Left Bank Books, that Elysian pasture of literary tenderness containing the best book -for -book used and antiquarian collection of literature in the City, is moving down the block from 303 West 4th St(near Bleeker and 8th Ave.)at the end of the month- well maybe the second week of February.The new location is at No.17 8th ave near 12th St.,where in expanded space it will take over premises previously occupied by Cheri, a vintage clothes store.
Left Bank Books was a quiet used bookstore run by the redoubtable Arthur Farrier, long-time Village resident with beret and playful sense of humor, when Kim Herzinger, who had previously taught English literature at the University of Southern Mississippi, and is a leading authority and author of several tomes on Donald Barthelme, bought and rechristened the store Left Bank in Jan 2005.This followed a move to New York City and his needc for a place for his humongous collection of first editions.
I have spent many evenings hanging out at Left Bank and mixing with a collection of offbeat Village visitors, displaced mystics and body therapists from all over the US,ratty book scouts digging through trash for buried treasure , European intellectuals passing through the City, and occasional nouveau riche blondes of the West Village needing a quick $900 fix for their more literary boyfriends, all congregrating there. What a proudly diverse collection of humanity in one of the most wonderful crowded browsing spaces and where literally every volume, from the four figure gems to the Twenty-five to Thirty five dollar items,is worth savoring.
Kim has accepted a professorial position in Austin Texas at the University of Houston-Victoria, but the store will carry on - run by the swift-thinking person who has often surprised me by turning up at the most unusual book fairs in the City-with a tart comment in tow.
This area by the way is close to the former home-many years ago occupied by the late Eric Schwartz, sole proprietor of Fantasy Archives, specializing in science fiction and fantasy. Eric sold to the public by appointment and in printed catalogues and lived upstairs in a walk up on 8th and 13th in a large room packed with bookcases, where the bathtub was filled with neatly stacked volumes that reached to the ceiling.When I once dared to ask Eric whether and where he slept, he pointed to a stack of three hundred books on the center of the floor and ,upon closer inspection, I saw that a small cot lay quietly buried underneath these sovereign science fiction volumes.
It's an area steeped in book history, even aside from the characters described in Ron Sukenick's legendary Down and In,a literary history of Downtown NY to be reviewed in these pages.
May Left Bank carry on its glorious traditions forever!
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Sarah Palin, Patti Smith,Harry Smith, Ahmadou Kourouma,
She Who Shall Go Nameless apparently had the Number 1 Best Selling Book in Hardcover in 2009, according to a recently published PW report.A close friend of mine,knowing of my predilection for consuming vast quantities of literature, told me in no uncertain tone that she hoped that I hadn't purchased a copy of "Going Rogue". I hadn't and still haven't, although I don't generally make it a practice to read this sort of material. But it says something about the never ending detritus read by the American public that this book and Glenn Beck's right-wing pale imitation of Colbert are at the top of the best seller list, as is again Ayn Rand , whose ghoulish self-centered individualism (Atlas Shrugged, the Fountainhead) has been revived after Milton Friedman, Alan Greenspan and the whole sick crew of the Chicago School of Economics used its ill advised precepts to help dig the biggest hole in the American economy in almost a hundred years.
I must confess however that I did read "Mein Kampf" for the first time 20 years ago- sometimes it's good to read rants before they're adopted as the marching song in the streets. In the nameless one's case, however, it's just another trashy celeb bio more than anything,or is it more infectious than that?
Highly recommended are two books by reccently deceased author Ahmadou Kourouma from Cote d'Ivoire---Waiting for the Beasts to Vote and Allah is Not Obliged- the latter just out from Anchor Boooks in the USA- The first is a great piece of storytelling by Bingo, a West African storyteller(sora) and king's fool, recounting the adventures of Koyaga , dictator of the mythical Gulf Coast- a magico- satirical history of African dictatorship ; the second, written shortly before Kourouma's death,is the story of the last few horrifying years told through the eyes and pen of a child soldier. Both are worth pursuing here or in the UK.
