Shakespeare & Company: The Old Smoky Reading Room, The Piano Man and The Erudite Cat
Paris is known for many things- for its amazing food,for the stunning gothic architecture, the beautiful Parisian women, and as the place of origin for some of the world's finest literature. What many may not know is Paris apart from being the obvious hub of French literature has also been a congregation of some of world's most brilliant exponents of English literature, and when one talks about English literature in Paris Shakespeare and Co, the old creaky bookstore situated in the Latin Quarters serve as the center of the universe.
So when we went to Paris this Autumn we also decided to make the pilgrimage for English literature lovers to the bookstore with the green door. We took the line M4 from Chatelet and got down at Cite from where Shakespeare and Co is just a short saunter away. On reaching the store we were greeted by a short queue of enthusiasts outside who, like us had decided that a trip to Paris is incomplete without this pilgrimage. At the entrance the queue was being managed by an amiable young gentleman who, for the first time during our stay at Paris, greeted us in cleanly spoken English and informed that photography was not allowed inside.This of course meant that the onus of giving you a visual tour of the place lies on me and the words I choose.
Now Shakespeare and Co is an offshoot of another shop by the same name which existed between 1919 and 1940 and during the 20s was a meeting place for such great writers as Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce. The current bookstore was opened in 1951 and retained much of the essence of the original shop. It has also found pride of place in movies such as Before Sunset and Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris.
On entering the shop one will be greeted by book racks which rise all the way to the ceiling and passages which barely fit two slender Parisian women, any more than that being a crowd. The ground floor is a fairly well stocked book store peppered with interesting graffiti on the wall and engraved above the door arches such as the one quoted above. This certainly had a nice old world charm to it and the collection was decent but nothing extraordinary. To be honest I couldn't really understand what the entire brouhaha was all about.
It was around one of the corners that I discovered a creaky flight of stairs labeled "Old Smoky Reading Room"which really drew my attention. On climbing the stairs there were two passages leading up to two different rooms on both the sides. To the right was the dingy piano room with a set of melody books on top of composers ranging from Bach to Debussy,and a piano man to boot. All the books on the first floor were books which were for reading and not for sale. I randomly pulled out green hard bound book and it turned out to be set of essays on Oscar Wilde by Bernard Shaw. I am pretty sure this would be one of one few copies of this book which are in existence and this for me summed up the charm of this place.
The left passageway leads up to the front reading room overlooking the street and Notre Dame in front. The room had book shelves for walls and a large sofa at one corner of the room with a bunch of smaller chairs forming one large semi circle around the edge of the room. The smaller chairs were occupied by a most unlikely set of people - an Englishman in his fifties in a tweed jacket with elbow patches(guess his profession), a set of giggly twenty something English girls and a couple of French men. The center chair was of course occupied by the leader of this motley bunch, a fat white cat who appeared about as erudite as the old English gentleman, and about as dismissive of the giggly PYTs. Apart from this there was also a small typewriting room and a reference room with children's books.
Once we were downstairs we decided that we should not be leaving Shakespeare and Co without buying something that's is not available easily. So we picked up Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" along with the signature Shakespeare and Co. carry bag which summed up our trip to this lovely book store from another time. Would surely recommend spending time here taking a short detour from Notre Dame.
+33 1 43 25 40 93
www.shakespeareandcompany.com
Open hours: 10 AM to 11 PM
"Be not inhospitable to strangers
Lest they be angels in disguise"
Paris is known for many things- for its amazing food,for the stunning gothic architecture, the beautiful Parisian women, and as the place of origin for some of the world's finest literature. What many may not know is Paris apart from being the obvious hub of French literature has also been a congregation of some of world's most brilliant exponents of English literature, and when one talks about English literature in Paris Shakespeare and Co, the old creaky bookstore situated in the Latin Quarters serve as the center of the universe.
So when we went to Paris this Autumn we also decided to make the pilgrimage for English literature lovers to the bookstore with the green door. We took the line M4 from Chatelet and got down at Cite from where Shakespeare and Co is just a short saunter away. On reaching the store we were greeted by a short queue of enthusiasts outside who, like us had decided that a trip to Paris is incomplete without this pilgrimage. At the entrance the queue was being managed by an amiable young gentleman who, for the first time during our stay at Paris, greeted us in cleanly spoken English and informed that photography was not allowed inside.This of course meant that the onus of giving you a visual tour of the place lies on me and the words I choose.
Now Shakespeare and Co is an offshoot of another shop by the same name which existed between 1919 and 1940 and during the 20s was a meeting place for such great writers as Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce. The current bookstore was opened in 1951 and retained much of the essence of the original shop. It has also found pride of place in movies such as Before Sunset and Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris.
On entering the shop one will be greeted by book racks which rise all the way to the ceiling and passages which barely fit two slender Parisian women, any more than that being a crowd. The ground floor is a fairly well stocked book store peppered with interesting graffiti on the wall and engraved above the door arches such as the one quoted above. This certainly had a nice old world charm to it and the collection was decent but nothing extraordinary. To be honest I couldn't really understand what the entire brouhaha was all about.
It was around one of the corners that I discovered a creaky flight of stairs labeled "Old Smoky Reading Room"which really drew my attention. On climbing the stairs there were two passages leading up to two different rooms on both the sides. To the right was the dingy piano room with a set of melody books on top of composers ranging from Bach to Debussy,and a piano man to boot. All the books on the first floor were books which were for reading and not for sale. I randomly pulled out green hard bound book and it turned out to be set of essays on Oscar Wilde by Bernard Shaw. I am pretty sure this would be one of one few copies of this book which are in existence and this for me summed up the charm of this place.
The left passageway leads up to the front reading room overlooking the street and Notre Dame in front. The room had book shelves for walls and a large sofa at one corner of the room with a bunch of smaller chairs forming one large semi circle around the edge of the room. The smaller chairs were occupied by a most unlikely set of people - an Englishman in his fifties in a tweed jacket with elbow patches(guess his profession), a set of giggly twenty something English girls and a couple of French men. The center chair was of course occupied by the leader of this motley bunch, a fat white cat who appeared about as erudite as the old English gentleman, and about as dismissive of the giggly PYTs. Apart from this there was also a small typewriting room and a reference room with children's books.
Once we were downstairs we decided that we should not be leaving Shakespeare and Co without buying something that's is not available easily. So we picked up Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" along with the signature Shakespeare and Co. carry bag which summed up our trip to this lovely book store from another time. Would surely recommend spending time here taking a short detour from Notre Dame.
Shakespeare and Company
37 Rue de la Bûcherie,75005 Paris, France
Comments
Post a Comment