Letter #35: Two Rivals and a Little Shop
A Discussion of You’ve Got Mail, The Shop Around the Corner, and Read Between the Lines
Dear reader,
Here we have a piece quite dear to my heart: a study of You've Got Mail, along with The Shop Around the Corner and Read Between the Lines. I wrote the original part of this post about You’ve Got Mail and The Shop Around the Corner months ago, then ended up reading Read Between the Lines, and just had to talk about that book here as well.
My History with You’ve Got Mail and The Shop Around the Corner
I was scrolling through HBO while sick some time ago and stumbled across a 1940 film called The Shop Around the Corner. Recognizing that title as the name of Kathleen Kelly's bookshop in You've Got Mail (I’ll call it YGM from here on to be quicker), I clicked on the film. The synopsis immediately told me the creators of my favorite rom-com knew what they were doing when they named the bookshop.
The Shop Around the Corner (I’ll call it TSATC from here on to be quicker) tells the story of two rival coworkers who are secretly pen pals, very similar to the more modern secret email correspondents Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks play in the 1998 film.
While I only saw TSATC fairly recently, my history with YGM goes back years. It was my first romantic comedy. It was the first time I saw Tom Hanks act (Toy Story was my first Tom Hanks film). It's the film that made me want to get my own email.
I’m not sure when I first watched YGM; it was just a film that’s kind of always been in my life, much like the original Star Wars movies were.
Photo Credit: Me, taking a picture of my fridge. The above image is the YGM magnet on my fridge. I grew up seeing it on my aunt’s fridge, but she gave it to me several years back because I loved playing with it as a kid. The keyboard is a big clickable button that used to play the classic “You’ve got mail!” message. Unfortunately, it ceased to work years ago. (This magnet has been around since 1998 and withstood childhood me clicking it constantly, so it’s no surprise the sound doesn’t work anymore 😅)
About the Films
You’ve Got Mail follows Kathleen Kelly, the owner of a small New York bookstore, and Joe Fox, who is pushing forward with the big family business at Fox Books. While Kathleen and Joe have formed a connection via an online chatroom, they don’t know each other’s real identities. Things get difficult when Joe’s company begins to threaten the stability of Kathleen’s bookshop and the two begin to duke it out over their careers… while still falling in love online.
The Shop Around the Corner follows a mildly similar plot. I didn’t particularly enjoy much of this film myself, but I liked seeing the little Easter eggs YGM had added to reference the older movie.
The main plot of TSATC follows a small shop run by Mr. Hugo Matuschek and the lives of his employees, particularly of Mr. Alfred Kralik and Miss Klara Novak. Kralik and Klara spend most of the film ragging on each other while also secretly falling in love with one another.
The main similarity between this story and YGM is that the two are rivals (this time rivals in the same company) who fall in love slowly.
I also learned that You’ve Got Mail was inspired by the 1937 play Parfumerie, which inspired The Shop Around the Corner and a 1949 film called In the Good Old Summertime.
**CW/TW for The Shop Around the Corner: While the film ends on a sweet note (it’s labeled as a romantic comedy), please watch out for the middle portion of the film, which gets dark for a few beats.
The tone goes kind of all over the place at times by nature of the film telling the stories of multiple characters, not just that of Kralik and Klara. (A character has a rough go of it partway into the film that really brought the tone down for me.)
Assorted notes I wrote while watching The Shop Around the Corner**
**edited for clarity
Both films have two main scenes that are almost direct parallels: the scene with Kralik/his friend and Joe/his friend outside the restaurant and the scene with Kralik/Klara and Joe/Kathleen. It was entertaining to note the way lines were tweaked and updated in YGM compared to TSATC.
I like that both Klara and Kathleen have a flower tucked into a book for the first café meeting, with Klara’s red carnation and Kathleen’s daisy.
My biggest qualm with TSATC is mainly that there’s quite a lot of weird misogynistic bits about women, particularly about Klara's blouses and intellect. However, I know this film released literally 82 years ago, so I tried to keep this in mind. (‘Twas a different time.)
I wish I could see what this film looked like in color! (I wrote as note about the curtains behind Klara at the restaurant being beautiful and wanting to see what color they really were.)
Alright, the scene where Kralik visits Klara and sees her reaction to his letter that she doesn’t know is from him? Adorable.
Oooohhh boy, this quote stings: "Because I know exactly what I'd find: instead of a heart, a handbag. Instead of a soul, a suitcase. And instead of an intellect, a cigarette lighter, which doesn't work." -Klara Novak, The Shop Around the Corner
This quote is very much like Kathleen's insult to Joe in the coffee shop. Both insults are themed at what the two men do for a living (selling handbags/other goods versus selling books/coffee).
The next story I’ll be discussing bears most of its similarities to YGM, rather than TSATC. However, all three stories:
1) feature two “rivals”
2) feature a small shop
3) make for some cozy holiday season entertainment!
Read Between the Lines
I originally picked this book up because the cover was pretty and immediately checked it out from the library when I realized that this book is a beautiful retelling of the story carried through TSATC, YGM, Parfumerie, and In the Good Old Summertime.
Fun Fact: Brinkley, Joe’s dog in YGM, is referenced in this book!
Rachel Lacey’s Read Between the Lines follows Rosie, an indie bookstore owner who inherited the store after her mother’s death (much in the same vein as Kathleen), and Jane, who works for her family’s wealthy real estate corporation. The two meet by chance at Rosie’s store and immediately form a connection… until they realize that Jane is the one who has had to let Rosie know that her lease is not being renewed so Jane’s family can buy up Rosie’s bookshop. (Again, similar to YGM.)
The twist comes in the form of Jane also being a writer! Rosie’s favorite romance novelist with the pseudonym “Brie,” to be precise! The two have been communicating in their online book community for ages, much like Kathleen and Joe’s online chatroom or Kralik and Klara’s letters.
I loved noting the similar story beats done in a slightly different way; this is a love story in and of itself, but it also feels like a love letter to the 1998 film.
I also appreciated the way Lacey got the question of identity and power imbalance out of the way quickly; Jane and Rosie know exactly who the other is much earlier on in this story. The main conflict in the story is about how their business relationship affects their personal relationship rather than this large portion of the story dealing with one character knowing the identity of the other (as in TSATC and YGM).
If you really dislike how Joe doesn’t tell Kathleen that he knows who she is sooner, you might want to have a look at this article from Book Riot. It’s a take I hadn’t considered until reading this piece and helped me look at the film through a new, more critical lens.
Overall, it was a charming novel I enjoyed. It’s a 4 out of 5 stars for me! 😊
**Please Note: This is an adult novel with some adult scenes and themes, so please be aware if that’s not your vibe!
Related Reading:
I found a number of articles discussing these stories, so here, have some links!
Not really an article, but apparently Tom Hanks wrote a book that’s apparently quite typewriter-centric, so if you enjoy Frank’s typewriter obsession in YGM, you may be interested in the book.
Have you seen or read any of these stories? Any favorites or memories? Feel free to share in the comments!
Thanks so much for stopping by! Hope you have a wonderful rest of your day!
Quote of the Week:
"And you and I would have never been at war. And the only thing we'd fight about would be which video to rent on a Saturday night." -Joe Fox, You’ve Got Mail
"All this nothing has meant more to me than so many somethings." -Kathleen Kelly, You’ve Got Mail
Works Cited (MLA 9th Ed.)
Kidadl Team. “40+ You've Got Mail Quotes for Classic ROM-Com Fans.” Kidadl, Kidadl Ltd., 8 Jan. 2022, https://kidadl.com/quotes/youve-got-mail-quotes-for-classic-rom-com-fans.