The Sweet Shop Owner is the first book in my month of birthday reading. Graham Swifts birthday is May 4th, ooh that’s today – spooky. I have read two other Graham Swift novels although quite some time ago, I am now reminded what an excellent writer he is.It is June 1974 and on the last day of Willy Chapman’s life, he gets up re-reads a letter from his daughter and goes to work at his sweet shop, the shop he has run for over thirty years. Through a series of flashbacks we see Willy’s life – from the time he met his emotionally damaged wife Irene – through the events that have led him to that one last sad day. Willy is an unremarkable man – on the face of it – running a small suburban sweet shop, the father of one child, he didn’t even see service during the war, but was drafted into the army stores, doling out helmets and ration books keeping count of the boots and the packs he issues. Yet Willy’s steadfast devotion is, in the end, what makes him really quite remarkable.“Every night their clothes hung over the chair by the bed stirred by the breeze through the window. And every day the pieces of the picture fell into place; the boat trips to Weymouth, the little scenes of themselves arm in arm on the beach or at table for two, about which the nodding onlookers might say ‘honeymooners’; their Mr and Mrs in the hotel register. But if only she would say, ‘I love you.’ No not even that, if only she would say – sometimes it seemed like she used him like an excuse – ‘I know that you love me.’ But she wouldn’t. Not even when the moment was ripe. When the evening sun burnished the sea and they walked back, in the cool, along the cliff tops. Swallows dived. Cow-parsley frothed in the hollows. Her dress was white with diagonal rows of blue flowers. No, that was not included, not part of the bargain. Wasn’t the rest enough?”Dorothy – Dorry as she is known, was Irene’s gift to Willy, part of the unspoken bargain between them, Irene’s middle class family provided the money that bought the shop, Willy ran it – while Irene stayed at home, damaged, often sick – giving him a daughter she is unable to love. Willy provides a secure and safe home for his wife, remaining in the same house, running the same shop for nearly forty years seven days a week, holidays in Dorset and Teignmouth the only respite. Willy’s love for Irene – is sad and passionless, though unexpressed, his devotion never wavers, and his loyalty to her is absolute, but Irene a fragile beauty can’t show love. Willy never really knows why this is (though the reader does) he accepts it and works hard for Irene, proud of what he has built up. Now Irene is dead, and their angry educated daughter is still bitter, feeling rejected, especially by her mother – a rejection that Willy seems to have been complicit in. Their latest communications have been bitter and resentful, but Willy still hopes – vainly that she will come. “But she would come, surely. Now she had the money. She would come – she hadn’t said she wouldn’t – through the hallway (she still had her key to the front door), past the mirror, the barometer clock, the photographs of Irene and herself on the wall. Her eyes would be moist. She would find him in the armchair in the living-room, by the French windows where he always sat – where Irene had sat with her medicine – still, silent, his hands gripping the arm-rests. She would go down, weep, clasp his knees, as though she were clasping the limbs of a cold, stone statue that stares out and beyond, without seeing.”The Sweet Shop owner was Graham Swift’s first novel, and I think it is hugely accomplished. The lives of these ordinary broken people and their quiet acceptance of the limits that life has placed upon them resonate strongly. It is a sad and memorable novel, and I am very glad that my month of birthday reading prompted me to read it.
The Sweet Shop Owner is Willy, a simple man with little ambition and little prospects until he meets Irene. Irene has an aura and inner strength that Willy will never have and guides him on a path that is focussed on running an effective sweet shop. There's a mystery and uncertainty behind the reasons why Irene 'chose' Willy and where the capital for the shop comes from especially amongst Irene's family and daughter.There's a silent dedication and duty on Willy's part to succeed and return Irene's favour that continues throughout their lives together and after Irene's death. The Sweet Shop Owner has an inner sadness and humility that is engrossing in its plainness but totally reflective of human life. There's a beauty in how Willy devotes his life to the shop.How this is portrayed is very clever and focusses on a single day with a selection of flash backs throughout the sweet shop's existence. Highly recommended but can imagine that many may find this quite basic and dull as there's not a great deal of action but it is beautifully written.
What do You think about The Sweet Shop Owner (1997)?
High 3. Swift has encapsulated the routine minutiae of twenty-four hours in the life of a shopowner while contrasting such mundanity with the slowly emerging tension that this will be the final day of Willie Chapman;s life. Not only has his life been confined to the same suburb of the capital, but he has been confined to an existence which exemplifies duty and to a marriage of accomodation. Havingrescued his heart's desire from emotional turmoil, her middle-class background provides the funds to establish him in his own business in return for the security with which he provides her. Tragically, as his love for his wife grows, she allows her attachment to life to slowly come unraveled, while their daughter grows ever more resentful at the lack of a more loving family environment.
—Steve
This is a well written book - the prose is well crafted, almost poetic at times, and the structure carefully thought out. But it failed to really grab me because it never really explains why the characters behave the way they do, except in a superficial way. (view spoiler)[Willy apparently falls in love with Irene because a) she is beautiful, and b) she tells him to play on a children's slide. She apparently doesn't love him back but marries him as an act of revenge against her family. Their daughter apparently resents the absence of maternal love and her father's spineless acceptance of his lot in life. (hide spoiler)]
—David
