Column | A “small and brave” American founded a bookstore in Paris a hundred years ago, the memory of which still draws people from all over the world

On the first one on a youthful trip to Paris in the old days, you had to invest in what was most important, as cheap as possible or preferably free. The equation meant poor wine, almost non-existent food, Jim Morrison graves and a visit to the Shakespeare And Company bookstore.

The richest memories are created with the least money.

On the next Interrail, the money was enough Sylvia Beach already one book in the shop, which refers to life’s work, so a souvenir – a damn ugly pint – was no longer kept from the bar.

About every one the second time I turn on the TV, some channel pops by Woody Allen movie Midnight in Paris (2011). I guess it’s considered beautiful, but it’s downright sugary to the point of ugliness.

Hilarious slipper hero (always as insufferable comedian Owen Wilson) time machines in the film at night from the yoke of his youth and in-laws in the 1920s Ernest Hemingway, Zelda and by F. Scott Fitzgerald join other legendary Parisian-Americans for a blast Pablo Picasso and with other modernists in art and open-minded people in life.

Oh boy. In a culture sanctified to hypocritical ways and mammon worship, the spiritually nitwits grew up in the candy store of liberation.

I have to stay alert so I don’t get lost in Netflix’s latest clichéd, apparently always sugarier and naturally hugely popular Yankee series Emily in Paris. I might even secretly like it.

Just in Finnish received by Kerri Maher novel Paris bookseller (The Paris BooksellerFinnish Laura Kataja and Mika TiirinenBazar, 390 p.) also manages to be a little cute, although it is hardly the intention.

Having taught creative writing at the university level, Maher has previously published three historical novels. On the basis of his first Finnish translation, he has thoroughly explored the stages of the American-born Sylvia Beach (1887–1962) and her Shakespeare And Company, which operated near Odéon Square from 1919–41 and sold and lent English literature.

Not to mention of James Joyce and his Ulysses-from his novel, which Beach published in 1922. Beach had no publishing experience at all. And the money was scarce, but the love for the literature of the new era after World War even more so.

Beach’s shop soon became a meeting place for literary modernists.

Anglo-American the world’s leading moral guardians stamped of Odysseus (Fin. Pentti Saarikoski 1965 and Leevi Lehto 2012) as pornographic, so publishers afraid of prosecution did not dare to take the manuscript.

A literary legend was born, which still draws people from all over the world to the store that honors the memory of Sylvia Beach. George Whitman opened it in 1951 on the banks of the Seine, diagonally opposite Notre Dame at 37 rue de la Bûcherie.

Today, Shakespeare And Company is run by Whitman’s daughter Sylvia.

Of course: Sylvia.

“

The officer had brains but no heart.

Written merit you don’t need to pay much attention to Maher’s live performance, and I don’t think it adds anything to what is already known. But for the introduction to the subject area for those who are not already familiar with it, Paris bookseller offers convenient and competent transportation.

Joyce was a literary genius. Especially in his financial affairs, a walking disaster, which caused unreasonable problems even for his always helpful benefactor.

In general, entrepreneurship was still not easy for a woman, let alone a woman living with a woman, even though it was the free spirit that attracted both Americans and others to Paris in the 1920s.

Sylvia Beach if anyone deserves Eva Kilven the words of the poem: “You little brave woman, / I trust you.”

Maher’s novel from the afterwords I read a story that I had already managed to forget.

After the Nazis occupied the rest of Paris, a German officer went to buy a Joyce novel from Beach’s store Finnegans’ Wake (1939). Obviously a civilized type, because the work in question is in every way more difficult than its predecessor, which also requires a little effort from the reader.

But our little brave woman didn’t sell!

The story even seems too good to be completely true. In any case, it is certain that the store had to be closed and the shopkeeper was sent to an internment camp.

At the same time, the essence of the officer in the story is determined: the brain was there, the heart was missing.

43 years later George Whitman sold me the same work. Of course, we had to get some Joyce from there, and that’s it Finnegans’ Wake was unread. My paperback copy was dated August 1, 1984, according to my notation on the title page.

Whitman’s character stuck in my mind. Nice gray hippie.

On a train somewhere in France, I opened a delicacy denied to the Nazis – and handed over a few pages of Kimurant after struggling with English. I remember in my gut that there is a lack of civility.

Still missing.

The traditional stamp of the bookstore is already starting to fade in my institution.

It must be the heart that says: boy, keep the book still; if you still wise up.

Correction 4/25/2023 at 7:00 p.m.: The bookstore was founded in 1919, not 2019, as was incorrectly written in the introduction.

Correction April 26, 2023 at 9:05 a.m.: Corrected the title and introduction, which gave the wrong impression that the same bookstore had continued for more than a hundred years. The bookstore opened by George Whitman in 1951 is not a direct continuation of Beach’s store.

Read more: Many classic books are surrounded by a story that is not true