Muskoka Antiques; Good Shop, Bad Shop; James Joyce, T.S. Eliot and F. Scott Fitzgerald

Yes, We had Ice Storms Back Then As Well; Circa 1890's

The Whole Band Circa 1890's

THOSE UNEXPECTED SITUATIONS THAT POP-UP - THAT KEEP THE ANTIQUE DEALER PEAKED IN CURIOSITY

FUNNY MOMENTS THAT LIGHTEN UP A HEAVY DAY

     DON'T GET ME WRONG. I LOVE BEING THE PROPRIETOR OF AN ANTIQUE SHOP. EVERYTHING I'VE WRITTEN IN THE PAST, ABOUT THE SHOP CULTURE, IS TRUE. I LOVE THE SOCIAL CIRCUMSTANCES. I ENJOY ENCOUNTERS WITH POETS AND SCHOLARS, AND CANDLESTICK MAKERS. THERE ARE HOWEVER, SOME SITUATIONS THAT ARISE, FROM TIME TO TIME, THAT MAKE US WONDER ABOUT THE ATTRACTION OF ANTIQUES TO ECCENTRICS, AND OTHERWISE ODDBALLS. IT'S TRUE, I WOULDN'T WANT TO DEAL WITH A GUY LIKE ME AS A CUSTOMER. I CAN BE VERY DEMANDING, AND I WINK AT THE CUTE SALES STAFF. BUT I AM NOT THE BEST SALES CLERK TO HANDLE THOSE WHO ARE, AS THEY SAY, DIFFICULT BY VIRTUE OF CHARACTER.
     EVERY VETERAN ANTIQUE AND COLLECTABLE DEALER, COULD CONTRIBUTE TWO OR THREE CHAPTERS, JUST ON THE STRANGE OCCURRENCES, THAT HAVE TAKEN PLACE IN THEIR RESPECTIVE SHOPS. FROM CASUAL SIGHTINGS OF GHOSTS AND BANDY-LEGGED WEE BEASTIES, APPEARING AT TIMES, ALOOF IN THE SHOP, TO ODD DUCK CUSTOMERS, WHO SEEM TO HAVE STEPPED OUT OF THE FUNNY PAGES, OR ANOTHER DIMENSION OF TIME AND PLACE. I WON'T SAY THAT I'VE SEEN MORE THAN ANY ONE ELSE, BUT I COULD WRITE A WHOLE BOOK ON THE STRANGE EVENTS AND CIRCUMSTANCES, I HAVE FOUND MYSELF IN, AS AN ANTIQUE SHOP PROPRIETOR. THEY PROBABLY PALE IN COMPARISON TO OTHER TALES OF WOE AND MISADVENTURE, TOLD BY OTHER SHOPKEEPS, ABOUT STRANGE VISITATIONS TO THEIR INNER SANCTUMS. BUT I STILL BELIEVE THERE IS A CURIOUS, UNEXPLAINED ATTRACTION, OF AN ANTIQUE SHOP, THAT BRINGS US SOCIETY'S MOST ECCENTRIC AND UNRESTRAINED.
     One autumn afternoon, a local chap arrived in our basement shop, in Bracebridge, showing signs of intoxication. Suzanne and I knew him from his other exploits, visiting businesses along Manitoba Street. While it was known, by considerable experience, that he was relatively harmless, he did occupy a lot of law enforcement time, officers having to extract him, when he'd worn out his welcome, somewhere or other. In our case, I watched him rummage through the first room in the basement shop, and while he seemed respectful in his conduct, although a little wobbly on his feet, I only got concerned when he grabbed a hold of an old golf club, I had hung on the wall. We had other customers come in, at around the same time, so I had to be concerned about their safety as well as saving my inventory, should he have decided to tee-off. It was a busy afternoon, so we had to work around the counter, unfortunately leaving the young man alone in the small room. After everyone had left, I went to see where our golfer had gone. He had sat down in a big armchair, and fallen asleep with the golf club still in his hands. We had lots of folks coming in and out, and this wasn't a satisfactory situation. I went up the stairs, and out into the driveway, to see if I could find an officer to give me a hand, escorting the man out of the building.
     When I did manage to wave-down a passing officer, he certainly didn't seemed pleased, about having to involve himself in such a menial task. "Why can't you get him out of there yourself," he asked. "Well, for one thing, the guy has a golf club, a lot of booze (or drugs) in him, and I've got lots of customers in the shop....and who knows how he wakes up from these little naps." Another officer showed up, a few minutes later, but his hands on his hims, chortled a bit, and they talked over the strategy for extracting my slumbering guest. I know they were laughing about my situation, but I wasn't going to take any chances, of pissing-off the out-of-place golfer, no matter what they thought of the gutless antique dealer. "Sir, please stand back and let us do our job." Well, the young man seemed pretty upset about having to leave the comfortable chair, and nice digs, he'd enjoyed for forty winks. He didn't leave without the officers helping him from the chair, and then out of the building. They didn't get the golf club back until he was in the front driveway, and the last I saw him, he was stumbling down the street, while elegantly throwing one of Suzanne's hand-knit scarves around his neck. Hey, it was the cost of removal. A small price to pay. I didn't want to strong-arm him out of the shop. He wasn't the first or last intoxicated individual to visit. He was however, the only one to fall asleep in our store, while dreaming, I suppose, of playing the links.
