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| Photos of vintage Christmas post cards by Suzanne Currie |
BOOKSELLERS HAVE THEIR FAVORITE AUTHORS, AND YOU MIGHT BE SURPRISED AT MY TOP PICK AND IT’S A ONCE-LOCAL LAD WHO ONCE PUBLISHED “THE BEATRICE BUGLE”
A PREAMBLE TO TODAY’S POST
BY TED CURRIE
This little tome is for a writing colleague, Erik, a friend of our Gravenhurst business.
I don’t know if I would have stuck to writing more than a few years, in that early period pounding out news and feature copy for the former Herald-Gazette, if not for the fact that a former student at Bracebridge High School had made it big in print media with first, the Toronto Telegram, and then when that paper died, he was employed as a page three columnist with the upstart Toronto Sun. He wrote columns about plain stuff really, in a semi blue-collar way, that appealed to the working grunts in the city and beyond, who also lived pay cheque to pay cheque, with little prospect of getting all the bills paid, making rent on time, covering the car payments, and the utility bills, and having a few coins left over to have a pint or two after work. He never wrote over the heads of his readers, and he seemed to be able to validate hardship, in the way or grandparents might have told us, in realistic terms, unplugged, “life is god damned tough, so suck it up and get on with your life and stop the whining.” Well something like that. I can remember waking up one morning, looking at the stack of bills on the kitchen table of my one bedroom mini-apartment, and doing the lottery thing, to find out which one of eight, was going to get paid before Christmas. I always believed that, if there was a Santa, he (or she) would make those who I owned money to, back off until the middle of January. Sometimes that happened, and other times, the holiday spirit was in short supply. But “Damn-it Rimmer,” when I consulted your regular column, opposite the Sunshine Girl, I was feeling much better as a peasant, down on his luck, because most of the experiences he had, domestic and professional, were always more than my own, and frankly, it felt quite uplifting to compare notes. Paul Rimstead is still one of my favorite authors, especially when, as writers frequently sink into almost traditional jags of self loathing, I consult a book of his former Toronto Sun columns, or better still, settle down for a half hour burrowing into the truly insightful authoring of his book, “Cocktails and Jockstraps.” A book my writing colleague, at the time, Brant Scott and I, promoted aggressively when it came out in the early 1980’s, in part, because he was as they say, “a home town kid who made the big leagues.” In fact, it was Rimstead himself, who said this of his old pool playing mate, Roger Crozier, allstar rookie net minder of the Detroit Red Wings (circa 1966, Original Six League), on the occasion of Bracebridge’s “Roger Crozier Day,” celebrating the fact that he won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Rimstead wrote a review of the celebrity-filled day, for the Toronto Telegram, but he never related the story that he and Crozier used to skip school in the afternoons at wind-up playing pool at Joe Defabrizio’s Billiard Hall on the Queen’s Hill adjacent to the Patterson Hotel. Joe told me many times, when was researching Roger’s career for a planned book, that he had, on many occasions, kept the boys visits to the pool hall secret, so they wouldn’t get in trouble at the school, and kept a tab for them when they were hungry and needed a hamburger to tide them over until dinner at home. Paul never forgot Roger when he became a hot-shot columnist for three dailies, including the Edmonton and Calgary Sun, and when I worked for the Crozier Foundation, with Roger, I can tell you that he never forgot his friend Paul; and their afternoon sojourns with Joe.
I talked to Paul’s sister Dianne some years ago, about the joint publishing venture she had with her brother, when the Rimstad (this is how it was spelled, I believe, before Paul changed in for his newspaper byline), family lived in a farmhouse along the Beatrice Town Line, north of the Town of Bracebridge, where there were less than a hundred residents including children and pets. The paper was composed by both family writers, and distributed free of charge to neighbor households. Paul went on, in his high school years, to work as a “stringer”, (a freelance reporter, meaning unpaid) with the Orillia Packet and Times, and was said to have wired a “PRESS” signed off the handlebars of his bike, so that he could get into areas of the town where news had occurred in some fashion. At the firehall, I’m told, the firemen altered the chalkboard before they left the Dominion Street station, so that when Rimmer arrived, he would copy down the address that had been purposely misrepresented. The fire chief, at the time, wasn’t crazy about having the cub reporter under foot, while the firemen were trying to bring down a blaze.
