Paris Bookshops Were Legendary For What They Kept In Stock, and How They Survived Turmoil

THE OLD BOOKSHOP AS A MEETING PLACE OF AUTHORS, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIANS, POETS AND PHILOSOPHERS

THE REAL HAUNTED BOOK SHOP, AND PLEASANTLY SO……

     MY HARDCOVER COPY OF "THE VERY RICH HOURS OF ADRIENNE MONNIER," THE TRANSLATED ENGLISH COPY (ORIGINAL IN FRENCH) BY RICHARD MCDOUGALL, IS PRETTY BEAT-UP AND THE DUSTJACKET IS TORN TO SHREDS, BUT IT IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT REFERENCE BOOKS I OWN. IT IS THE BOOK, PUBLISHED IN 1976, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, NEW YORK, THAT I ROUTINELY CALL UPON WHEN I START QUESTIONING MY RELATIONSHIP WITH OLD BOOKS AND WELL, THE OLD WAYS OF PACKAGED PRINT. THE BOOK JACKET, SHOWING A CASUAL ADRIENE MONNIER, AT HER DINING TABLE, IS, AS IT CLAIMS, A BIOGRAPHY OFFERING "AN INTIMATE PORTRAIT OF THE LITERARY AND ARTISTIC LIFE IN PARIS BETWEEN THE WARS."

     IT IS ANOTHER BIOGRAPHY EVERY BOOKSELLER SHOULD OWN, AND HOLD CLOSE, AS IT OFFERS SO MUCH INSPIRATION, WHETHER YOU ARE A MAJOR SELLER, OR JUST A HOBBYIST WITH A BOOTH IN AN ANTIQUE MALL. IT'S THE PROFESSION THAT IS SO WONDERFULLY ADDRESSED IN THIS BIOGRAPHY. IT'S THE COMPANY THAT MISS MONNIER KEPT, THAT IS WHAT COMPELS ME TO COME BACK TO THE BOOK, TIME AND AGAIN; AND WHAT INSPIRES ME TO NEVER TAKE A DAY FOR GRANTED IN THE ANTIQUE BUSINESS. I LOOK UP EAGERLY, FROM BEHIND OUR SHOP COUNTER, WHENEVER THE DOOR OPENS, AND ANOTHER INTERESTING SOUL WANDERS INTO OUR COLLECTION OF BOOKS, AND EVERYTHING ELSE THAT KEEPS AN ANTIQUE DEALER IN BUSINESS. WHILE I'M A MILLION MILES FROM THE CALIBRE OF THE PARIS BOOKSELLERs, AND MY GUESTS HAVEN'T BEEN INTERNATIONALLY ACCLAIMED AUTHORS, OR SO I SUSPECT, I HAVE NONE THE LESS, MET SOME FABULOUSLY INTERESTING FOLKS…..AND THE BOOK BUSINESS IN PARTICULAR, IS FAMOUS FOR THIS. BUT IF I COULD TIME TRAVEL, FOLKS, I'D WANT TO BE IN EITHER OF THESE HISTORIC BOOK SHOPS, WITH MY HAND OUTSTRETCHED, AS A VOLUNTEER GREETER, BECAUSE THEY HAD SUCH A FABULOUS ALLURE EVEN THEN…..FOR SOME OF THE GREATEST WRITERS IN HISTORY. SO LET'S NOT BEAT ABOUT THE BUSH ANY LONGER. WE'LL CATCH A TIME WARP FOR A LITTLE VISIT OF OUR OWN…..TO PARIS, FRANCE AT AROUND 1915.