     Another girl came to visit, in roughly the same condition, and asked if we had any old steamer trunks. We pointed to a small hump-back trunk we had just purchased that day, which was still "in the rough," and needed a little bit of work. She immediately began yelling, "It's perfect....it's just perfect for what I need." It was situated close to the counter, and Suzanne and I watched as she opened the lid very slowly, as if she suspected there was something enchanted inside. When she had opened the lid fully, and stepped-up closer, for a good look inside, she began a rather weird dance, hopping up and down, which involved arm movements, as if she was trying to extract something unseen. It was like a dance from the 1960's. The only music was what she was hearing in her head. All we knew, by what she was mumbling, was that she sensed there were (vapor-like) dragons living in that hump-back trunk....which made it all the more fascinating. Eventually it became so disturbing, we had to tell her the trunk was sold to another wizard, and maybe she should check out the second hand shop down the road. She floated out of the shop, as if she was on the back of one of those liberated dragons. We couldn't help but sneak a peak ourselves. Darn it all. Just dust bunnies and bits of paper.
     One afternoon, fairly late in the day, our boys heard someone yelling, that sounded, at first, like the words, "gobble, gobble, gobble," with a shrill voice, over and over, coming from the lobby of our present Gravenhurst shop. It even scared the youngster, in a music lesson (in the studio) with Robert, and the first instinct, we had, was that someone was in medical distress. We all met in the upper hall, to see what was going on, only to find an elderly lady, quite distinctive, elegant, with considerable poise, smiling back at us. She had been making the turkey call, simply to get our attention. Neat eh! Then she told us we had her accordion in our possession, and she wanted it back. Well, we didn't have her accordion, and she was just mixed up, about the shop she had taken it to, for repair. We have had a few other customers, who, for whatever reason, feel it necessary, to blurt out an announcment, that they are officially in the building....and in need of attention. One large gentleman, who visits once a week, comes into the building with a smash of the door, aggressively strums the first guitar he comes to, and then begins singing....., no yelling out, his favorite song, which is usually "Lola". Scares the crap out of us. He also yells a greeting, walks ten feet into the store, then storms out. We know he'll be back. Then we have another bloke we call "The Stair Dweller," because he comes in, stands at the bottom of the stairs, looks for three or four minutes, and then darts out of the building. He bought a guitar off us once, a long time ago, but has never braved those two flights of stairs. We have others who ask the same question each and every time, and when they hear the answer, it's as if they'd never heard it before. These are not people with mental health issues, that we know of.....but there's something about being in company of all this old stuff, that freaks them out.
     One of my funniest encounters, was with a customer, who accidentally broke a vase, having brushed it with her purse on the way down an aisle; and then showed up at the counter, glass in hand, dumping it in front of me in disgust. "I suppose you're going to make me pay for this, even though it was clearly your fault," she blurted, giving me this really angry look. "You shouldn't leave things like that, so close to the edge of the shelves." She'd given me hell for the first two minutes, after confronting me at the counter, not affording any opportunity to slip in a word, edge-wise, as they say. When I found an interval to make comment, she interjected that "I'm going to pay you for it, but you'd better fix up your store, or there's going to be a lot more smashed inventory." I have only been speechless a few times in my life, but this was definitely the most memorable and awkward at the same time. I really didn't know what to say, because I didn't want to start a fight with the woman, who probably thought it would have been better if I hadn't been born....thus removing the temptation for her to have come into my shop in the first place. So I scooped the shards off the counter, into a small box I had set aside for such situations, and told her that there was no charge for the damaged piece. "Well, that's fine, but you should really tidy up your shop. Someone could have been injured you know?" She was still red in the face, which if there had been a mirror, I would have seen mine glowing, by this point, as well. I thought about what Suzanne told me about handling difficult customers, and I just turned away and went about some other more rewarding tasks. Nothing I could have said, would have stopped an angry person from acting out some inner frustration. The piece hadn't been in a high risk setting at all, and it was what you would expect in any such shop, the world over. Still not happy, that I hadn't handed over the keys of the store, or stabbed myself on the spot, she mumbled about never coming back, as she left the building.