The point of all this verbiage, is that as a struggling writer for most of the past forty odd years, always looking for sources of inspiration in order to justify my own existence at the keyboard, I have on so many occasions, turned to this unsung hero of the underdogs, and those suffering from career melancholy, because he was, first and foremost, a very talented wordsmith. He didn’t write with any arrogance of accomplishment, and it may have been the case that he didn’t even know himself, how many daily readers, and consumers of his book, thought of him as a writer who could do just about anything, on his typewriter, and meet with sincere approval for quality workmanship. He was brutally honest, and he took ownership of every foible and misadventure he had been involved, including the break up of his marriage, in Mexico, with his wife, we all knew as “The Missus.” He had a lot of lifestyle issues, and yes, problems, and it did contribute to his death at only 52 years of age. His friend Roger Crozier, as a result of cancer, also died at age 52. Joe outlived both. The point I want to make about the work of Paul Rimstead, is that he used his own life and times as examples of, well, how not to live if you want to stay healthy; and yet, he asked not to be followed, or imitated, and that was his strange grace as a writer and story teller, because he wanted everyone to feel good about their lot in life, and to not feel sorry for him; or to become in any way a role model. It was his ability to write, and write well, and make you a willing hostage to his story line, on any particular day, that kept readers returning day after day, because he had very intentionally brought his fans into his inner sanctum. It wasn’t always a pretty place, but you had to take him up on his invitation.
If anyone comes into our shop, looking for an interesting Canadian book that could provide some short-term recreation, I, of course, suggest “Cocktails and Jockstraps,” if, that is, the potential buyer can handle the reality Rimstead wasn’t shy at all, about admitting his faults, and some of his medical problems, especially when it came to the rather boring existence of being sober; at least in his terms of the differences between drinking and trying to stay healthy. His biographical pieces are not only superbly written but insightful and stunningly candid, and in some cases, his honesty and assessments, often left him at odds with the individual he had just interviewed. He wasn’t a journalist who knocked someone down in order to elevate his view. He was always proportional to the story, on the surface, and what made the subject more interesting, on the inside.
It’s only a few days before Christmas, and I just felt the need to offer a very belated and posthumous thank you to Paul Rimstead, who by any account, told the truth, even if it hurt him.
THE PERSONALITIES AND THE BOOKSELLER - YOU JUST NEVER KNOW WHO MIGHT POP-UP NEXT
GOOD BOOKS, GOOD CONVERSATION, GOOD TIMES - GOOD REASON TO RUN A BOOK SHOP
"IT WAS ON DECEMBER 7, 1921, THAT VALERY LARBAUD PRESENTED THE IRISH WRITER JAMES JOYCE TO THE AMIS DES LIVRES. (THE BOOKSHOP OWNED BY ADRIENNE MONNIER, IN PARIS, FRANCE.)
"THAT WAS ONE OF THE MEMORABLE MEETINGS AT OUR HOUSE. THE FIRST FRAGMENTS OF THE TRANSLATION OF 'ULYSSES,' WERE GIVEN A READING THERE AFTER THE WARNING, 'CERTAIN PAGES HAVE AN UNCOMMON BOLDNESS OF EXPRESSION THAT MIGHT QUITE LEGITIMATELY BE SHOCKING' (I QUOTE FROM THE PROSPECTUS). AS AUGUSTINE MOREL HAD NOT YET UNDERTAKEN HIS TRANSLATION, IT WAS JACQUES BENOIST-MECHIN WHO HAD COURAGEOUSLY ATTACKED THESE FIRST FRAGMENTS; AND LEON-PAUL FARGUE HAD BEEN ESPECIALLY CONSULTED FOR THE ADAPTATION OF THE MOST DARING PASSAGES," WROTE ADRIENNE MONNIER, AS TRANSLATED, IN THE BOOK, "THE VERY RICH HOURS OF ADRIENNE MONNIER," PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS OF NEW YORK.