Patti Smith has a new memoir out- Just Kids- which tells of her early life living on the cheap in New York with Robert Mapplethorpe before they became,separately, icons of our world. It's a sweet piece of writing from a fiercely intelligent and truthful writer-I remember her when she was selling books in Scribners-the once two level magisterial bookshop on 5th and 48th St She was as delightful a spirit then as she is now- Go Rimbaud, Go Johnny Go!
For a time Smith lived in the Chelsea Hotel and made the acquaintance of, among others Harry Smith.-Harry passed from our world in 1991- litle known beyond his fame in the music world but an enormous influence on the counterculture- He was a collector, an amateur anthropologist, painter ,and maker of experimental films -
His collection of folk, fiddle, gospel, hillbilly, blues ,cajun, murder ballads,religious ecstasy and various off- beat pieces from the 20's and 30's became the basis of Folkways Famous six LP Anthology of American Folk Music- which was probably the single most important collection -maybe the UR music piece used by Dylan , Van Ronk ,Baez and the entire folk+ movement- It introduced America to the Carter family, Mississippi John Hurt, Blind Lemon Jefferson and many others. But Smith , who made experimental films (like the kabbalistic stick figured Heaven and Earth) as early as the late 40's and 50's and was a talented painter, has been forgotten in the dusty gloom of a life lived in the company of people like Alan Ginsberg but always somwewhat in the shadows. He was neither a member of the avant garde who would commercialize his work nor a bohemian associating with others in rebellion, so much as a transgressive toothless wonder-yes a bum in the old sense of the word-- who lived from flophouse to flophouse and hotel to hotel ,and had his art thrown out for failure to pay rent and chucked into Staten Island's landfills in the 60's. At last, after years of living in Boulder and being involved with the Naropa Institute , he returned to NY to accept a lifetime music award and died paranoid and convinced that he was being poisoned at the Chelsea hotel in Nov 1991.
The Getty Museum ,some years after devoting exhibitions to Smith's work, has issued a brilliant volume of essays dedicated to him, edited by Rani Singh and Andrew Perchuk.It is entitled Harry Smith-The Avant garde in the American Vernacular This tome helps restores Smith, personal warts and all, to the important position he held in American arts in the 20th Century.
As Keats said-on the act and art of listening and seeing---
Away Away for I will fly to thee
not charioted by bacchus and his pards
but on the viewless wings of poesy
........
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet
nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs
but in embalmed darkness guess each sweet
wherewith the seasonable month endows
the grass the thicket and the fruit tree wild
white hawthorn and pastoral eglantine
fast fading violets covered up in leaves
and mid-May's eldest child
the coming musk rose full of dewy wine
the murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves
and for this unexpected treasure, in decay and ecstasy- away away I will fly to thee
I must confess however that I did read "Mein Kampf" for the first time 20 years ago- sometimes it's good to read rants before they're adopted as the marching song in the streets. In the nameless one's case, however, it's just another trashy celeb bio more than anything,or is it more infectious than that?
Highly recommended are two books by reccently deceased author Ahmadou Kourouma from Cote d'Ivoire---Waiting for the Beasts to Vote and Allah is Not Obliged- the latter just out from Anchor Boooks in the USA- The first is a great piece of storytelling by Bingo, a West African storyteller(sora) and king's fool, recounting the adventures of Koyaga , dictator of the mythical Gulf Coast- a magico- satirical history of African dictatorship ; the second, written shortly before Kourouma's death,is the story of the last few horrifying years told through the eyes and pen of a child soldier. Both are worth pursuing here or in the UK.
Patti Smith has a new memoir out- Just Kids- which tells of her early life living on the cheap in New York with Robert Mapplethorpe before they became,separately, icons of our world. It's a sweet piece of writing from a fiercely intelligent and truthful writer-I remember her when she was selling books in Scribners-the once two level magisterial bookshop on 5th and 48th St She was as delightful a spirit then as she is now- Go Rimbaud, Go Johnny Go!
