Most anglophones love Paris for the things that seem to never
change — like Notre-Dame, which not only lies at the spiritual
heart of the city, but looms up as France’s “Kilometer
Zero,” the geographic point from which all destinations
in the Hexagon are measured. The cathedral’s bookish three-story
neighbor at 37 rue de la Bûcherie, is another such icon.
The capital of this town’s great Anglo-American expat
tradition since 1951 — the ageless Shakespeare & Co.
Bookshop continues to see itself as its “literary kilometer
zero.”
Few Parisian addresses are as smothered in lore and myth as
this cherished symbol of writers’ bohemia. (Each day,
more than 1 000 bibliophiles and curious tourists continue to
wander into its cramped rooms filled with used, new and antiquarian
English books.) The store boasts over 80 000 titles, which ranks
it — in terms of size — neck and neck with any modern
Barnes & Noble superstore, but with a lot more soul and
history. Plus... this shop doesn’t take credit cards and
has even, over the decades, resisted deigning to “sport”
a telephone! Still, it does host a website — www.shakespeareco.org
— and is organizing a gathering of contemporary writers,
poets and translators in June, billed as “Lost, Beat and
New: Generations of Parisian Literary Tradition.”
As is the case, for all labors of love, there is of course an
original eccentric creature lurking at the nerve center... At
the spry age of 90, Shakespeare & Co.’s owner, George
Whitman — a self-proclaimed “vagabond of the heart”
— continues to pilot literature’s “Ship of
Fools”: unquestionably, the most celebrated English-language
book shop on this continent. He had a wishing well on the premises,
and offers beds to anyone claiming to write verse, etc. Graced
with a “broad bouquet” of moods, for 57 years, Whitman
has remained one of Paris’s most colorful expats.
George Whitman arrived in Paris in 1946 as an idealistic socialist
with utopian dreams, and a volunteer job at a camp for orphans.
Cluttered with a precious rarity — namely English books,
his tiny room near the Sorbonne soon attracted the American
“WWII spillover” community who took to borrowing
from his “informal stacks.” Therein, the seed was
planted for a brilliant idea!
A day in the life of Shakespeare & Company is both mundane
and inspirational. Open from noon till midnight everyday of
the week... the store’s genius resides in its resistance
to modernity. Everything that’s wrong with our world of
global markets: powerful trademarks, an overly commercial and
conservative publishing industry, the lack of trust represented
by the ubiquitous need for metal detectors and anti-shoplifting
devices, etc... has brilliantly managed to “skip over”
George’s spirited albeit disheveled establishment. “Be
not inhospitable to strangers lest they be angels in disguise,”
is loudly engraved above a door on the first floor. From one
generation to the next, literary greats — and deadbeats,
alike — have wandered in to read their work, buy (or steal)
a book, accept a glass of ice tea or take up a broom for a sagging
bed.
The only thing that has changed recently is the arrival of his
amazing co-pilot: Sylvia, his 21-year-old daughter who George
says was named after the original owner of Shakespeare and Co.
Sylvia’s namesake was the legendary bookseller Sylvia
Beach, whose original Shakespeare & Company book shop at
12 rue de l’Odéon was the stomping ground of prewar
literati along the lines of Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein
and of course James Joyce — whose monumental work of fiction
“Ulysses” would never have seen the light of day,
if not for Sylvia Beach’s courage and fistful of hard-earned
francs. The Nazis closed her shop down in 1940, and it wasn’t
until George resurrected the name in 1964 — after the
death of his hero — that Shakespeare & Company was
reincarnated.
Sylvia says she hopes to “tidy up the operations,”
while respecting the egalitarian principles of her dad’s
vision. Access to the June festival is free and the markup of
books is being kept to a minimum, while the shop’s willingness
to offer a bed and a plate of George’s homemade Irish
stew to aspiring authors, still stands.
Does she feel the burden of inheriting the shop and carrying
her name? “Not really a burden,” she explains, “more
like a sense of responsibility. I’m trying to learn as
much as I can about the woman I’m named after and the
history of the shop.” Thinking about Shakespeare &
Company after her father’s gone isn’t easy, but
she smiles as she remembers his promise to be perpetually looking
over her shoulder in the sky, from the Left Bank.... making
sure that the place doesn’t change!
George also enjoys the poetic symmetry of this father-daughter
partnership. “Sylvia will be to the world like Colette,”
he gloats with a boy-like grin that Mark Twain might have pasted
on one of Huck Finn’s friends, knowing that his greatest
achievement in life and greatest source of joy is this daughter
who’ll carry on providing good books to good people, in
the world’s most literary city.
Shakespeare & Company’s
furst arts and lit fest
“Lost, beat and new...”
The legendary Shakespeare & Co bookstore and writers haunt,
is holding its first Literary and Arts Festival titled “Lost,
Beat and New.” This weeklong event — scheduled from
Monday June 9 to Monday June 16 (Bloomsday) — is to focus
at once on the “lost generation” of Sylvia Beach’s
original 1920s Shakespeare and Company shop, and on the “Beat”
era. It will also introduce fresh talent, based in present-day
Paris. Guests include “Tom and Viv” screenwriter Michael
Hastings, Carolyn Cassidy, Joyce Johnson and Jung Chang, author
of best-seller “Wild Swans.”
On the menu... Readings, discussions, book signings, theatrical
presentations, drinks and good books. “The festival will
unite writers and bibliophiles from around the world to justly
celebrate the multinational role Paris has played and continues
to play in developing literary history,” asserts the fest’s
director, Sylvia Beech Whitman, who run today’s Shakespeare
& Company in association her pa, its eminently “iconic”
owner George Whitman.
Other key figures present? Noel Riley Fitch, Lawrence Ferlinghetti,
David Amram, Danny Karlin, Allan Sillitoe, Shusha Guppy, Jeffrey
Renard Allen, Mark Ford, Thirza Vallois, Harry Mathews, Diane
Johnson, David Applefield, and many more.
Shakespeare & Co 37 rue de la Bûcherie, 5e, M°
St-Michel, Info: 06 83 49 71 06. www.shakespeareco.org
or shakespeareandco@paris.com.
David Applefield (david@paris-anglo.com)
is the editor of the literary journal Frank and the author of
the guidebooks PARIS INSIDE OUT and THE UNOFFICIAL GUIDE TO
PARIS. His novel On a Flying Fish is forthcoming, in September.
He writes the free newsletter My Mercredi on www.paris-anglo.com.
