Helpful Score: 3
While this sequel to "Parnassus on Wheels" is framed around a minor mystery, it is also a platform for the author to expound further upon his philosophy of life and learning: a love of books, their purpose and utility. In it, Roger Mifflin, the hero of Parnassus, is now married and is the proprietor of a used bookshop in Brooklyn called Parnassus At Home. Of course, he also advises bibliophiles that the bookstore in haunted: by the ghosts of great literature, that is. Not a deep mystery, it is built around social and political concerns of the time (start of the 20th century) and, of course, there is a protagonist (besides Mifflin) who miscues the situation, falls in love with a beautiful girl (who just happens to be working in the bookshop and is obscenely wealthy), goofs up (of course), but succeeds in the end (in spite of himself) by solving the mystery, bringing the malefactor to justice, winning the girl (nd her fortune), and fostering the growth of the Parnassus enterprise. A delightful read! Oh, by the way, one might also build a considerable bibliography for further reading from the myriad references to classic literature that is interspersed with the essays on cognition.
Helpful Score: 1
The story finds Roger Mifflin (of Parnassus on Wheels) running a second-hand bookshop in Brooklyn. No ordinary bookshop, it is inhabited by many lively spirits, thought not all are among the living.
From the shop proprietor : When you sell a man a book, says Roger Mifflin, protagonist of these classic bookselling novels, you dont sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue you sell him a whole new life. The new life the traveling bookman delivers to Helen McGill
"Did you ever notice how books track you down and hunt you out?" asks Roger Mifflin, protagonist of this charming novel. "It's one of the uncanniest things I know to follow a real book on its career-it follows you and follows you and drives you into a corner and makes you read it Words can't describe the cunning of some books." Originally published in 1919, two years after Parnassus on Wheels had introduced readers to Mifflin and Helen McGill, The Haunted Bookshop finds the couple, now married, having set up house and bookshop in Brooklyn. The novel's rollicking plot, an amusing tangle of romance and espionage, provides plenty of diversion while allowing ample room for Mifflin (and Morley) to expound on the intrigue and intricacy of the bookseller's art.
From the shop proprietor : When you sell a man a book, says Roger Mifflin, protagonist of these classic bookselling novels, you dont sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue you sell him a whole new life. The new life the traveling bookman delivers to Helen McGill
"Did you ever notice how books track you down and hunt you out?" asks Roger Mifflin, protagonist of this charming novel. "It's one of the uncanniest things I know to follow a real book on its career-it follows you and follows you and drives you into a corner and makes you read it Words can't describe the cunning of some books." Originally published in 1919, two years after Parnassus on Wheels had introduced readers to Mifflin and Helen McGill, The Haunted Bookshop finds the couple, now married, having set up house and bookshop in Brooklyn. The novel's rollicking plot, an amusing tangle of romance and espionage, provides plenty of diversion while allowing ample room for Mifflin (and Morley) to expound on the intrigue and intricacy of the bookseller's art.
Helpful Score: 1
First Line: If you are ever in Brooklyn, that borough of superb sunsets and magnificent vistas of husband-propelled baby-carriages, it is to be hoped you may chance upon a quiet by-street where there is a very remarkable bookshop.
A couple of years ago, Christopher Morley's Parnassus On Wheels was one of the books I enjoyed reading the most, so I was very happy to obtain a copy of the follow-up to it. The Haunted Bookshop follows Roger and Helen Mifflin to Brooklyn, New York, where Roger has a dream come true: he opens his own bookstore.
In short order, the couple find themselves with a mysterious disappearing and reappearing book; a rich friend insists on sending his daughter to them so she can work in their store and learn the value of hard work and a paycheck; and a young man in the advertising business becomes involved with the mystery book and falls in love with the beautiful young heiress.
All this could've been great fun. The young man in particular could be very amusing because most of his thinking was heavily influenced by ad copy and the popular magazines and movies of the day:
"For one terrible moment he thought she was going to cry. But he remembered having seen heroines cry in the movies, and knew it was only done when there was a table and chair handy."
But the humor was buried under Morley's insistence in having Roger Mifflin-- formerly a very caring and observant character-- spout speech after speech on his views of truly great literature, war, and peace. Although I did agree with Morley's viewpoints on almost every topic, I did not appreciate being continuously beat over the head with his opinions.