     "ADRIENNE MONNIER WAS THE OWNER OF THE BOOKSHOP, LA MAISON DES AMIS LIVRES, IN PARIS, A CENTER FOR THE BEST CONTEMPORARY FRENCH WRITING AND FOR ITS AUTHORS; ANDREW BRETON, GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE, JULES ROMAINS, ADRE GIDE. THROUGH HER FRIEND SYLVIA BEACH, WHOSE SHAKESPEARE AND COMPANY WAS JUST ACROSS THE STREET, SHE BECAME ACQUAINTED WITH HEMINGWAY, FITZGERALD AND OTHER AMERICANS IN PARIS. ABOUT THE WORK AND LIVES OF THE WRITERS OF THE PAST AS WELL, SHE WROTE WITH GRACE AND THE INSIGHT OF ONE WHO WAS PERFECTLY AT HOME IN LITERATURE. THE THEATRE HAD FOR HER AN ALMOST MAGIC CHARM (SHE REMEMBERS MAETERLINCK, DE MAX, AND BERNHARDT), AS DID THE CIRCUS, THE FOLIES-BERGERE, AND ALL THE SPECTACLES OF PARIS. SHE PUBLISHED PAUL VALERY, SPONSORED JAMES JOYCE IN FRANCE, AND PAID T.S. ELIOT A RETURN VISIT TO LONDON, SHE REMAINED VERY MUCH A COUNTRY PERSON, SURE OF HER ROOTS IN SAVOY WHERE EVERY SUMMER WITH SYLVIA BEACH, SHE RETURNED. HER CHRONICLE FAITHFULLY ILLUMINATES AN ERA."

     IN THE INTRODUCTION, AS WRITTEN BY RICHARD MCDOUGALL, HE WRITES, "BUT WE ARE CONCERNED WITH A MUCH LATER ERA, ONE THAT BEGAN IN THE SECOND YEAR OF WORLD WAR I, IN NOVEMBER, 1915, WHEN AS A YOUNG WOMAN OF TWENTY-THREE, ADRIENNE MONNIER, THE FOUNDER AND CHRONICLER OF ODEONIA, THE NAME IS HER OWN INVENTION, OPENED HER BOOKSHOP, LATER TO BE CALLED LA MAISON DES AMIS DES LIVRES, AT NUMBER 7 RUE DE L'ODIEN, ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE STREET GOING UP TOWARD THE PLACE DE L'ODEON. 'BUILT IN A TIME OF DESTRUCTION,' AS SHE SAYS IN HER ARTICLE THAT TAKES ITS NAME, THE BOOKSHOP, THROUGH WHAT COULD ONLY HAVE BEEN THE SHEER COURAGE AND INTELLIGENCE OF ITS OWNER, ENDURED THROUGH THE WAR AS ONE OF THE FEW INTELLECTUAL CENTERS OF THE BESIEGED CITY, A PLACE WHERE WRITERS, SOME OF THEM, LIKE ANDRE BRETON AND GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE, IN UNIFORM - COULD GATHER AND, AT MEETINGS, ARRANGED BY ADRIENNE MONNIER, READ FROM THEIR OWN WORKS. AND IT WAS HERE ONE DAY TOWARD THE END OF THE WAR, THAT SHE WAS PROVIDENTIALLY VISITED BY THE AMERICAN, SYLVIA BEACH, WHO WITH MONNIER'S ENCOURAGEMENT FOUNDED HER ENGLISH-LANGUAGE BOOKSHOP, SHAKESPEARE AND COMPANY IN 1919 - ANOTHER SIGNIFICANT DATE IN THE HISTORY OF ODEONIA - AT 8 RUE DUPUYTREN, JUST AROUND THE CORNER FROM ADRIENNE MONNIER.

     "IN THE SUMMER OF 1921, WHEN THE TWO WOMEN WERE ALREADY CLOSE FRIENDS, WHEN SYLVIA BEACH HAD ALREADY UNDERTAKEN THE PUBLISHING OF JAMES JOYCE'S ULYSSES, THE PROUDEST ADVENTURE OF HER CAREER, SHAKESPEARE AND COMPANY MOVED TO NUMBER 12 RUE DE L'ODEON, ACROSS THE STREET FROM LA MAISON DES AMIS DES LIVRES. THE MOVE WAS AS SYMBOLIC AS IT WAS PRACTICAL, FOR THE CLOSENESS OF THE TWO SHOPS WAS TO STAND FOR AS WELL, AS TO FURTHER CONTACTS BETWEEN THE FRENCH WRITERS WHO FREQUENTED ADRIENNE MONNIER AND THE ENGLISH SPEAKING PATRONS OF SYLVIA BEACH; IT REPRESENTED AS WELL THE ENDURING FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN THE TWO WOMEN AND CONSOLIDATED THE PHYSICAL REGION OF THAT COUNTRY OF THE SPIRIT."