     There was a book collector I used to call "Wally the Weasel," because of the way he acted in the shop. He'd arrive, always when I was alone, and from initial greetings, he seemed to be the happiest most contented guy on earth. It lasted like that during the "small-talk" portion of the visit, until that is, he got into my stash of new "old book" arrivals. They guy was a jerk. And I was giving him the benefit of the doubt. He'd start hauling-up books from the back of the shop, and before long, I wouldn't even be able to see over it. This usually happened on a Saturday morning, and the shop would have had several other regular customers. In the summer, it could get quite busy, in the cooler mornings, making the visit of "Wally" very compromising indeed. His strategy, was to befuddle me. He couldn't do it to Suzanne, but because I got annoyed easily, I'd do just about anything to unload him. He would finish his shopping, and ask me what my "best price" was going to be, for the pile of books on the counter. Early in our relationship, I would have written all of the books onto a receipt, and then given him a discount for such a large purchase. He would buy more than twenty books at a time, or more, so yes, in terms of dollars spent, he was a good customer. It's just that he wore me out, trying to beat me down. Depending on my mood, I'd spar with him for awhile, and he'd whine and fuss, and tell me how he could get the same books elsewhere, for a fraction of the cost. It didn't deter him one bit, when I'd retaliate by saying, "Well then, what are you doing here?" I think he just enjoyed the back and forth negotiations, like chess moves, and nine times out of every ten visits, I'd wind-up surrendering a deal just so he would go home. So here's how I'd get even with him. As a huge bibliomaniac, he'd attend every old book sale in the area. We'd arrive as a family, to the same sales, and out-muster him, by three collectors to one. Andrew, Robert and their mother, Suzanne, have been bibliophiles in training for many years, and know how to book-scout for me. We'd thrust ourselves in his face, and dawdle, procrastinate in certain areas, and basically, my team-mates would block for me, while I ran for the touchdown. He'd get so mad, at our crowding strategy, he mumbled one morning, about never coming in to our shop again. It accomplished more than I had hoped for, and honestly, it was worth losing a customer, to maintain my sanity.
     There was another customer who was a champion "price tag flicker." He never once, in all the years I dealt with him, showed up at our store counter, with a price tag attached to anything he wished to purchase. Yet he never denied flicking it off either, before he reached my desk. Suzanne couldn't tolerate his behaviour, so she'd say, "Just a second, and I'll go and find it for you." He was a little sloppy where he left the price sticker, so she could find it every time. He didn't see it as a dastardly deed. He thought he was being cute. The last time I took the bait, was late one Saturday afternoon, after a day of very poor sales. He came to me with a highly collectable, Shell Oil bottle, with lid, that was in perfect condition. "There's no price on the bottle, Ted.....I guess it's free." This was the same anecdote he used every time he arrived at the desk, with something he wanted to purchase. "How much?" He got me at a bad time. Well, let's just say, a good time for him. I needed grocery money. He was probably going to be the last customer of the day. So let's just say, I suggested a price I could live with, and he had the money on the counter with lightning speed. This was odd, because there was always a certain amount of squabbling and re-negotiating, which I came to despise. I suspected something was wrong, but by that point, I couldn't go back on my word. When he left, I went to the shelf where it had been situated, and I found the price tag on the floor directly below the now empty space. Suzanne had priced it for a consignor at fifty dollars. Now although we factor in some wiggle room, to negotiate a fair price, I had sold it to the chap for twenty bucks, just to get rid of him. I was about as angry as I could get, that afternoon, and vowed from that point on, to never allow it to happen again. When he arrived the next time, and did exactly the same thing, as all the other times, I went and looked for the price tag he had flicked off. Did that ever displease him. "I don't care what was on the price tag.....what will you sell it to me for," he asked, as I came back to the counter, with the price tag on the tip of a finger. So it gave me the opportunity I'd been waiting for, to give him an example of a customer's bad behaviour. Of course, he denied flicking off the price tag, from the oil bottle, and became quite indignant about its fifty dollar asking price. "It certainly wasn't worth that." "Well," I said, "It was worth way more than twenty dollars, and I bet when you go to sell it, the price will be tripled." In fact, for the condition of the bottle, sixty dollars wasn't out of the question. He did come back. He just stopped his "flicking" activity. We became good friends after this.