For a time Smith lived in the Chelsea Hotel and made the acquaintance of, among others Harry Smith.-Harry passed from our world in 1991- litle known beyond his fame in the music world but an enormous influence on the counterculture- He was a collector, an amateur anthropologist, painter ,and maker of experimental films -
His collection of folk, fiddle, gospel, hillbilly, blues ,cajun, murder ballads,religious ecstasy and various off- beat pieces from the 20's and 30's became the basis of Folkways Famous six LP Anthology of American Folk Music- which was probably the single most important collection -maybe the UR music piece used by Dylan , Van Ronk ,Baez and the entire folk+ movement- It introduced America to the Carter family, Mississippi John Hurt, Blind Lemon Jefferson and many others. But Smith , who made experimental films (like the kabbalistic stick figured Heaven and Earth) as early as the late 40's and 50's and was a talented painter, has been forgotten in the dusty gloom of a life lived in the company of people like Alan Ginsberg but always somwewhat in the shadows. He was neither a member of the avant garde who would commercialize his work nor a bohemian associating with others in rebellion, so much as a transgressive toothless wonder-yes a bum in the old sense of the word-- who lived from flophouse to flophouse and hotel to hotel ,and had his art thrown out for failure to pay rent and chucked into Staten Island's landfills in the 60's. At last, after years of living in Boulder and being involved with the Naropa Institute , he returned to NY to accept a lifetime music award and died paranoid and convinced that he was being poisoned at the Chelsea hotel in Nov 1991.
The Getty Museum ,some years after devoting exhibitions to Smith's work, has issued a brilliant volume of essays dedicated to him, edited by Rani Singh and Andrew Perchuk.It is entitled Harry Smith-The Avant garde in the American Vernacular This tome helps restores Smith, personal warts and all, to the important position he held in American arts in the 20th Century.
As Keats said-on the act and art of listening and seeing---
Away Away for I will fly to thee
not charioted by bacchus and his pards
but on the viewless wings of poesy
........
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet
nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs
but in embalmed darkness guess each sweet
wherewith the seasonable month endows
the grass the thicket and the fruit tree wild
white hawthorn and pastoral eglantine
fast fading violets covered up in leaves
and mid-May's eldest child
the coming musk rose full of dewy wine
the murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves
and for this unexpected treasure, in decay and ecstasy- away away I will fly to thee
Friday, January 8, 2010
On reading in the NYT that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s name may have been spelled wrong and thus missed the no fly list
C 2010 Edgylit
Mr. Abdul\baluchi\shoebomb\in\gucci
You’re denied a visa
Ms. Fayez\bin\quetta\burqa\fatale\feta
You’ll have to go back to make pizza
If your last name’s six syllables or more than twelve letters
You’ll have to be go home or be shackled in fetters
Your name is too long for the no-fly list
And besides our experts cannot spell terra/wrist
They don’t know whether it’s Usama or Osama
The tea party birthers still spell it Obama
So let’s do away with this never-ending drama
If your name is too long, kitty litter
You’ll have to commit suicide on Twitter
Mr. Abdul\baluchi\shoebomb\in\gucci
You’re denied a visa
Ms. Fayez\bin\quetta\burqa\fatale\feta
You’ll have to go back to make pizza
If your last name’s six syllables or more than twelve letters
You’ll have to be go home or be shackled in fetters
Your name is too long for the no-fly list
And besides our experts cannot spell terra/wrist
They don’t know whether it’s Usama or Osama
The tea party birthers still spell it Obama
So let’s do away with this never-ending drama
If your name is too long, kitty litter
You’ll have to commit suicide on Twitter
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Mary Daly Dies- Pat Me Down Poem
Mary Daly, radical feminist author and teacher and inventor of a new language for women- see "Pure Lust" etal , pased away. She was a revered teacher at Boston College,writer and leader in the LGBT movement -as innovative in her way as G Stein. Read her works- they will only grow in importance.
A few words----on the new airline rules
Pat Me Down
C 2010 Edgy Lit
Pat me down pat me down
Search me and take what is found
I won’t have fits or starts
If you touch my private parts
We will do what’s required
All our nerve ends are inspired
I’m a true patriot
All this terror makes me hot
pat me down I won’t frown
I am shaking in my knees
I will gladly do striptease
So please do what you please
Pat me down pat me down
I’m not nervous I won’t sweat
But forever in your debt
‘cause these patdowns make me wet…
An exhibitionist- it’s de rigeur
Loves that TSA voyeur!