"JOYCE WAS THEN UNKNOWN TO THE FRENCH PUBLIC. IT WAS NOT HERE, HOWEVER, AT LA MAISON DES AMIS DES LIVRES, NOR WITH VALERY LARBAUD, THAT HE FOUND HIS FIRST WELCOME. A LITTLE WHILE AFTER HIS ARRIVAL FROM TRIESTE, HIS FRIEND THE AMERICAN POET, EZRA POUND HAD TAKEN HIM TO THE HOUSE OF ANDRE SPIRE, WHO HAD RECEIVED HIM WITH HIS CUSTOMARY KINDNESS. IT WAS AT ANDRE SPIRE'S HOUSE THAT SYLVIA AND I MET HIM, IN THE COURSE OF A RECEPTION AT WHICH MANY LITERARY PEOPLE WERE PRESENT," SHE WRITES OF MEETING THE AUTHOR. "I HAD A LITTLE DISCUSSION WITH JUSTIN BENDA; HE MAINTAINED THAT THERE DID NOT EXIST IN FRANCE, FOR THE MOMENT, ANY WRITER CAPABLE OF GREAT FLIGHTS. WHILE WE WERE DELIBERATING, MR. JOYCE, WHO WAS SITTING IN A CORNER, REMAINED SILENT, HIS WINGS FOLDED. SYLVIA BEACH, WHO HAD READ HIS BOOKS AND EVEN THE CHAPTERS OF 'ULYSSES,' THAT APPEARED IN NEW YORK, IN THE 'LITTLE REVIEW, 'AND WHO ADMIRED HIM PASSIONATELY, HAD IN THE COURSE OF THE EVENING SUMMONED UP HER COURAGE TO APPROACH HIM. FOR IT WAS AN EXTREMELY CONGENIAL RECEPTION; SPIRE OFFERED US TEA AND SUPPER AT THE SAME TIME. THERE WAS NO LACK OF TIME TO TALK AND EVEN TO THINK A BIT ABOUT ONE MEANT TO SAY. THIS IS THE WAY THEN, THAT OUR RELATIONS WITH JOYCE BEGAN.
"WHEN ONE RECOGNIZES THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SYMBOL IN JOYCE'S WORK AND THE CONSTANT CARE THAT HE TAKES TO ESTABLISH MYSTICAL CORRESPONDENCES, ONE IS STRUCT BY THE FACT THAT THE FIRST PERSON WHO RECEIVED HIM IN FRANCE, AND PUT HIM IN CONTACT WITH HIS FUTURE PUBLISHERS, IS A JEWISH POET - FOR JOYCE HAD CREATED IN ULYSSES A GREAT TYPE OF JEWISH HUMANITY, AND HE WAS TO FIND WITH US A PLACE FAVORABLE TO THE APPEARANCE OF HIS WORK AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF HIS REPUTATION." MONNIER WRITES, "SO, IN 1921, VALERY LARBAUD (WRITER) SPOKE IN MY BOOKSHOP ABOUT JAMES JOYCE, AND ABOVE ALL ABOUT HIS 'ULYSSES,' WHICH HAD NOT YET APPEARED IN BOOK FORM. THIS LECTURE, WHICH WAS PUBLISHED AFTERWARD IN THE 'NOUVELLE REVUE FRANCOISE,' AND WHICH PRESENTLY SERVES AS THE PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATION OF 'DUBLINERS,' IS A UNIQUE ACHIEVEMENT IN THE HISTORY CRITICISM. IT IS CERTAINLY THE FIRST TIME, I BELIEVE, THAT A WORK IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE HAS BEEN STUDIED IN FRANCE, BY A FRENCH WRITER, BEFORE BEING STUDIED IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. CERTAINLY THE PRESENCE OF JOYCE AMONG US HAD PROVOKED THIS PHENOMENON, BUT IF ONE THINKS ABOUT THE DIFFICULTIES OF A TEXT LIKE ULYSSES, ONE IS ASTOUNDED BY THE TOUR DE FORCE THAT LARBAUD BROUGHT OFF. ALL THE MORE SO BECAUSE HIS STUDY IS AND WILL NO DOUBT REMAIN THE MOST PERFECT, THE MOST UNDERSTANDING ANALYSIS THAT COULD BE MADE OF JOYCE'S WORK. HOW LARBAUD WAS ABLE TO EXTRACT FROM IT A SUBSTANCE SO CLEAR, SO COMPACT, SO PLEASING, IN SO LITTLE TIME AND WITHOUT THE HELP OF AN EARLIER WORK - THIS IS WHAT WILL NEVER CEASE TO AMAZE US."
THE PERKS OF OWNING A FAMOUS BOOK SHOP IN PARIS
ADRIENNE MONNIER, WRITES OF ANOTHER EXCITING MEETING, THAT WAS CONNECTED TO HER PARIS BOOKSHOP.