     On another occasion, I happened to get in the middle of a dispute between customers, that I knew nothing about, until that is, I was up to my neck in the crisis. I was selling a consignment piece for a collector, and I was offered an interesting trade from another customer. There was no sacrifice of price, which I had set, not the consignor. I would simply buy the piece, minus the commission, which for us then, was twenty percent; and then attempt to sell the items I had received in the trade. So what was the problem? Well, when I told the consignor, after having handed over the cheque, that I had made a trade with this particular collector, she was so outraged, all that came out of her mouth besides the foam, were nasty slurs and cussing. I had become the scourge of the earth, because I made a trade to someone she didn't like. She couldn't get mad at me for the price I paid, because it was market value. She just didn't want the other person to have acquired it....and I dare say, that she would have been mad, even if a trade hadn't been involved. I've turned away other consignors since, who have told me, in no uncertain terms, not to sell their pieces to specific individuals. This is when I tell them to take their antiques and leave the building. We don't offer selective sales, or screen our customers, deciding what they can and can not purchase. On the other side, we have customers who claim to know who previously owned the piece in question. Recently, a rather burly man stood at my counter, and demanded to know where we got a Coke cooler, we had on display at the back of the shop. Before I could answer, he told me where I had bought it, and for how much. Don't you just love moments like this? He wasn't mad, just adement. I must have bought it from a yard sale he and his wife had in Toronto. "It has the exact same marks as mine did," he said. There is a point, with customers like this, when you just surrender, nod, wink, and shut-up. I wasn't in Toronto. I purchased it from a long time friend in Gravenhurst. I paid way more than he said it had been sold for, and the friend I purchased it from, hadn't been to Toronto in years. Oh, well!
     There was another man, who used to drop-in, who truly believed he was an exceptional salesman. Every time he came in, he would engage me, or Suzanne, in a lengthy debate about some aspect of antiques and collecting, that while interesting, was pointless banter, with no right or wrong answers, even without any sensible wrap-up to our multi-hour investment. There were times, in his counter-side chats, when honest to God, I wanted to climb through some portal under the counter, and liberate myself from this mind-numbing incarceration. No matter how hard I tried to stop him, even feigning sudden illness, this guy wouldn't quit the barrage of questions he'd ask, and then answer himself. He only needed me for when, in his estimation, it was the perfect time for the "pitch" line, which usually came shortly after hour one. He could eat up two hours if he had a lot to sell. When he suspected I was at my most vulnerable, he would suddenly get very spry, and suggest that he had a few things he brought to show me, stored at that moment, in his car parked in front. As a picker myself, in a family of trained pickers, we don't buy much at all, over the counter. So when he'd get to this stage of our one-sided conversation, I still had enough gumption left, to slam down his ambitions like a volleyball hitting the hardwood. He'd look disgruntled, ask me why not, and I'd slam him down one more time. One day he got four of them in a row. Now he doesn't visit. It's true. Maybe one day he would have actually purchased something from our shop. I doubt it though. Even if he had, it would have been at a ration of one hundred to one....meaning I would have had to purchase a hundred items from him, to warrant him making one purchase from me. You'd be shocked to know how many of these folks exist out there, to tantalize us antique dealers with great deals that will make us a fortune. Believe me, we've heard all the sale's pitches, and they can get pretty extravagant. It doesn't take too much willpower to resist these great offers.
     A very nice lady showed up at my counter one day, to return a crystal bowl she claimed to have purchased from us several weeks earlier. We try to be as fair about this as possible, but there are occasions, when someone will try to pull a fast one. Even kindly older ladies, who seem so pleasant and passive. Anyway, it didn't take me too long, to determine, that we had never owned or sold the crystal bowl she was trying to return. She certainly didn't like the fact, I wasn't willing to take her word for it, and her attitude changed in an instant. She was going to call her lawyer if I didn't give her back the thirty dollars she had paid for the bowl. I got suspicious, when I found a receipt in the bottom of the bag from the local Salvation Army. Although it wasn't showing a purchase for this particular bowl, it had been from a bag they had given her at the Thrift Shop. The glass piece had a chip on the top, and even if we had sold the bowl, it would have been for well less than thirty dollars, considering the damage. Basically, she was trying to con us into buying a bowl she had just bought....thinking we would just take her word. When I pointed her out, one day to Suzanne, she recognized her from our shop, but agreed, she had never bought a single item from us. Certainly not a crystal bowl.
     Lots more stories to come.