A few words----on the new airline rules
Pat Me Down
C 2010 Edgy Lit
Pat me down pat me down
Search me and take what is found
I won’t have fits or starts
If you touch my private parts
We will do what’s required
All our nerve ends are inspired
I’m a true patriot
All this terror makes me hot
pat me down I won’t frown
I am shaking in my knees
I will gladly do striptease
So please do what you please
Pat me down pat me down
I’m not nervous I won’t sweat
But forever in your debt
‘cause these patdowns make me wet…
An exhibitionist- it’s de rigeur
Loves that TSA voyeur!
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Trip to Europe PT 2
London was a whirlwind two day tour of bookshops (and a few restaurants) and the results were quite favorable. The London Review of Books has a wonderful shop in Bloomsbury, with a tea and snack room next door on Bury Place. Their stock is well-chosen,literary, and there is an excellent ctiticism/philosophy section,in addition to the extensive new titles and backlist general fiction and nonfiction.They are particularly strong in translated fiction. One of the titles that I could not put down is Dubravka Ugresic's fabulous Baba Yaga Laid an Egg, published by Canongate in its series of myths brought up to the current times.
Lest we not forget that LRB is also the publisher of their crazy collected personals "They Call Me Naughty Lola'- (also available in The US)
These are contained in a two page section of classifieds at the end of the paper and contain such gems as these:
“67-year-old disaffiliated flaneur picking my toothless way through the urban sprawl, self-destructive, sliding toward pathos, jacked up on Viagra and on the lookout for a contortionist who plays the trumpet.”
My finger on the pulse of culture, my ear to the ground of philosophy, my hip in the medical waste bin of Glasgow Royal Infirmary. 14% plastic and counting - geriatric brainiac and compulsive NHS malingering fool (M, 81), looking for richer, older sex-starved woman on the brink of death to exploit and ruin every replacement operation I've had since 1974. Box no. 7648 (quickly, the clock's ticking, and so is this pacemaker).
John Sandoe books ,off Fulham Road in Chelsea is another wondrous place where virtually all the sales help are published authors. They are involved in publishing a journal-Slightly Foxed, and quite knowledgeable about the entire literary scene. A priceless experience.
Then there are the politicals- Bookmarks in Bloomsbury, a socialist center and publisher , where people like Robert Fisk go to read, and Housman's,in the once cheeky but now comfortable area near St Pancras International railroad station at King's Cross. They have a diverse stock of anarchist and left-wing stuff, including some of the wilder books by Stewart Home;they also publish an annual peace diary with worldwide listings of concerned groups. There are also a host of small ,literary shops in the outer fringes,like Primrose Books.
One of the more unusual places in Bayswater, is Al- Saqi Books, a Lebanese publisher and bookseller; it was there I picked up a brilliant title- Honor Killings, By Turkish Journalist Ayse Onal- She interviewed several men in Turkish prisons for honour killings in an attempt to understand the social pressures that motivated them to commit these reprehensible crimes.This book and two others, by the way, are the subject of a brilliant review in the Nov edition of London review of Books by Jacqueline Rose,who teaches at the University of London and is , among other things, a Lacan expert.
Another highly recommended title is The Little Black Book of Griselidis Real- Memoirs of an Anarchist Whore. I picked it up in NY right before leaving for the trip and read it in three days. Ms Real,who passed away in 2005 was an educated Swisswoman who became a prostitute early in life, scribed several memoirs as well as wrote poetry and letters including those to her friend Jean- Luc Hennig which constitute the first part of the book. Her writings have been published in Europe , but before this US Semiotexte version, never released in the USA.
The letters are a revelation of what it is to be a whore, from the standpoint of an advanced mind. The black book of client's specialities and helpful hints is a staggering insight into the trade. In later life, Ms Real campaigned for civil rights for sex workers. She was reburied in 2009 in the cemetery in Geneva which also holds the remains of Jean Piaget, Jorge Borges, and John Calvin. Truly one of the elect!
