An Irishman's Diary

ABOUT 20 years ago in Paris, I was mooching around the bookshop Shakespeare & Co with my future wife when the elderly proprietor happened by and, overhearing the conversation, said: “You’re Irish?” A wispy American with wild hair and charming manner, he made being Irish sound like a talent. Then, even more flatteringly, he invited us upstairs for tea. Whereupon we found ourselves in a strange but not unpleasant gathering of guests who had been similarly elevated from the chaotic shop floor to the slightly less chaotic family apartment.

They came from all over the world, although the one I remember best was a middle-aged US poet who had just befriended a much younger woman and was speaking to her avidly and in lyrical manner, while clearly intent on involving her in a non-poetic couplet situation, as soon as possible.

The other thing I recall is that, when he heard we lived in Dublin, our host asked if I knew Ulick O’Connor – or “Oolick O’Connor” as he pronounced it. There was even a picture of Oolick on the wall. I think he was up there with Joyce and Hemingway, in the pantheon of literary greats.

Anyway, the proprietor’s name was George Whitman. And his little act of kindness left a lasting impression. On every visit to Paris since, I have always dropped into the shop at least once, even though the invitation to tea has never been repeated.

Until recently, George would usually be there, looking even wispier than before, while chatting to customers or sitting out front. His twentysomething daughter (an impressive achievement for a man who, even when I first met him, was in his late 70s) had in latter years taken over the business.

So now George had become more of a presiding spirit. And he graduated fully to that role earlier this week when, as I was sad to hear, he died on Wednesday, two days after turning 98.

AFTER THATfirst visit, I learned that my wife and I were far from unique in receiving his hospitality. Thousands had been invited up for tea over the years. If you were lucky, Irish stew was sometimes served as well. Nor did the welcome always stop there.

The shop also doubled as an informal hostel, putting up guests without charge, except that they might expected to do some work about the place in exchange. As for the tea and stew, that came entirely without obligation, and was more in keeping with one of the little manifestos that Whitman posted about the shop, ie: “Be not inhospitable to strangers, lest they be angels in disguise”.

This could be a ruinous policy in Paris, where hospitality-seeking strangers, very few of them angels, arrive in their millions every year. But it seems to have worked. Despite – or because of – the founder’s other-worldliness, Shakespeare & Co appears these days to be a very lucrative business.

The location helps. It’s almost in the shadow of Notre Dame, whose towers loom before it like the two ends of a giant horseshoe-shaped tourist magnet. The shop is on the calmer side of the river, however, and it has the added allure of being set back from the road, behind greenery in a virtual courtyard.

To the charm of both the setting and the shambling interior is added a back-story that other books stores would die for. It’s not the original Shakespeare & Co, the one found by Sylvia Beach and synonymous with Joyce. But the provenance is first class.

Beach and Whitman were friends. And although her shop closed forever during the German occupation, she publicly bequeathed the name to him in the late 1950s. Then, 20 years after her death, the relationship between the new and old business was crowned when George named his daughter and heir Sylvia Beach Whitman.

Not many book shops could compete with those credentials, even in Paris. Indeed, Shakespeare & Co’s biggest problem, arguably, is success. With its ever-increasing fame (including a role in Woody Allen’s latest film), it threatens soon to rival the cathedral as a tour-bus stop. Then, I fear for its creaky floorboards. But in the meantime, it’s good to know that even one distressed old bookstore continues to thrive, despite the relentless assault of Amazon & Co.

ON WHICH SUBJECT, and as we say a fond goodbye to George Whitman, I was reminded of the evils of internet book-selling recently when the same Amazon seduced me into buying a copy of Our Dumb Century, a collection of spoof historical news stories published by the US satirical website The Onion.

I admit to having been deeply impressed when I saw the low price quoted for the book, especially considering it was a new copy, and hardback at that. No wonder brick-and-mortar shops couldn't compete any more, I thought. Then a week later, the unexpectedly small bubble-wrap envelope arrived. And when I emptied it, a two-inch-square, miniature and heavily digested version of Our Dumb Centuryfell out.

It was one of those dinky formats you find near the tills of real bookshops, designed for whimsical purchase. And maybe there had been something in the small print to warn me. But I don’t recall being anywhere near the till of the Amazon store at the time I picked the book up. Which is why – I hope – there will always be a place for shops like Shakespeare & Co, where you can see and feel and smell the merchandise, and maybe strike up a conversation while you’re at it.