THE PERSONALITIES AND THE BOOKSELLER - YOU JUST NEVER KNOW WHO MIGHT POP-UP NEXT

GOOD BOOKS, GOOD CONVERSATION, GOOD TIMES - GOOD REASON TO RUN A BOOK SHOP

     "IT WAS ON DECEMBER 7, 1921, THAT VALERY LARBAUD PRESENTED THE IRISH WRITER JAMES JOYCE TO THE AMIS DES LIVRES. (THE BOOKSHOP OWNED BY ADRIENNE MONNIER, IN PARIS, FRANCE.)

     "THAT WAS ONE OF THE MEMORABLE MEETINGS AT OUR HOUSE. THE FIRST FRAGMENTS OF THE TRANSLATION OF 'ULYSSES,' WERE GIVEN A READING THERE AFTER THE WARNING, 'CERTAIN PAGES HAVE AN UNCOMMON BOLDNESS OF EXPRESSION THAT MIGHT QUITE LEGITIMATELY BE SHOCKING' (I QUOTE FROM THE PROSPECTUS). AS AUGUSTINE MOREL HAD NOT YET UNDERTAKEN HIS TRANSLATION, IT WAS JACQUES BENOIST-MECHIN WHO HAD COURAGEOUSLY ATTACKED THESE FIRST FRAGMENTS; AND LEON-PAUL FARGUE HAD BEEN ESPECIALLY CONSULTED FOR THE ADAPTATION OF THE MOST DARING PASSAGES," WROTE ADRIENNE MONNIER, AS TRANSLATED, IN THE BOOK, "THE VERY RICH HOURS OF ADRIENNE MONNIER," PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS OF NEW YORK.