Patrice Mugny, a local politician who championed the transfer, said the city was "in no case apologizing for prostitution, but honoring an individual who distinguished herself by battling for human dignity."
"This shows that human dignity is not a question of social status, that it is not limited by moral prescriptions," he said at the ceremony.
Ruth Morgan Thomas, a leading European campaigner for prostitutes, said the burial was an important recognition for sex workers "who demand simply to be treated without discrimination and valued as an integral part of society."
_____
But when I asked for her books(in French) at La Hune in Paris and a few other stores, they were out of stock....
Lest we not forget that LRB is also the publisher of their crazy collected personals "They Call Me Naughty Lola'- (also available in The US)
These are contained in a two page section of classifieds at the end of the paper and contain such gems as these:
“67-year-old disaffiliated flaneur picking my toothless way through the urban sprawl, self-destructive, sliding toward pathos, jacked up on Viagra and on the lookout for a contortionist who plays the trumpet.”
My finger on the pulse of culture, my ear to the ground of philosophy, my hip in the medical waste bin of Glasgow Royal Infirmary. 14% plastic and counting - geriatric brainiac and compulsive NHS malingering fool (M, 81), looking for richer, older sex-starved woman on the brink of death to exploit and ruin every replacement operation I've had since 1974. Box no. 7648 (quickly, the clock's ticking, and so is this pacemaker).
John Sandoe books ,off Fulham Road in Chelsea is another wondrous place where virtually all the sales help are published authors. They are involved in publishing a journal-Slightly Foxed, and quite knowledgeable about the entire literary scene. A priceless experience.
Then there are the politicals- Bookmarks in Bloomsbury, a socialist center and publisher , where people like Robert Fisk go to read, and Housman's,in the once cheeky but now comfortable area near St Pancras International railroad station at King's Cross. They have a diverse stock of anarchist and left-wing stuff, including some of the wilder books by Stewart Home;they also publish an annual peace diary with worldwide listings of concerned groups. There are also a host of small ,literary shops in the outer fringes,like Primrose Books.
One of the more unusual places in Bayswater, is Al- Saqi Books, a Lebanese publisher and bookseller; it was there I picked up a brilliant title- Honor Killings, By Turkish Journalist Ayse Onal- She interviewed several men in Turkish prisons for honour killings in an attempt to understand the social pressures that motivated them to commit these reprehensible crimes.This book and two others, by the way, are the subject of a brilliant review in the Nov edition of London review of Books by Jacqueline Rose,who teaches at the University of London and is , among other things, a Lacan expert.
Another highly recommended title is The Little Black Book of Griselidis Real- Memoirs of an Anarchist Whore. I picked it up in NY right before leaving for the trip and read it in three days. Ms Real,who passed away in 2005 was an educated Swisswoman who became a prostitute early in life, scribed several memoirs as well as wrote poetry and letters including those to her friend Jean- Luc Hennig which constitute the first part of the book. Her writings have been published in Europe , but before this US Semiotexte version, never released in the USA.
The letters are a revelation of what it is to be a whore, from the standpoint of an advanced mind. The black book of client's specialities and helpful hints is a staggering insight into the trade. In later life, Ms Real campaigned for civil rights for sex workers. She was reburied in 2009 in the cemetery in Geneva which also holds the remains of Jean Piaget, Jorge Borges, and John Calvin. Truly one of the elect!
Patrice Mugny, a local politician who championed the transfer, said the city was "in no case apologizing for prostitution, but honoring an individual who distinguished herself by battling for human dignity."
"This shows that human dignity is not a question of social status, that it is not limited by moral prescriptions," he said at the ceremony.
Ruth Morgan Thomas, a leading European campaigner for prostitutes, said the burial was an important recognition for sex workers "who demand simply to be treated without discrimination and valued as an integral part of society."
_____
But when I asked for her books(in French) at La Hune in Paris and a few other stores, they were out of stock....
