Friday, January 18, 2019

Larkin anachronism


[The Bookshop (dir. Isabel Coixet, 2017). Click for more readable books.]

The Bookshop might be said to take place in 1950-something. This still is from early in the film. A man dictating a letter later on says “1959.” Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451: 1953. Kingsley Amis’s That Uncertain Feeling: 1955. But Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita and Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine, both of which appear later in the film, as new books, the one shortly before the letter (complete with a reference to Graham Greene’s review), the other not long after the letter: 1955 and 1957.

The covers for the Bradbury and Amis in this shot look right — I can’t say about the spines. But a Philip Larkin Collected Poems didn’t appear until until 1988, followed by a second Collected (2003) and a Complete Poems (2012).

There are many ways to find fault with The Bookshop — the Larkin anachronism is just a small one.

comments: 4

Frex said...

I have been wary about seeing this--do you recommend it?
(You know me, at least electronically---do you think I SHOULD see it? Professionally, you know...! :)

Michael Leddy said...

No. No.

Frex said...

LOL.
Thank you. I feel you have spared me.

Michael Leddy said...

Ha!