The bookstore proprietor records that, "Upon our arrival in London, Sylvia (Beach, owner of the bookshop, Shakespeare and Co., also in Paris) had telephone T.S. Eliot to ask if it would be possible to pay him a visit. He at once proposed that we come dine with him, which charmed and flattered us very much. In english letters, Eliot enjoys an almost royal prestige - not without giving rise to a certain amount of grumbling. Here, in spite of his Nobel Prize, he is only a poor, translated poet. I do not say this to belittle him: Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton are also poor, translated poets. It is a terrible trial for a poet (spared the musician and the painter) that he must undergo translation if he wants to be read outside of this country. In no case can he emerge from this trial to his advantage; the fruit of his labor is spoiled, he is stripped of his most precious possessions, he becomes like an emigrant, who must start his life over again upon hostile soil, with means that are often uncertain. (Eliott has such a liking for penitence that it is possible that these hardships give him a kind of pleasure.) And that is so whatever talent of the translator may be. A Baudelaire, a Mallarme crown with a halo the foreign poet, whom they strive to transplant among us, but they do not communicate their genius to him - if they wish to remain translators. As Baudelaire says in the notice that precedes his translation of 'The Raven,': In the mold of prose when it is applied to poetry, there is necessarily a frightful imperfection; but the harm would be still greater in rhymed mimicry."
She writes of the poet that, "On a visit to Paris in 1936, T.S. Eliott gave a poetry reading at Shakespeare and Company. On this occasion we had the pleasure of having him to dinner at our place in the company of (French authors) Gide, Jean Schlumberger, and Francois Valery. In the course of this dinner Gide tried to tear apart the spirit of the Orient completely, and in particular certain works that Eliott, Schlumberger, and I myself said that we liked. The 'Bhagavad-gita,' for example, or Milarepa (I have a very amusing letter from him on the subject of Milarepa). Schlumberger let him speak, then he said to him gently, 'All the same there is one Orient work that you have loved very much,' - and as Gide looked at him with a questioning air, he added, "the Gospels.' Following that I tried rather wickedly to prove that Buddha had had a particular attachment to his disciple Ananda, and that it was after a disappointment in love caused by him, that he had decided to leave the earth."
In 1928, the author of The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald met with Adrienne Monnier, and there is a picture of the bookshop owner and the writer, in the text of, "The Very Rich Hours of Adrienne Monnier," sitting on the doorstep of Sylvia Beach's "Shakespeare and Company." There are several photographs of T.S. Eliot, and James Joyce, with Adrienne's mother and father. There is a terrific image of Joyce sitting with Beach and Monnier inside Shakespeare and Company, and another wonderful streetscape, where Joyce and Monnier are walking down the Rue de L' Odeon, where the two famous book shops were situated.
Richard McDougall, translator and author of the book's introduction, offers this insight at the end of Monnier's life. "In the final weeks of her life, Adrienne Monnier had secretly and with great difficulty arranged her personal papers. Her final note which she wrote in May, was found at the head of these after her death. In Monnier's words, "I am penning an end to my days, no longer able to support the noises that have been martyrizing me for eight months, with continuing fatigue and the suffering that I have endured these recent years. I am going to death without fear, knowing that I found a mother on being born here, and that I shall likewise find a mother in the other life."
"The news of her passing, in France, and abroad, was greeted with reverence, sorrow and love," writes McDougall in his overview of her life. "Alone, Sylvia Beach in her own last years received the honors that go to survivors, the official consecrations that must always seem in spirit to be somewhat at odds with the spirit of obscure beginnings. From March 11 to April 25, 1959, the cultural section of the United States Embassy in Paris, sponsored an exhibition, 'Les Annees Vingt: Les Ecrivains Americains a Paris et leers amis,' (The Twenties; American Writers in Paris and Their Friends') at the headquarters of the American Cultural Center in the Rue du Dragon, near the Pace St. Germain-des-Pres. Because most of the items on display - some six hundred photographs, letters, page proofs, first editions, and the like, belonged to Sylvia Beach and collectively signified her central position in the life of the decade, the show was as much a tribute to her as it was a retrospective survey. In the same year, Harcourt, Brace published her memoirs, 'Shakespeare and Company,' and in June, during the course of a visit to the United States, she received an honorary doctorate of letters from the University of Buffalo, to which she donated material from her Joyce Collection. On June 16, 1962, Bloomsday, the anniversary of the day of which the action of Ulysses takes place, she was in Dublin to participate in the dedication of the Martello Tower, at Sandycove, the setting for the opening of the novel, as a memorial to James Joyce.
