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Title: The Sweet-Shop Owner by Graham Swift ISBN: 0-679-73980-7 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 02 March, 1993 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Keeping the "old firm" in business.
Comment: An exceptional first novel from an important novelist, thus 5 stars. Here, Graham Swift looks at boundaries: The narrow geographical boundaries of the small London suburb in which the story is set ("We never moved out of these narrow bounds. Born here, schooled here, worked here,") and the narrow emotional boundaries of his characters' relationships (The paragraph continues, "And even when I met her I stood here on the common and thought: enough, now everything is in its place, and I in mine.") The theme of narrow boundaries is deftly rendered in the relationship of the sweet-shop owner, Willie Chapman, and his wife Irene who, from the start, sets the limits of their relationship, and in the father/daughter and the mother/daughter relationships, all locked within narrow confines.
Swift is quoted as saying: "I think if you know that you have a talent, then . . . you should try not to dissipate it. You should try to hold onto it and keep it, concentrate it - not to do as the whole world tends to do these days, and diversify. Diversification doesn't work with art. Keep the old firm in business, don't go into other fields of trade." Although some believe that his later work reveals a talent as a dramatist, may his "old firm" of novel writing thrive well into the future.
Rating: 5
Summary: "The things you want you never get."
Comment: Willy Chapman is "The Sweet Shop Owner" in Graham Swift's carefully crafted novel. The book chronicles the events of a single day in Willie's life as he goes about the same routine he has established and maintained for almost 40 years. As Willie performs the mundane tasks of opening his shop, stacking newspapers, and selling ice cream, he reminisces about his life. We see a man who has become his job by suppressing his personal desires and emotions. He functions and operates for others--his fragile wife, Helen (who suffers from psychosomatic asthma)--his selfish daughter, Dorrie (who is ashamed of her working class roots and can't wait for her parents to die)--and the customers Willie serves who perhaps have a greater excuse for objectifying Chapman and labelling him as a money-driven shopkeeper "that cardboard cut-out behind the counter."
But Willie is far more than a shopkeeper. Underneath his functional, calm and bland exterior, Willie is a man who has loved and sacrificed, but above all, Willie is a man who has faithfully--and doggedly--done his duty.
Through Willie's memories, we see him pass from youth, through WWII, and middle age. As Willie goes through his work day, he remembers pivotal events--those who left for war, and those who did not return--and acquaintances such as the enterprising Hancock whose fortunes wax and wane and whose past involves an unpleasant secret.
This brilliant and elegant first novel by Graham Swift folds 40 years of memories into a single day in the life of a remarkable and yet perfectly ordinary man's life. This is a book to be savoured, and one that I shall return to again and again.
Rating: 5
Summary: It's wonderful.
Comment: From the first sentence, I draw into this poignant, spellbinding story. Although I think Willy, his wife and his daughter hurt each other and all of them become victim, I could identify with any of them.
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Title: Shuttlecock by Graham Swift ISBN: 0679739335 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 03 March, 1992 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: Out of This World by Graham Swift ISBN: 0679740325 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 02 March, 1993 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: Ever After by Graham Swift ISBN: 0679740260 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 02 March, 1993 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Light of Day by GRAHAM SWIFT ISBN: 0375415491 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 29 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: Last Orders by Graham Swift ISBN: 0679766626 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 14 January, 1997 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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