Friday, December 11, 2009
A Tour of European Bookshops
We are back from a whirlwind and pocketbook denting two week sojourn to Paris, London, Venice and Rome.I am sad to report, though it should come as no surprise that there is a dearth of book stores in Italy selling English-language product. We were tickled though to run into Mark di Martino at the Anglo- American bookstore in the shadow of the Spanish steps in Roma;Mark recognized us as former patrons of the now defunct Gotham BookMart on 47th St, where he used to be employed before becoming an expat. And there is a charming bookshop in Venice on one of those impossible to immediately locate, but ultimately findable side streets called the Marco Polo Bookshop, specializing( much like Idlewild in NY and Daunt's in London)in fiction and travel organized by country.There you can browse some uniquely available Italian fiction not likely to have found its way across the Atlantic or if it did, to have remained in print here- such as Gadda's and Pavese's work, as well as that of Lalla Romano. The owner is terrifically helpful as well.
Paris is a somewhat different matter. Its version of Brentano's, which was a not particularly good bookshop in the vicinity of L'Opera, recently closed, but it was not much of a loss. Most Americanos are familiar with Shakespeare's bookshop, in the shadow of Notre Dame and the Seine, which trades off its in name only relationship to the original bookshop of the 1920's habituated by James Joyce and the American literary expat community.It's a grand place to pick up an ingenue for those willing to stoop to such nefarious actions.(speaking from observation only here)And it's open every might until midnight.
Then there's also a branch of the pedestrian W H Smith British chain, but the names don't get exciting until you reach Galignani and Village Voice. Galignani, the ultimate Paris upscale tradebook store and on the continent since 1808, as it brags in its video, sells both French and English language books - with the English language titles from the US and Uk- It's a carriage trade Scribner's store,if one remembers that grand outpost on 5th and 48th St in Manhatttan, where publishing heir Charlie Scribner himself could occasionally be seen pretending to work on the second floor and where Ms Patti Smith, I believe, sold me three copies of Gravity's Rainbow(the little known book club first) before she became famous. She was a lovely sales clerk by the way.And,in its strategic location on the Rue du Rivoli next to Angelina's , (originally Rumpelmeyer's) with its exquisite African hot chocolate sipped by 60 year old aristocratic French women and their 25 yr old boytoys.
Lots of good titles, an excellent world fiction department,good lit crit, art and photography and always something no one else has in stock.
The true gem of the area of course is Odile Hellier's wondrous Village Voice Bookstore on the Rue Princesse in the 6th arondissement.This classic two floor shop stocks a great selection of titles in all areas in English, and always has the latest serious fiction and nonfiction titles published in the US and UK. The staff is particularly helpful, and witty I might add, and you can meet some rather interesting expats if you hang around enough. They also have frequent readings- Michael Chabon, Gary Snyder , Mavis Gallant, et al. The problem is that the decline of the dollar has made it somewhat more difficult to be an expat living off a pension in France, but it looks like they will weather the storm with the help of the tourist trade as they are the best game in town.
There is one shop that draws me back to Paris every year-it does not specialize in English language titles, but instead in a small, cramped space on the Rue Git le Coeur-just off the St Andre des Artes-and opposite what used to be the flea-ridden Beat Hotel, where William Burroughs wrote and Ginsberg edited piles of manuscript pages of Naked Lunch strewn on the floor back in the 1950's--
There, at Un Regard Moderne, in an incredibly crowded store where books fall off piles and shelves every three minutes,the incredibly knowledgeable Msr Jacques Noel presides over a collection of graphic artist's books, erotica, art, photography, books on film, off beat volumes and limited edition silkscreens, and where aspiring graphic artists ,collectors and those touched by his and the store's eclectic brilliance ,come from around the world to shop.Jacques will have the newest Art Spiegelman and R Crumb books as fast as they arrive in the US,plus titles from Spain , Germany, Japan, and France and elsewhere-Only he can find them, but they're always there-An amazing experience- I have found the most unusual stuff there- and I always go back three or four times on any trip- My favorite bookstore in the world- and several hundred other mesmerized bookaholics can equally testify.