If those diatribes had been excised from this book, it would have been a charming sequel to Parnassus On Wheels. Oh well. You win some... and you lose some. My advice would be to read Parnassus On Wheels and give The Haunted Bookshop a miss.
A couple of years ago, Christopher Morley's Parnassus On Wheels was one of the books I enjoyed reading the most, so I was very happy to obtain a copy of the follow-up to it. The Haunted Bookshop follows Roger and Helen Mifflin to Brooklyn, New York, where Roger has a dream come true: he opens his own bookstore.
In short order, the couple find themselves with a mysterious disappearing and reappearing book; a rich friend insists on sending his daughter to them so she can work in their store and learn the value of hard work and a paycheck; and a young man in the advertising business becomes involved with the mystery book and falls in love with the beautiful young heiress.
All this could've been great fun. The young man in particular could be very amusing because most of his thinking was heavily influenced by ad copy and the popular magazines and movies of the day:
"For one terrible moment he thought she was going to cry. But he remembered having seen heroines cry in the movies, and knew it was only done when there was a table and chair handy."
But the humor was buried under Morley's insistence in having Roger Mifflin-- formerly a very caring and observant character-- spout speech after speech on his views of truly great literature, war, and peace. Although I did agree with Morley's viewpoints on almost every topic, I did not appreciate being continuously beat over the head with his opinions.
If those diatribes had been excised from this book, it would have been a charming sequel to Parnassus On Wheels. Oh well. You win some... and you lose some. My advice would be to read Parnassus On Wheels and give The Haunted Bookshop a miss.
I read Parnassus on Wheels by Morley a couple of years ago and finally got around to reading this sequel. Parnassus was a quaint story of a woman who buys a travelling bookstore, Helen McGill and who ends up settling down with another booklover, Roger Mifflin. In Haunted Bookshop, the Mifflins are very settled into their used bookstore in Brooklyn just after the end of WWI (the book was originally published in 1919). Roger is a little pretentious as he expounds the benefits of really good books and derides some of the current novels of the time written by Harold Bell Wright (one of my father's favorite authors) or the Tarzan novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs. He much prefers the classics written by Samuel Butler, Robert Louis Stevenson, Emerson, or Walt Whitman and cannot understand how people prefer the ready romances of the day. I guess this could be like comparing James Patterson to John Irving or T.C. Boyle by today's standards (I'm certainly guilty of consuming the popular novels of today like Patterson!). In fact, Roger makes a point that WWI could have been avoided if people would have read Thomas Hardy's The Dynasts, a book about the Napoleonic Wars. I found all the talk of books, the descriptions of Brooklyn at the time, and the atmosphere within the bookshop to be a delight. I didn't really agree with his smoking policy, however - Please smoke but don't drop the ashes! Not a very good mix with books in my opinion! The Mifflin's dog even had it's sleeping compartment made to look like a bookshop.
The bookshop is not really haunted, no trace of ghosts in the story; rather it is haunted by the ghosts of great literature. The story also details an adventure of Miss Titania Chapman, who has agreed to work in the shop, and a young advertising man named Aubrey Gilbert. Aubrey discovers a plot related to the mysterious disappearance and reappearance of a copy of Thomas Carlyle's Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell which happens to be one of President Wilson's favorite books. Turns out there is a plot brewing by some German-Americans who still think the war hasn't ended. Overall, I thought this was a good followup to Parnassus but not quite as enjoyable. I would recommend it to any booklover or someone interested in early 20th century New York.
The bookshop is not really haunted, no trace of ghosts in the story; rather it is haunted by the ghosts of great literature. The story also details an adventure of Miss Titania Chapman, who has agreed to work in the shop, and a young advertising man named Aubrey Gilbert. Aubrey discovers a plot related to the mysterious disappearance and reappearance of a copy of Thomas Carlyle's Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell which happens to be one of President Wilson's favorite books. Turns out there is a plot brewing by some German-Americans who still think the war hasn't ended. Overall, I thought this was a good followup to Parnassus but not quite as enjoyable. I would recommend it to any booklover or someone interested in early 20th century New York.
too predictable
