BOOKS BY SENSIBLE PROPORTION - NO LONGER BY THE TRUCK FULL
IT'S MUCH MORE ENJOYABLE HUNTING BOOKS ONE AT A TIME
To start today's editorial offering, I just wanted to attach one deeply etched explanation (to this blog); the text which is actually the rough draft biography of a regional "antique-head," which could well make it to print, in book form, sometime down the old road. That would be me. The antique-head part, like when I travelled with the "Grateful Dead," and hunted antiques between gigs. Only kidding.
I began in this time honored, tradition-laden profession, just about as old as time itself, as a general antiques dealer; way, way back in the late 1970's, and I will leave this mortal coil exactly the same as I began. A million bucks shy of being a millionaire. But I've had a million bucks worth of fun hunting and gathering these treasures of the past. I am a purist in the antique and collectable profession, which means I don't re-purpose stuff. Antiques and collectables, that still have their original integrity, can often, with a little care and patience, be brought back to use as was intended by its maker or craftsman. I have seen lamps made from things that upset me, as a very conservative, uptight, general antique dealer. We don't generally ask our customers intrusive questions, about what they intend to do with the items they purchase from us, which could well include making them into lamps; from old typewriters I sell, or outboard engines we keep in reserve, in the hopes someone will wish to restore them back to operation once again. In other words, we don't bring them out in he shop, until we have someone pop up at the counter, or come to us on referral, who specializes in refurbishing these marine treasures. We have been known to pull items out of the shop, when a customer ruminates about how nice an historic church pew, for example, would look like, cut up, and refashioned instead into a freaking, stupid looking table. We can't do much about what happens once someone leaves the shop with an antique piece, but it would break our hearts, to know that a beautiful harvest table, or victorian flat-to-the-wall cupboard, with antique value, was destroyed to make a fashion statement.
I grew up in the antique and collectable business with purist mentors, who felt the same. I'm not going to tell you I never met an antique dealer, from my early years, who didn't distress pine, to make replacement pine, look like an old table-top, to substitute one that had been rotted away. I insist when this happens, that the repair is duly noted on the piece's written provenance. We sell original pieces without serious alterations, and honestly, I would quit the business, if re-purposing was the only way to make a buck. I don't want to know that the old hockey sticks someone purchased from us, were drilled onto a wall, as bracing for shelves, even if it was the Hockey Hall of Fame that did it. My passion is to preserve antique and collectable pieces as far as possible, including books; when the very last detail, of a failing text, is to finally harvest the graphics, because nothing can be done to save the book itself. I've had this happen, and it sickens me every time. That's the bibliophile part of my profession.
I was at a country auction one afternoon, when a couple of bound "Picturesque Canada" volumes came up for sale. I didn't have a lot of money on that occasion, but I really wanted those books. For books' sake, not to yank out the graphics to frame them separately. This was my introduction to re-purposing, and it sucked. The guy, an antique dealer from the northern part of the region, won the bid for both books, and when he got them, while I was looking over his shoulder, the arsehole began tearing "Muskoka" graphics out of one book, indicating to a friend, how he would make far more money selling off the prints, than if he was to put prices on the two texts, as is, which were in pretty fair condition. I wanted to punch the guy. Honestly, I wanted to put him in a Bulgarian headlock, and take the books away from him. This of course, works on a hockey rink, but not at an auction sale. I will never compromise the integrity of a book, that can be saved, and conserved, just to yank out some graphics that can be framed and sold separately. A book has to be in pretty bad shape for me to attack it, in this brutal fashion. I have sold hundreds of books in damaged condition, with an appropriate notice attached to each, about the "as is" condition. If the new owners decide to rip out the graphics, I just don't want them to tell me about it; unless that is, they wish to have a quickie tutorial about historical preservation. I've had my hand in three regional museum collections, in the past, and I won't offer any apology for my adherence to the "save it at all cost" point of view.
Once a lady purchased a beautiful little Victorian era zither from our Bracebridge antique shop, and after she had paid me, and the instrument was wrapped up, and bagged, she informed me that it would soon be painted purple, and be hung above a purple mini grand piano in a Toronto condominium. I felt sick to my stomach. Andrew in his vintage music enterprise, would do cartwheels up the wall, and across the ceiling, if a customer purchased an upright bass, for example, to make it into a floor lamp. If that's what the purchaser wants to do, and they don't indicate this in advance, the only thing they have to do is pay our price. If they give us any warning, that this is the intention, before they've paid, none of us will offer any apology, for putting a "sold" sign on the subject piece, and refusing outright, to have it leave the shop in their company. We will explain our purist perspective if you wish to listen to counterpoint. Our vintage instruments, you see, are for playing, not for nailing to a wall, as an art piece, or as a mood enhancer shelf-unit. Find it somewhere else. We want business, but we wouldn't be able to look at ourselves in the mirror, let alone open the shop door every morning, if we betrayed our own mission statement. We actually rescue antiques and collectables, that have been re-purposed, and try whenever possible to bring them back to near original condition. I can't calculate how many "hanger" guitars, Andrew and Robert have rescued from wall displays, to be restored back to playing condition. If the instrument can't be saved, then the parts (like human organs) can be harvested, to do service on other guitars in better condition, serving a vital purpose in continuing music.