On this trip to Paris I picked up and read a stunning novel published by Harper Collins India- The Story of My Assassins, by Tarun J.Tejpal, the Indian journalist and author of one previous novel. Under the guise of a description of the protagonist investigative journalist's being protected by the authorities from assassination by some unknown force,the author tells the tale of various members of the underclass, who coalesce to form the arrested group here. His is a slightly overmuscular prose but the story-telling is bewitching and full of telling details which burn their way in to your brain and make you realize how hard the lives of millions on the planet are and how difficult it is to survive as a refugee in the ctiies of India.Very compelling even with the violence described as murderers make "brain curry" of their victims.
I also had the good fortune to acquire a lovely illustrated volume- based on a gallery exhibit- entitled Maisons Closes- a history of the elegant closed house bordellos in Paris,which functioned until made illegal by the authorities just after World War II. At that time, and perhaps unwisely, women were pushed back into the street and the Rue Sainte Denis ,Les Halles, and the notorious Pigalle to conduct their trade,often into the arms of and under the control of pimps. A stunning collection of photos, art, and drawings and the exhibit itself is on a block once known for such tempting establishments.
Then there was the major literary discovery of the trip, a piece of erotica written by one of our most famous popular authors scribed at the very outset of his career. More on that and London, as well as a review of the brilliant "Baba Yaga Laid an Egg" by acclaimed Croatian writer Dubravka Ugresic-This is a title in Canongate's myth and literature series, which has inspired modern retelling of myths and fairy tales.
Ugresic crafts her volume as a triptych of memoir, novella and detailed post modern scholarship on the myth of the famous witch figure of eastern Europe. Her 20 years of teaching the theory of literature make for an unusual resonance of scholarship and story telling beautifully woven together-Delicious indeed,and another feather in the cap of a writer who seems far more qualified for the Nobel than some of the most recent recipients.
Paris is a somewhat different matter. Its version of Brentano's, which was a not particularly good bookshop in the vicinity of L'Opera, recently closed, but it was not much of a loss. Most Americanos are familiar with Shakespeare's bookshop, in the shadow of Notre Dame and the Seine, which trades off its in name only relationship to the original bookshop of the 1920's habituated by James Joyce and the American literary expat community.It's a grand place to pick up an ingenue for those willing to stoop to such nefarious actions.(speaking from observation only here)And it's open every might until midnight.
Then there's also a branch of the pedestrian W H Smith British chain, but the names don't get exciting until you reach Galignani and Village Voice. Galignani, the ultimate Paris upscale tradebook store and on the continent since 1808, as it brags in its video, sells both French and English language books - with the English language titles from the US and Uk- It's a carriage trade Scribner's store,if one remembers that grand outpost on 5th and 48th St in Manhatttan, where publishing heir Charlie Scribner himself could occasionally be seen pretending to work on the second floor and where Ms Patti Smith, I believe, sold me three copies of Gravity's Rainbow(the little known book club first) before she became famous. She was a lovely sales clerk by the way.And,in its strategic location on the Rue du Rivoli next to Angelina's , (originally Rumpelmeyer's) with its exquisite African hot chocolate sipped by 60 year old aristocratic French women and their 25 yr old boytoys.
Lots of good titles, an excellent world fiction department,good lit crit, art and photography and always something no one else has in stock.
The true gem of the area of course is Odile Hellier's wondrous Village Voice Bookstore on the Rue Princesse in the 6th arondissement.This classic two floor shop stocks a great selection of titles in all areas in English, and always has the latest serious fiction and nonfiction titles published in the US and UK. The staff is particularly helpful, and witty I might add, and you can meet some rather interesting expats if you hang around enough. They also have frequent readings- Michael Chabon, Gary Snyder , Mavis Gallant, et al. The problem is that the decline of the dollar has made it somewhat more difficult to be an expat living off a pension in France, but it looks like they will weather the storm with the help of the tourist trade as they are the best game in town.
