Shakespeare and Co

We went to the English bookshop, Shakespeare and Co in Rue du Boucherie.  This was started by an American, Sylvia Beach, in the 1920s and attracted writers such as Hemingway, Becket,  Anais Nin, Scott Fitzgerald and James Joyce.  Beach was the first publisher of Joyce’s Ulysses.   

Another American, George Whitman, started a bookshop named The Mistral in 1951 and renamed it Shakespeare and Co in the 1960s after Sylvia Beach died.  Whitman died two years ago, after spending over half a century offering hospitality to poets, writers, vagabonds and wanderers.   Many of the beat poets such as Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti came visiting and gave readings and Gregory Corso was banned. There are thirteen rooms above the shop and Whitman was generous with them.  A pictured quote said something like “Be hospitable to strangers as they may be angels in disguise”.   

 I know all this because we were both so taken by the shop and its beautiful book crammed walls that Mike bought a book giving its history and read it back at the hotel and kept reading bits out to me.   Whitman’s daughter, Sylvia Beach Whitman, is now in charge.  I bought a copy of Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London, satisfyingly stamped with the Shakespeare and Co logo.  Whitman’s daughter is continuing his traditions - in a recent television programme, Jeannette Winterson told of the sanctuary she had received there at a bad time in her life. 

 

After Shakespeare and Co we had the misguided idea of buying tickets for the hop on, hop off tourist buses.   We thought we could travel round Paris all afternoon being taken to different places and be sure of getting back to the hotel when we felt like it.   The first reason this didn’t work was that there was no printed plan of where we were going and the very irritating English commentary was constantly running behind where we actually were.   The commentary wasn’t even straight narrative but a story about a young woman named Adele who appeared to be travelling Paris looking for a painter who had a name something like Chagall but not quite.  The commentator had a plummy excitable voice, like an early Listen With Mother presenter.  

The other reason the bus didn’t work was that it was very cold.  We tried sitting on the open topped upper deck but went downstairs after a while, shivering.  This was after Mike had a weird wardrobe malfunction involving the zip on his jacket somehow bursting open everywhere except in the middle and both of us trying to fix it on the top of the swaying bus whilst he stood and clung onto a seat back and I worried that he might fall backwards down the abyss of the stairwell .  When we had fixed his coat and gone downstairs we found the lower deck was not a lot warmer.  After a while I said, “I’m sorry about this, but I don’t think I can bear to do this all afternoon” and found that Mike couldn’t bear it either and we realised we'd wasted a great deal of money but said we'd put it down to experience.     

We thought we’d cheer ourselves up with lunch. We were looking for somewhere warm and nurturing and found Le Navigator in Rue Garlande.   The outside looked like old Parisian and the daily specials board looked good with lots of choices.  When we got inside we could see that it was filled with elderly respectable Parisians slowly eating their lunches at small tables with clean white cloths. There were middle aged waitresses wearing neat skirts that just brushed their knees.   There was also a very large dog who appeared to be a resident.   The fact that we didn’t get there till half past one was probably the only reason we got a table without booking.

The food was actually sublime.  I took chunks of bread and chased round my plate every scrap of the light green oil dressing that came with my tuna starter.  For main course were lean and perfectly cooked little lamb steaks in a dark red fruity sauce with a plateful of thin golden chips.  There was a chocolate mousse to finish. It was bliss. 

We spent our last night in Paris lazing in our hotel room.  Our lunch was so good that we didn’t want or need any dinner and we read and lounged and drank a little wine in warmth and comfort. 

And today we’re going home.