Before we go too far, in this new collection of blogs, I wanted to make this declaration up front, so I'm never mistaken as one who would sacrifice antique value, to only please a home or cottage decorator. Call me old fashioned, please! Suzanne is the same, and would never, ever destroy a vintage wool blanket, to make a pillow cover, unless it was so badly stained, that it couldn't be saved any other way. Same goes with table clothes and even vintage clothing. It just isn't in our nature, to sacrifice what has provenance and investment value as an antique, to make a frivolous decorator piece. I wish I could stop the practice entirely, but apparently some folks like outboard engine lamps. I like outboard engines on the back of old boats, and to hear them churn up the water, which, by golly, is a much more nostalgic experience.
THE NIGHT BEFORE. I've just come in from more than two hours shoveling snow, here at Birch Hollow. It was not the Saturday night I was hoping for, when we arrived home after work at the shop, but it was a beautiful night despite the blowing snow. I'd get the entire length of driveway and sidewalk clean, and then have to do it a second time when I retreated back where I had started. I actually shoveled the whole works three times, but I'm the only one counting. Suzanne was working inside, getting the house ready for our soon-to-be-adopted pet dog, through the Ontario Humane Society's, Muskoka Animal Shelter, in Bracebridge. There is still some processing to do in the coming week, but we have to be ready just in case she comes here, a little earlier than later. I hate the sound of the vacuum, especially during the NFL playoffs. I chose shoveling snow over both. I caught the last five minutes of the game and the vacuuming, so it wasn't a total loss of recreational viewing. I looked out the window a few minutes ago, and gosh, I think we'll have to shovel a half foot of snow again by morning. And then there are the portable sheds we have on the side yard, that have to be cleaned after every snow, to avoid collapse. Last year, with the heavy snow almost daily, we had one collapse under the weight of both snow and water. It took us two hours, with three people, to free the canopy of an ice block the size of a small car. This year, snow removal has been much easier, with smaller amounts even during the several storms, as compared to last year's dumping on Muskoka, from about a dozen major events. Also, our neighbor's snow removal crew is no longer blowing his snow onto the shed roofs, as happened last season. I hate complaining but I hate collapsed sheds even more. I could hear kids laughing while sledding down the neighborhood slopes, and a number of families were out for winter walks, with kids and pets in tow, and it all seemed very pleasant, despite the fact I was covered in snow and pretty tired. If Suzanne was to read this, she'd start laughing, because she thinks I'm more of a Pa Kettle, shirking work whenever possible. I would accuse her of the same, but she does, and I've watched her, the work of three people; and only admits to be tired, a few minutes before bed each night.
I was thinking about the way I used to buy books, the Dave Brown way; or better stated, the antique dealer way. Dave Brown was my bibliophile mentor, (see yesterday's blog), outdoor education instructor, who used to buy old books by the box load, and sometimes that could represent twenty or thirty loaded bins from auction sales, where they were sold as a large lot. While Dave would have studied the boxes of books early in the sale, he knew that sale-goers interested in old texts, would create "super boxes" of the books they gathered from the lot, jamming them into one that they would bid on most vigorously. It's done all the time, and you have to keep watch, which box is being manipulated most, and what has been placed within, that someone wants very badly. Dave Brown knew most of the auctioneers in the Hamilton area of Southern Ontario, and they would often comply to his requests, to sell by the lot instead of by individual boxes. This used to drive his competitors nuts, and it may have seemed smart on his part, to buy a thousand books at a time; his mistake was to make bidding, and winning, a grudge match at almost every auction he attended. Thus he would fill the back of his pick-up truck with books and assorted auction purchases, and then haul them back to his already jammed Hamilton bungalow, and be faced with the dilemma of where to put them out of the weather. He would only want about one box of books out of twenty or so, and they were usually in less than good condition. The other books he would run past me, or offer them as trade bait, to a variety of book sellers he knew in the area. Point is, studying under Dave Brown, and thinking his way was savvy, and profitable, I began doing the same thing at auctions and estate sales. I acquired thousands upon thousands of books, that I didn't want, in order to get the few that I did. A folly of epic proportion. I followed this protocol for years, and it almost swallowed us here at Birch Hollow. Books I didn't want, that didn't have any investment value to speak of (we didn't have a shop at this point, but sold through online auctions), but I couldn't see my way to recycle them. I had subtly become Dave Brown. Suzanne reminded me that the biographer had become part of the biography. What I had written about Dave Brown's excesses, and a ruined marriage the result of too many books in the house, had become my burden in the contemporary sense. Suzanne demanded to have her house back or else. Apparently there were about thirty thousand books in the way. As he couldn't throw books out, neither could I, and upon realization of my dilemma, it took a total of four years to backtrack, and pare down my collection, to books I actually wanted, and could sell in a shop setting. I had a lot of regrets about having purchased old books in bulk for so many years. This was the biggest change I had to employ to regain my sense of proportion, in a field I was particularly well suited. I loved books, just a little too much for my own good, and everyone else who had to live amongst the clutter at Birch Hollow. When a book pile collapsed it would take three other stacks, and it could represent a heap of about two hundred texts piled in a pyramid shaped sculpture on the floor.
