterpieces chosen by a top-secret committee of likeminded literary connoisseurs. We have no time for sloppy, hurried books. We have no time to waste on insignificant books, hollow books, books that are here to please. We want books that cost their authors a great deal. We want books that are written for those of us who doubt everything. We want splendid books.
This was enough to draw me in, but then coupled with a promise of an Agatha Christie like mystery when the members of the secret committee begin to be threatened by violence and the store is constantly fending off charges of elitism, this book seemed the perfect match for me. But this is in fact not worthy of a Christie comparison at all, the mystery seemingly offering only a structure on which a profound love of literature is hung. I imagine that for a true mystery fan, this book could be a profound disappointment. And a long one at that at over 400 pages.
There is an oddly placed occasional first person narrator not revealed until the end. And whose revelation is a bit of a ho-hum moment when it arrives. The background information on the story and the mystery are supposedly being delivered to a policeman to whom the case is being reported, but is so drawn out that one can imagine this single afternoon interview actually occurred over a week's time. And Cosse is occasionally less than subtle and more than repetitive in her visits to literary discourse and debate.
And so this post is becoming as cluttered as the book. It sounds like I loved it, but then I trash it a bit. So which is it? Well, both. While acknowledging that it is highly flawed, that it could have been so much more if certain focuses had shifted just slightly, I also have to acknowledge that Cosse created a very appealing nook for a book lover to read in for a while. More than what she dwells on, what she suggests carries the day from book suggestions to distinctions between storytellers and stylists to a comparison of those who interpret life through novels versus those who interpret novels through life, those also known as people with wee imaginations. I found my mind wandering to defining standards of taste, to popular versus supposedly elite literature, to words with multiple meanings. Rich for what it suggests rather than what it delivers. I really enjoyed it.
For those not willing to commit their reading time to the flawed, check out the very clever dedicated site complete with partial lists of novels sold at The Good Novel. You might find that you actually already know a bookstore similar to this one. I do.