     "JOYCE WAS THEN UNKNOWN TO THE FRENCH PUBLIC. IT WAS NOT HERE, HOWEVER, AT LA MAISON DES AMIS DES LIVRES, NOR WITH VALERY LARBAUD, THAT HE FOUND HIS FIRST WELCOME. A LITTLE WHILE AFTER HIS ARRIVAL FROM TRIESTE, HIS FRIEND THE AMERICAN POET, EZRA POUND HAD TAKEN HIM TO THE HOUSE OF ANDRE SPIRE, WHO HAD RECEIVED HIM WITH HIS CUSTOMARY KINDNESS. IT WAS AT ANDRE SPIRE'S HOUSE THAT SYLVIA AND I MET HIM, IN THE COURSE OF A RECEPTION AT WHICH MANY LITERARY PEOPLE WERE PRESENT," SHE WRITES OF MEETING THE AUTHOR. "I HAD A LITTLE DISCUSSION WITH JUSTIN BENDA; HE MAINTAINED THAT THERE DID NOT EXIST IN FRANCE, FOR THE MOMENT, ANY WRITER CAPABLE OF GREAT FLIGHTS. WHILE WE WERE DELIBERATING, MR. JOYCE, WHO WAS SITTING IN A CORNER, REMAINED SILENT, HIS WINGS FOLDED. SYLVIA BEACH, WHO HAD READ HIS BOOKS AND EVEN THE CHAPTERS OF 'ULYSSES,' THAT APPEARED IN NEW YORK, IN THE 'LITTLE REVIEW, 'AND WHO ADMIRED HIM PASSIONATELY, HAD IN THE COURSE OF THE EVENING SUMMONED UP HER COURAGE TO APPROACH HIM. FOR IT WAS AN EXTREMELY CONGENIAL RECEPTION; SPIRE OFFERED US TEA AND SUPPER AT THE SAME TIME. THERE WAS NO LACK OF TIME TO TALK AND EVEN TO THINK A BIT ABOUT ONE MEANT TO SAY. THIS IS THE WAY THEN, THAT OUR RELATIONS WITH JOYCE BEGAN.

     "WHEN ONE RECOGNIZES THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SYMBOL IN JOYCE'S WORK AND THE CONSTANT CARE THAT HE TAKES TO ESTABLISH MYSTICAL CORRESPONDENCES, ONE IS STRUCT BY THE FACT THAT THE FIRST PERSON WHO RECEIVED HIM IN FRANCE, AND PUT HIM IN CONTACT WITH HIS FUTURE PUBLISHERS, IS A JEWISH POET - FOR JOYCE HAD CREATED IN ULYSSES A GREAT TYPE OF JEWISH HUMANITY, AND HE WAS TO FIND WITH US A PLACE FAVORABLE TO THE APPEARANCE OF HIS WORK AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF HIS REPUTATION." MONNIER WRITES, "SO, IN 1921, VALERY LARBAUD (WRITER) SPOKE IN MY BOOKSHOP ABOUT JAMES JOYCE, AND ABOVE ALL ABOUT HIS 'ULYSSES,' WHICH HAD NOT YET APPEARED IN BOOK FORM. THIS LECTURE, WHICH WAS PUBLISHED AFTERWARD IN THE 'NOUVELLE REVUE FRANCOISE,' AND WHICH PRESENTLY SERVES AS THE PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATION OF 'DUBLINERS,' IS A UNIQUE ACHIEVEMENT IN THE HISTORY CRITICISM. IT IS CERTAINLY THE FIRST TIME, I BELIEVE, THAT A WORK IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE HAS BEEN STUDIED IN FRANCE, BY A FRENCH WRITER, BEFORE BEING STUDIED IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. CERTAINLY THE PRESENCE OF JOYCE AMONG US HAD PROVOKED THIS PHENOMENON, BUT IF ONE THINKS ABOUT THE DIFFICULTIES OF A TEXT LIKE ULYSSES, ONE IS ASTOUNDED BY THE TOUR DE FORCE THAT LARBAUD BROUGHT OFF. ALL THE MORE SO BECAUSE HIS STUDY IS AND WILL NO DOUBT REMAIN THE MOST PERFECT, THE MOST UNDERSTANDING ANALYSIS THAT COULD BE MADE OF JOYCE'S WORK. HOW LARBAUD WAS ABLE TO EXTRACT FROM IT A SUBSTANCE SO CLEAR, SO COMPACT, SO PLEASING, IN SO LITTLE TIME AND WITHOUT THE HELP OF AN EARLIER WORK - THIS IS WHAT WILL NEVER CEASE TO AMAZE US."

THE PERKS OF OWNING A FAMOUS BOOK SHOP IN PARIS

     ADRIENNE MONNIER, WRITES OF ANOTHER EXCITING MEETING, THAT WAS CONNECTED TO HER PARIS BOOKSHOP.

