Foer illuminates Paris’ legendary Shakespeare & Co. with live reading
By Lily Hodges on July 10, 2009
PARIS (Herald de Paris) - Jonathan Safran Foer gave a reading in front of the legendary Shakespeare & Co. bookstore in Paris Monday, a reading that filled the streets with a crowd of students, ex-pats, professors, and one-man fan clubs.
Foer,famed for his first novel Everything is Illuminated, was adapted to the screen in 2005, and starred Elijah Wood. Foer’s highly successful second novel is, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. A captivating writer, The New York Times said that after his work, “… things will never be the same again.”
Foer delivered two new pieces to a mesmerized Paris audience. He started with a description of a city run by a ministry that faithfully requires every moment of every person’s life be taped, and the ensuing difficulties that occur in recreating time lost during blackouts or unrecorded suicides.
He then read segments from his upcoming book, Eating Animals, in which he investigates both the meat packing industry and the regulations we set for ourselves, whether through culture, religion, or morality, that allow us to say no to eating one thing and yes to eating another.
The readings offered great insight into Foer’s fertile imagination, and his ability to weave humor and humanity into grave subjects – skills that are also apparent in his two novels, which concern the Holocaust and 9/11 respectively.
And perhaps there was no better place to receive an author with such hype and prospects than the famed Shakespeare and Company, which is steeped in literary history, itself. Originally opened in 1919 by Sylvia Beach, in a storefront only a few blocks away from the current one, Shakespeare and Co. became a haven for the American ex-pat writers of that time.
The store rose from its underground fame when Beach decided, after many arguments with publishing houses, to publish James Joyce’s Ulysses herself, under her bookstores name.
Beach’s original store eventually closed in the ‘40s, but was reincarnated in 1951 by George Whitman. Whitman wanted to continue the concept of a bookstore that doubled as a watering hole for traveling artists and local writers. He respectfully re-named his store to Shakespeare and Company upon Beach’s death.
Whitman’s Shakespeare and Co. has served as an important and safe environment for writers since, and he developed close relationships with many greats along the way. Allen Ginsberg presented Howl in front of Shakespeare and Co. to a crowd that similarly poured into the streets. Whitman’s daughter, Sylvia, who currently runs the store, noted that the size of that crowd barely rivaled the one atttracted by Foer on Monday.
Shakespeare & Co. still houses wandering writers, poets, and readers, each day. Deemed “tumbleweeds” by those on the inside, these passerby’s from around the world come to Shakespeare and Co. for one of the six “beds” carved into the bookshelves upstairs. In return a tumbleweed, who usually stays a minimum of seven nights, is asked by George to shelve books for several hours each day, and leave a one-page autobiography upon departure.
A story to tell the grand-kids for sure.
Yet the stacks of archives of autobiographies from those who have passed in and out illustrate that although it is a unique experience, many have been able to take part in this intricate facet of the English literary community in Paris, thus preserving the inimitable spirit of the literary fertile 1920s-era Paris.
That is Shakespeare and Co’s mission after all, painstakingly keeping this old tradition alive in face of giants such as Amazon and Borders. A bookstore that graciously takes from those minds willing to give and graciously gives to those willing to take.
I am currently writing a biography of Sylvia Beach. If anyone feels they could help, either with memories, original pictures or research I would very much like to hear from them.
Visited Shakespeare and Cos last week when we were in Paris – found Clifford Simak paperback SF books that I read back in the mid-50’s – wonder of wonders!