63 pages • 2 hours read
Evie WoodsThe Lost Bookshop
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Power of Books
An important theme in The Lost Bookshop, the power of books is informed by the motif of book references and how the three major characters find their lives centered around and inspired by books. These three characters share a love of books, which is a vital element that connects them: Opaline’s father fostered in her a deep appreciation for books; Henry became obsessed with rare books as a way to gain recognition; Martha, though initially wary of books, finds her own path through her relationship with several books. Books have the power to comfort, inspire, offer escape, motivate, and provide a sense of purpose. They do all these things at various points in the novel.
For Opaline, books begin as an escape. Her father taught her that “books were more than words on paper; they were portals to other places, other lives” (5). Although she later turns to books as a livelihood and purpose, they’re foremost a way for her to escape the pain of her life. For instance, after escaping from the corrupt mental health facility, she returns to her bookshop and is comforted by the presence of her books. She describes the “the reassuring presence of […] books around me” (371). Seeing the book Little Women, she states: “The words were working a magic spell to give me refuge and reawaken my soul—to the person I was before all the badness happened” (371). Likewise, Martha finds comfort in reading A Place Called Lost, which becomes a place of both refuge and insight as she grows.
Books have the power to inspire, becoming a motivating force, especially for Opaline. Not only does she become a rare book dealer, inspired by Armand and later Sylvia Beach, but she also finds her purpose in the tireless pursuit of Emily Brontë’s second manuscript, which is something like a holy grail for her. This holy grail is Henry’s motivating force as well. Having found his first rare valuable book as a child, he devotes his life to the pursuit of rare books and related ephemera to make his mark and gain recognition. His obsession with finding Opaline’s mysterious bookshop and the lost Brontë manuscript is his singular goal in life until he falls in love with Martha. To a lesser extent, Martha adopts Henry’s pursuit of the manuscript as her own motivation as well.
In addition, books have the power to bring people together both literally and figuratively. Henry’s search for the Brontë manuscript literally brings Martha and him together in their shared endeavor. Martha helps him as much to remain in his company as because she’s genuinely invested in the search itself. Writing A Place Called Lost figuratively connects Opaline with Martha, the great-granddaughter she’ll never meet but who nevertheless discovers her own life’s purpose through the words of the book.
The Search for Purpose and Belonging
One of the things books have the power to do is give people a sense of purpose. The search for purpose and belonging is crucially important to the main characters. For Henry, his desire for purpose, and specifically for recognition in that purpose, fuels the drive to find Opaline’s lost bookshop and the Brontë manuscript. Informed by the motif of parents and children, Henry’s drive is also inspired by the lack of belonging he feels in his own family, particularly with his father. He believes that finding a major rare book discovery will be his claim to fame and recognition and that belonging will naturally follow from this. Opaline is likewise driven by ambition and the desire for recognition in her own search for the Brontë manuscript.
However, both Henry and Opaline eventually realize that the belonging they wish for comes not from material accomplishment but rather from finding the people whose love and support makes them feel at home. This feeling of home is what Henry alludes to in his B&B, saying, “[T]he house had felt immediately like home. Not my home, of course. But the concept of being at home” (23). It’s the feeling he gets in Martha’s presence, as when he explains to Madame Bowden: “I love her because when she came into my life it was like the lights came on. Everything suddenly had meaning” (266). It’s likewise the feeling Opaline has with Josef, when she says that he has “already repaired what was broken in this place” (422) merely by his presence.
Conversely, Martha gains belonging and purpose in the bookshop itself rather than from her relationships. Unlike Henry and Opaline, who spend most of the book searching for purpose in their work rather than in their relationships, Martha does the exact opposite. She placed her sense of self and belonging in her relationship with Shane and therefore only regains her power when she finds a purpose of her own. This purpose comes from her role as the bookshop’s new custodian, which fulfills her early belief that she was “meant to be something greater in this life,” that she had “a destiny” (36), which Shane had crushed in her.
The ideas of being lost and found also contribute to this theme of purpose and belonging. Henry is obsessed with the idea of bringing lost things to light. However, Martha later challenges him by asking why he gets to decide “what gets found and what remains lost?” (339). The implication is that lost things are only found when they want to be and when they find where they truly belong. This is echoed in the words Opaline reads on the stairs of her new home: “In a place called lost, strange things are found. I certainly felt strange and out of place” (121). These words, echoing Henry’s earlier reflection, resonate with Opaline and make her feel at home, as if she has finally found a place where she belongs.
The Human Need for Love
Just as the three major characters search for purpose and belonging, they’re also driven by a deeply human need for love. These two themes are intricately connected, as one often leads to or hinders the other. Opaline, Henry, and Martha endure negative consequences because of their need for love and the things they do to find it. They face conflict, even injury, in their pursuit of love. However, all three also embody the hope for second, or third, chances at love by persevering and keeping their hearts open. Particularly for Opaline and Martha, resilience in the face of past trauma is necessary to move forward and accept the second chances they’re offered. For Opaline, the second chance arrives in Josef, whom the bookshop itself lets into her life. Henry and Martha, meanwhile, find their second chances in each other.
The repeated motif of parents and children informs The Human Need for Love. The parent/child relationships in this novel depict different degrees of love, and insufficient parental relationships fuel each character’s search for connection. Henry attributes his brokenness and feeling of inadequacy to his father’s neglect and abuse; likewise, Martha’s mother acknowledges that her inability to articulate her love for her daughter has contributed to Martha’s lack of self-worth. Although Opaline had a strong relationship with the man she believed was her father, her real father, Lyndon, is controlling and violent. These histories motivate their needs.
The narrative often depicts love as unheeding of circumstance, reckless, and harmful. Opaline believes that love doesn’t care for facts, but “sees hope in the impossible, love where perhaps there is only desire. It acts without rhyme or reason” (65). She’s so desperate for love that she doesn’t see Armand’s true nature. Similarly, Martha believes that her love for Shane results in her losing the ability to read him. However, she eventually discovers that it was not her love for the men in her life but her denial of her own needs that led to this oversight. When she admits her feelings and needs to herself, she can suddenly read Henry again, proving the claim that “one sees clearly only with the heart” (81).
The tree roots symbolize Opaline’s love in search of her daughter. Although she never finds her daughter or meets her great-granddaughter, Martha, it’s because of her open-heartedness and hope that her love can reach across the distance of time to Martha, bringing her a renewed sense of belonging and connection. This connection is embodied in the figurative roots Opaline feels within her and the literal roots of the tree growing in the basement apartment.