I have reformed myself, these days, to hunt one book at a time. Not that I head out on the road, with a list of books I want from this mission, but rather, I take my time, at old book haunts, to carefully examine the quality and subject matter of those texts I do come across, that I believe would appeal to our customers. We do sell a lot of used and old books each year. I don't have the same zeal for antiquarian books, as I once did, and I have adjusted to purchase books that appeal to the wider audience, than just to a few bibliophiles and collectors, who may or may not ever visit our store. I actually feel pretty good these days, and my averages are pretty good, according to the shop accountant, who doubles as my significant other. I am selling far more books, because I have finally learned that there's something more important than just pleasing my own book interests. Being specific is what book collectors and bibliophiles do; dealers have to be aware that in order to stay in business, they have to know what is in demand and what isn't. I will never forget the time, a shopper came into our Bracebridge shop, and purchased fifty books in one shot. They weren't hugely valuable books, but they were vintage, and nicely bound copies. I made a lot of money that day, but with what I have already declared in this blog, imagine my chagrin when my book buddy, Dave Brown, came in the next day, on a trip north from Hamilton, to enquire whether or not his friend had been in to buy some books for his new condominium. I told him about a nice chap who had purchased fifty books the day before, and Dave said, well, that was John, and I sent him up to see you. (The fellow lived in Orillia, I believe. He told me, the man had recently been divorced, and his wife got ninety percent of the contents of their house, and that included all the books. He wanted enough books to fill one vintage book case, that had belonged to his family, and his wife had begrudgingly surrendered. I just stood there with my mouth open, knowing that I had just sold the biggest single book purchased in my shop history, to a guy who had no intention of reading a single one, but felt that books made his new digs look dignified and lived-in. Gads, the horror of re-purposed collectables. At that time, which I think was the late spring, I was broke and the sale looked good on the books. I don't think, as a matter of some personal hypocrisy, that I would have declined to sell the man the books, just because they were to be used as ornaments; afterall, it's not like he was going to craft them into lamp bases, which reminds me of something else I hate to see.
Thanks for joining me today. I have included some archives material, that has been previously published at times over the past four years, regarding the many adventures our family has enjoyed, hunting and gathering antiques in this beautiful, alluring region of Ontario.
THE OLD BOOKSHOP AS A MEETING PLACE OF AUTHORS, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIANS, POETS AND PHILOSOPHERS
THE REAL HAUNTED BOOK SHOP, AND PLEASANTLY SO……
AS A MATTER OF CURIOSITY, AS IT DOES RELATE SOMEWHAT TO THIS BLOG, AN ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN THE TORONTO STAR TODAY, JANUARY 31ST, ENTITLED "FINNEGANS WAKE SELLS OUT IN CHINA," SEEMED WORTH INCLUDING, IF JUST A MENTION. IT SEEMS IRISH WRITER JAMES JOYCE, IS STILL POPULAR AFTER ALL THESE YEARS, ESPECIALLY SO IN CHINA. IT WAS THE FIRST CHINESE TRANSLATION, AND 8,000 COPIES WERE SOLD. ISN'T IT GREAT TO KNOW THAT WE STILL HAVE RESPECT FOR BOOKS AND GREAT AUTHORS…..DESPITE THE FACT, A STORY IN THE STAR EARLIER IN THE WEEK, WAS DEALING WITH BOOKS AS "DECORATOR ITEMS," IN THIS MODERN ERA OF ELECTRONIC READERS…..BUT BIG INTEREST IN MAKING THE DIGS LOOK GREAT. SO READING THIS STORY ABOUT JOYCE TODAY, WARMS A BIBLIOPHILE'S HEART. EVEN THOUGH I'M NOT MUCH FOR FICTION, I STILL HAVE A SOFT SPOT FOR THE CLASSICS, AND THE MOST REVERED AUTHORS IN HISTORY, OF WHICH JOYCE IS WELL UP THERE. THE BLOG TODAY WILL PUT JAMES JOYCE, BACK QUITE A FEW DECADES, AT TWO VERY IMPORTANT BOOKSHOPS IN PARIS, FRANCE……ONE OF THE TWO SHOPS, WHICH ACTUALLY FINANCED PRINTING COSTS OF "ULLYSES," ANOTHER OF JOYCE'S WORKS
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.
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