In this documentary George Whitman - the then owner and proprietor of the Shakespeare and Co bookshop - gives a very practical lesson in how anarchic co-operation, the love of literature and the bohemian lifestyle can become somewhat reconciled with the need to earn a living (relatively) outside ‘the system’.
There is a mythical aura surrounding Whitman, as is manifestly demonstrated by the old guy’s dealings with customers and staff alike.
Like the Minotaur lost in a labyrinth of book lined passages, alcoves and cubby-holes, he stumbles around ranting and mumbling at the young initiates, who have seemingly sacrificed their ego’s on his shabby alter in return for a place to sleep…and the opportunity of course to breathe-in a bit of the rarefied air (and dust) of this famous literary landmark.
Waterstones this ain’t!
The original ‘Shakespeare and co’ English language bookshop was run by Sylvia Beach from 1919 to ’41, and was frequented by all ‘the greats’ of modernism: Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Pound, Joyce, Miller etc.
In 1951, Whitman himself opened a new English language bookstore on Paris’ Left bank, and when Beach died he renamed his ‘Le Mistral’ store ‘Shakespeare and Company’ in homage to the spirit of Beach’s former enterprise.
Since that time, thousands of writers (and would be writers) and assorted bohemian’s have wrote, slept, cleaned, cooked, ate, manned the till and digressed on the nature of existence within its cockroach infested walls.
It was a familiar social and intellectual watering hole for the Beat’s - especially Ginsberg and Corso during the late 50’s and 60’s.
When he’s not being a Minotaur, George has something of the Diogenesian cynic about him; a scruffy cur, barking at the idiocy of the world and its conventions - surviving on the dubiously edible scraps of his homemade concoctions (I’ll pass on the omelette thanks), his sublime eccentricity and the forbearance allowed to the elderly by the younger generation.
There’s a great anecdote told about George handing a rather posh young man (and potential guest/employee) one of his socks and asking him to clean up a bit of cat
Shit soiling the premises. He warned the poor guy to launder it properly afterwards because the sock was one of his favourites.
He believed this type of behaviour was ‘character building’ for the young initiate.
In the final scene of the film, George becomes Arthur Brown’s God of Hellfire incarnate by ‘trimming’ his wispy locks with a candle flame.
Again there is an echo of Greek myth: it calls to mind that famous etching by Picasso, ‘Minotauromachy’.
His daughter now runs the shop, and carries the bohemian/anarchist tradition on as her father and Sylvia Beach did before her.
Haven’t been myself yet, but I’ll have to make the pilgrimage at least once before I do not go gently into that goodnight.
I think the food is a little better now too.
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