AN OVERVIEW OF RUE DE L'ODEON THROUGH THE EYES OF JUSTIN O'BRIEN

     THE BOOK CONTAINS AN OVERVIEW SECTION, WRITTEN BY JUSTIN O'BRIEN, "THE SCHOLAR AND TRANSLATOR OF FRENCH LITERATURE. ALTHOUGH HE WAS RELATIVELY A LATECOMER TO THE STREET, HIS IMPRESSIONS HOLD TRUE FOR THE ENTIRE PERIOD BETWEEN THE TWO WARS," WRITES RICHARD MCDOUGALL. THE ARTICLE BY O'BRIEN WAS PUBLISHED IN JANUARY 1956, IN THE MERCURE DE FRANCE, AND WAS WRITTEN IN HOMAGE TO ADRIENNE MONIER:

     "For the young American in the thirties, the Rue de l'Odeon was the intellectual centre of Paris. On the right side going up the street, he stopped first before the narrow shop window of Shakespeare and Company, which was filled with books in his language, but most often in editions that he had not encountered anywhere else. The volumes by T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Virginia Woolf stood near limited Parisian editions and the enormous paperbound 'Ulysses'….Almost opposite Shakespeare and Company, La Maison de Amis des Liveres, perhaps even more attractive for him who had everything to know about the French domain, revealed to him the latest Gide, the latest Valery, the latest Fargue, along with the avant-garde reviews and books thirty, or fifty years old, but for him absolutely new.

     "From time to time, entering one or the other of those welcoming houses, he could see up close - what he used to dream about in New York - some of this gods. James Joyce in dark glasses and with a light-colored moustache, Gide arrayed in his flowing cape, Cocteau with his prestidigitator's hands. Even those whom he did not see there were present, thanks to the fascinating pictures hung on the walls."

     O'Brien writes, "Le Maison des Amis des Liveres, was well named, for Adrienne Monnier received there with an equal goodwill all those who really loved books. There was only, in the matter of hierarchy, those who knew from farm back, the mistress of that salon covered with books and with who she conversed at length, sitting in front of a big table spread with papers. From the day when she invited the young American to take a place near her, between the table and the stove, her rosy race with its mauve-blue eyes became the symbol of that friendly house. Those conversations by fits and starts, in the course of which Adrienne Monnier informed herself about his readings and suggested others to him with that so communicative enthusiasm, of which she had the secret, were precious initiation for him to all the best that modern literature offers."

     In the same issue of the mercer de France, German writer, Siegfried Kracauer, noted of Adrienne Monnier, that " She listened more than she spoke and looked at you often, attentive, before answering or drawing your attention to an idea that had come into her mind while she was listening. Her eyes, were they blue?  I know only that her look came from a depth that seemed to me to be not easily accessible. The brightness of her outer aspect, of the room, and even of her voice, was not an ordinary brightness, but the covering of the form of an inner self that was lost in the shadows. Perhaps it was this interference of a foreground and a background, of a luminous exterior and a secret spiritual ground that thus drew me to her.

     "I made myself a precise image of her. The character trait to which my veneration and my love went out, it remains forever engraved in my heart - was that mixture of rusticity and aristocracy that Proust never wearied of praising in the old Francoise and the Duchesse de Guermantes. Around these characters there is still the good smell of French soil, and as they personify in their bearing and their language, centuries of ancestral traditions, how would it be possible that they were not of an authentic distinction. It is thus that I see Adrienne Monnier before me."

     We will return to Le Maison des Amis des Livres, and both Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier again tomorrow…..two bookshops that extend well beyond the definition of legend. Thanks for joining me today for this little bookshop adventure. Much more to come in future blogs.