He notes that, "In Paris, Sylvia Beach continued to live in her apartment at 12 Rue de L'Odeon above the premises that Shakespeare and Company had once occupied. Here, On October 6, 1962, she was found dead, apparently of a heart attack, 'kneeling but not brought down,' as the friend who found her said; she had died a day or two before. Her body was cremated at Pere Lachaise cemetery and her ashes were sent to Princeton, where they now rest. Her funeral service, which took place in the chapel of the Columbarium in the cemetery, was attended by crowds of mourners, many of them neighbors in her quarter who knew her not as a literary personality but simply as a friend whose kindness was unfailing. And of Adrienne Monnier herself, what more is there that need or can be said here. Her own life, simple and profound, simple in its purpose, profound in its motives - has the configuration of a heroic legend and even a legend of saintliness. Her simplicity was that of an undivided mind and a whole heart that followed from girlhood on, in the direction of a calling that she seems never to have doubted. We can trace this direction but the act, simple in itself, of describing the outward achievements of her vocation. As for the motives of her 'whose life was so mysteriously moving,' as Katherine Anne Porter has said, those motives that came 'from such depths of feeling and intelligence they were hardly fathomable…..but always to be believed in and loved,' to these her work alone will bear witness. For the rest, all one has attempted has been to give back to Adrienne Monnier, in the words of another language the gift that she gave so fully in the words of her own."
THE FASCINATING FOLKS WE MEET IN RETAIL EVERY DAY
Ever since I began writing professionally, and retailing antiques and old books, at virtually the same time in my life, (late 1970's), I have needed my sources of inspiration. I have found both occupations profoundly difficult at times, demanding a vigor I sometimes can't muster. I have called upon books, like I have just reviewed, so many times, that my fingerprints and folded-over page tops, indicated all the best locations for seeking out inspirational passages, and chapters, that will help me on either a difficult writing project (that I may not be looking forward to); or having to spend a month or so manning the retail component of our antique business, which for me, is hugely limiting, seeing as I'm usually the official "on the road everyday picker," where I am the happiest to roam freely. I look up at my shelf of poor condition reference books, and other texts I keep for special occasions, of low ambition, and thank all the authors, including Richard McDougall, for his fine work on Adrienne Monnier, which has been my source of joy for many years…….as well as all the other researchers and writers, who without knowing it, have kicked me into place, with a few well chosen words, and insightful revelations, about the milestone achievements of others.
There is a lot of interesting stuff that happens in an antique shop (that also sells old books), and while I will never have the rich stories, as told by Ms. Monnier, from her Paris bookshop, there are some tidbits of information, and actuality I've experienced, that seem entirely worthy of a little exploration. Connections that I've made with historians, writers, and oh so many fascinating collectors, just because they happened to wander in, to a little shop known as Birch Hollow Antiques. This was my own beginning, and it was fabulous.
As far as literature goes, and for those reading this blog, who don't know our area of Ontario, Canada very well,……. our Town of Gravenhurst, where we are situated as a main street business, was named in the year 1862, by a Canadian Postal Authority, who moonlighted as a literary critic for publications throughout North America. To name our new post office, he borrowed a name from a book written by British poet / philosopher, William Henry Smith, entitled "Gravenhurst; or Thoughts on Good and Evil." You can archive this, if interested, back to the first of August 2012, where I have written five special feature blogs on our literary provenance, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of its naming. Our previous antique shop, was located in Bracebridge, ten miles north of Gravenhurst, and that town was named, in 1864, by the same Postal Authority, William Dawson LeSueur, after a book written by American author, Washington Irving, entitled "Bracebridge Hall." Irving was of course famous for his stories, 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," and "Rip Van Winkle." So, while we can't say we entertained James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald or Ezra Pound, we were named after two very astute authors from abroad. Thanks so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule, to sit down with me, for this visit to old Paris, and the shops made famous by Adrienne Monnier and Sylvia Beach. Please visit again soon, as we continue our antique and collecting series of stories to educate, titillate, and always….to entertain.
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