There is one shop that draws me back to Paris every year-it does not specialize in English language titles, but instead in a small, cramped space on the Rue Git le Coeur-just off the St Andre des Artes-and opposite what used to be the flea-ridden Beat Hotel, where William Burroughs wrote and Ginsberg edited piles of manuscript pages of Naked Lunch strewn on the floor back in the 1950's--
There, at Un Regard Moderne, in an incredibly crowded store where books fall off piles and shelves every three minutes,the incredibly knowledgeable Msr Jacques Noel presides over a collection of graphic artist's books, erotica, art, photography, books on film, off beat volumes and limited edition silkscreens, and where aspiring graphic artists ,collectors and those touched by his and the store's eclectic brilliance ,come from around the world to shop.Jacques will have the newest Art Spiegelman and R Crumb books as fast as they arrive in the US,plus titles from Spain , Germany, Japan, and France and elsewhere-Only he can find them, but they're always there-An amazing experience- I have found the most unusual stuff there- and I always go back three or four times on any trip- My favorite bookstore in the world- and several hundred other mesmerized bookaholics can equally testify.
On this trip to Paris I picked up and read a stunning novel published by Harper Collins India- The Story of My Assassins, by Tarun J.Tejpal, the Indian journalist and author of one previous novel. Under the guise of a description of the protagonist investigative journalist's being protected by the authorities from assassination by some unknown force,the author tells the tale of various members of the underclass, who coalesce to form the arrested group here. His is a slightly overmuscular prose but the story-telling is bewitching and full of telling details which burn their way in to your brain and make you realize how hard the lives of millions on the planet are and how difficult it is to survive as a refugee in the ctiies of India.Very compelling even with the violence described as murderers make "brain curry" of their victims.
I also had the good fortune to acquire a lovely illustrated volume- based on a gallery exhibit- entitled Maisons Closes- a history of the elegant closed house bordellos in Paris,which functioned until made illegal by the authorities just after World War II. At that time, and perhaps unwisely, women were pushed back into the street and the Rue Sainte Denis ,Les Halles, and the notorious Pigalle to conduct their trade,often into the arms of and under the control of pimps. A stunning collection of photos, art, and drawings and the exhibit itself is on a block once known for such tempting establishments.
Then there was the major literary discovery of the trip, a piece of erotica written by one of our most famous popular authors scribed at the very outset of his career. More on that and London, as well as a review of the brilliant "Baba Yaga Laid an Egg" by acclaimed Croatian writer Dubravka Ugresic-This is a title in Canongate's myth and literature series, which has inspired modern retelling of myths and fairy tales.
Ugresic crafts her volume as a triptych of memoir, novella and detailed post modern scholarship on the myth of the famous witch figure of eastern Europe. Her 20 years of teaching the theory of literature make for an unusual resonance of scholarship and story telling beautifully woven together-Delicious indeed,and another feather in the cap of a writer who seems far more qualified for the Nobel than some of the most recent recipients.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
postscript on Raymond Federman( see previous post and obit
Raymond Federman was born in Paris on May 15, 1928, the son of Simon and Marguerite Federman. In 1942, when Raymond was 14, the Gestapo came to the family’s door. Telling him not to make a sound, his mother shoved him into a tiny closet on a stairway landing. Raymond huddled there, listening, as his parents and sisters, Jacqueline and Sarah, were marched down the stairs.
Raymond spent the war in hiding on a farm in the South of France. His parents and sisters died in Auschwitz.
Mr. Federman came to the United States in 1947; in the Korean War, he served with the United States Army in Korea and Japan. He earned a bachelor’s degree in French from Columbia in 1957, followed by master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Before joining the faculty at Buffalo in 1964, Mr. Federman taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He retired from Buffalo, where he also taught French and comparative literature, in 1999.
Raymond spent the war in hiding on a farm in the South of France. His parents and sisters died in Auschwitz.
Mr. Federman came to the United States in 1947; in the Korean War, he served with the United States Army in Korea and Japan. He earned a bachelor’s degree in French from Columbia in 1957, followed by master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Before joining the faculty at Buffalo in 1964, Mr. Federman taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He retired from Buffalo, where he also taught French and comparative literature, in 1999.
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