     The bookstore proprietor records that, "Upon our arrival in London, Sylvia (Beach, owner of the bookshop, Shakespeare and Co., also in Paris) had telephone T.S. Eliot to ask if it would be possible to pay him a visit. He at once proposed that we come dine with him, which charmed and flattered us very much. In english letters, Eliot enjoys an almost royal prestige - not without giving rise to a certain amount of grumbling. Here, in spite of his Nobel Prize, he is only a poor, translated poet. I do not say this to belittle him: Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton are also poor, translated poets. It is a terrible trial for a poet (spared the musician and the painter) that he must undergo translation if he wants to be read outside of this country. In no case can he emerge from this trial to his advantage; the fruit of his labor is spoiled, he is stripped of his most precious possessions, he becomes like an emigrant, who must start his life over again upon hostile soil, with means that are often uncertain. (Eliott has such a liking for penitence that it is possible that these hardships give him a kind of pleasure.) And that is so whatever talent of the translator may be. A Baudelaire, a Mallarme crown with a halo the foreign poet, whom they strive to transplant among us, but they do not communicate their genius to him - if they wish to remain translators. As Baudelaire says in the notice that precedes his translation of 'The Raven,': In the mold of prose when it is applied to poetry, there is necessarily a frightful imperfection; but the harm would be still greater in rhymed mimicry."

     She writes of the poet that, "On a visit to Paris in 1936, T.S. Eliott gave a poetry reading at Shakespeare and Company. On this occasion we had the pleasure of having him to dinner at our place in the company of (French authors) Gide, Jean Schlumberger, and Francois Valery. In the course of this dinner Gide tried to tear apart the spirit of the Orient completely, and in particular certain works that Eliott, Schlumberger, and I myself said that we liked. The 'Bhagavad-gita,' for example, or Milarepa (I have a very amusing letter from him on the subject of Milarepa). Schlumberger let him speak, then he said to him gently, 'All the same there is one Orient work that you have loved very much,' - and as Gide looked at him with a questioning air, he added, "the Gospels.' Following that I tried rather wickedly to prove that Buddha had had a particular attachment to his disciple Ananda, and that it was after a disappointment in love caused by him, that he had decided to leave the earth."

     In 1928, the author of The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald met with Adrienne Monnier, and there is a picture of the bookshop owner and the writer, in the text of, "The Very Rich Hours of Adrienne Monnier," sitting on the doorstep of Sylvia Beach's "Shakespeare and Company." There are several photographs of T.S. Eliot, and James Joyce, with Adrienne's mother and father. There is a terrific image of Joyce sitting with Beach and Monnier inside Shakespeare and Company, and another wonderful streetscape, where Joyce and Monnier are walking down the Rue de L' Odeon, where the two famous book shops were situated.

     Richard McDougall, translator and author of the book's introduction, offers this insight at the end of Monnier's life. "In the final weeks of her life, Adrienne Monnier had secretly and with great difficulty arranged her personal papers. Her final note which she wrote in May, was found at the head of these after her death. In Monnier's words, "I am penning an end to my days, no longer able to support the noises that have been martyrizing me for eight months, with continuing fatigue and the suffering that I have endured these recent years. I am going to death without fear, knowing that I found a mother on being born here, and that I shall likewise find a mother in the other life."

     "The news of her passing, in France, and abroad, was greeted with reverence, sorrow and love," writes McDougall in his overview of her life. "Alone, Sylvia Beach in her own last years received the honors that go to survivors, the official consecrations that must always seem in spirit to be somewhat at odds with the spirit of obscure beginnings. From March 11 to April 25, 1959, the cultural section of the United States Embassy in Paris, sponsored an exhibition, 'Les Annees Vingt: Les Ecrivains Americains a Paris et leers amis,' (The Twenties; American Writers in Paris and Their Friends') at the headquarters of the American Cultural Center in the Rue du Dragon, near the Pace St. Germain-des-Pres. Because most of the items on display - some six hundred photographs, letters, page proofs, first editions, and the like, belonged to Sylvia Beach and collectively signified her central position in the life of the decade, the show was as much a tribute to her as it was a retrospective survey. In the same year, Harcourt, Brace published her memoirs, 'Shakespeare and Company,' and in June, during the course of a visit to the United States, she received an honorary doctorate of letters from the University of Buffalo, to which she donated material from her Joyce Collection. On June 16, 1962, Bloomsday, the anniversary of the day of which the action of Ulysses takes place, she was in Dublin to participate in the dedication of the Martello Tower, at Sandycove, the setting for the opening of the novel, as a memorial to James Joyce.

