The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher

Author:Kerri Maher [Maher, Kerri]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-01-11T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

Last night was really something,” Ernest said the afternoon of December 8 in Shakespeare and Company, looking a bit worse for wear, though he wore the hangover well on his dark, handsome face. Sylvia was tired, too, though she hadn’t stayed out as late as he had. Everyone had gone to the Dôme in a celebratory group after two exhilarating hours when 250 friends and admirers had gathered at La Maison to hear Jimmy Light, one of the American crowd, read from Ulysses, then listen to Valery Larbaud explain the novel’s genius and its contribution to French and American literature. It had been heady stuff, with all their friends, old and new, present for this French debut of Joyce’s novel. Sylvia and Adrienne had left Joyce, Ernest, and about a dozen others still drinking at midnight.

“And to think you’d been such a skeptic about the evening.” She loved ribbing Ernest. He’d become like a brother or a cousin to her. She didn’t mind his teasing, either.

“Can you blame me? You threw a debutante ball for a novel written in English, not for the novel itself but for a very small piece of a French translation, in a bookstore for French books, when the English bookshop and the novel’s publisher is right across the street. And you thought I was the crazy one?”

“It worked, though, didn’t it?”

“It did. You and Adrienne make everything work.”

“Well, we wanted to recognize Joyce’s integration into the local literary community. You and he are rare birds here, you know, speaking the language and befriending Larbaud and Gide and Benoist-Méchin. So many of the Americans and Brits keep to themselves.”

“Their loss.”

“Oui.”

Ernest frowned. “I’ll admit last night made me damn jealous, though.”

Sylvia laughed. “Ernest, Joyce is almost twenty years older than you.”

“Yes, and he was nearly ten years older when he published Dubliners,” he added so quickly Sylvia could tell he spent quite a bit of time thinking about writers and the rates of their success, measuring himself against them—which reminded her of Eliot’s Prufrock and his coffee spoons. Well, why not? Ernest is a competitive man; likely the comparisons inspire him to work harder.

“Hadley mentioned to me the other day that the stories you’re writing now are superb. Truly fresh and exciting. That’s the important thing.”

“I hope so. It’s tough, you know, being here with Stein and Joyce and Pound. I want to write well and say something new, but it’s hard to feel that’s even possible with them around.”

“I think it’s better if you’re doing something other than what Joyce and the others are doing.” That’s what I could never figure out—how to be Sylvia Beach in the face of Chopin, Whitman, and Joyce.

“If you say so. You’re one of the few people whose opinion really counts to me.”

“That means a great deal to me.”

The two of them went about their separate business in the store for a few minutes, then it dawned on Sylvia that this young boxer, journalist, former ambulance driver, man of

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