     He notes that, "In Paris, Sylvia Beach continued to live in her apartment at 12 Rue de L'Odeon above the premises that Shakespeare and Company had once occupied. Here, On October 6, 1962, she was found dead, apparently of a heart attack, 'kneeling but not brought down,' as the friend who found her said; she had died a day or two before. Her body was cremated at Pere Lachaise cemetery and her ashes were sent to Princeton, where they now rest. Her funeral service, which took place in the chapel of the Columbarium in the cemetery, was attended by crowds of mourners, many of them neighbors in her quarter who knew her not as a literary personality but simply as a friend whose kindness was unfailing. And of Adrienne Monnier herself, what more is there that need or can be said here. Her own life, simple and profound, simple in its purpose, profound in its motives - has the configuration of a heroic legend and even a legend of saintliness. Her simplicity was that of an undivided mind and a whole heart that followed from girlhood on, in the direction of a calling that she seems never to have doubted. We can trace this direction but the act, simple in itself, of describing the outward achievements of her vocation. As for the motives of her 'whose life was so mysteriously moving,' as Katherine Anne Porter has said, those motives that came 'from such depths of feeling and intelligence they were hardly fathomable…..but always to be believed in and loved,' to these her work alone will bear witness. For the rest, all one has attempted has been to give back to Adrienne Monnier, in the words of another language the gift that she gave so fully in the words of her own."

THE FASCINATING FOLKS WE MEET IN RETAIL EVERY DAY

     Ever since I began writing professionally, and retailing antiques and old books, at virtually the same time in my life, (late 1970's), I have needed my sources of inspiration. I have found both occupations profoundly difficult at times, demanding a vigor I sometimes can't muster. I have called upon books, like I have just reviewed, so many times, that my fingerprints and folded-over page tops, indicated all the best locations for seeking out inspirational passages, and chapters, that will help me on either a difficult writing project (that I may not be looking forward to); or having to spend a month or so manning the retail component of our antique business, which for me, is hugely limiting, seeing as I'm usually the official "on the road everyday picker," where I am the happiest to roam freely. I look up at my shelf of poor condition reference books, and other texts I keep for special occasions, of low ambition, and thank all the authors, including Richard McDougall, for his fine work on Adrienne Monnier, which has been my source of joy for many years…….as well as all the other researchers and writers, who without knowing it, have kicked me into place, with a few well chosen words, and insightful revelations, about the milestone achievements of others.

     There is a lot of interesting stuff that happens in an antique shop (that also sells old books), and while I will never have the rich stories, as told by Ms. Monnier, from her Paris bookshop, there are some tidbits of information, and actuality I've experienced, that seem entirely worthy of a little exploration. Connections that I've made with historians, writers, and oh so many fascinating collectors, just because they happened to wander in, to a little shop known as Birch Hollow Antiques. This was my own beginning, and it was fabulous.

     As far as literature goes, and for those reading this blog, who don't know our area of Ontario, Canada very well,……. our Town of Gravenhurst, where we are situated as a main street business, was named in the year 1862, by a Canadian Postal Authority, who moonlighted as a literary critic for publications throughout North America. To name our new post office, he borrowed a name from a book written by British poet / philosopher, William Henry Smith, entitled "Gravenhurst; or Thoughts on Good and Evil." You can archive this, if interested, back to the first of August 2012, where I have written five special feature blogs on our literary provenance, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of its naming. Our previous antique shop, was located in Bracebridge, ten miles north of Gravenhurst, and that town was named, in 1864, by the same Postal Authority, William Dawson LeSueur, after a book written by American author, Washington Irving, entitled "Bracebridge Hall." Irving was of course famous for his stories, 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," and "Rip Van Winkle." So, while we can't say we entertained James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald or Ezra Pound, we were named after two very astute authors from abroad. Thanks so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule, to sit down with me, for this visit to old Paris, and the shops made famous by Adrienne Monnier and Sylvia Beach. Please visit again soon, as we continue our antique and collecting series of stories to educate, titillate, and always….to entertain.