Right next to the familiar but dream-like Notre Dame Cathedral, once you cross a short bridge over the RiverSeine, you will find a bookstore beyond a bookstore.
Not knowing that it was right at the end of the bridge over the Seine on the right side of theCathedral, I used to get lost, searching for it at the alley on the opposite side.
This bookstore, made of one man’s dreamand tenacity, has been beloved for a long time and has made appearances in films such as Before Sunset Julie & Julia,and Midnight in Paris directed by Woody Allen three years ago and attracting worldwide renown.
Its ground floor seems smaller than 70 square meters and its steps are so narrow given its reputation. Once you step in however, you can see the books packed in the bookshelves from the floor to the ceiling, which is not overwhelming for its visitors but provides aloose, warm and friendly atmosphere as if it is a place I used to visit quite often before.
Founded by the daughter ofAmerican missionary, Silvia Beach who published Ulysses by James Joyce, often visited by Hemingway, Stein,Fitzgerald, Elliot and Pound, the bookstore was about to go out of business when George Whitman, who came to Paris to study earlier, took it over and reopened it in 1951. Since then this bookstore has become a private library for many Anglo-American writers and readers and a resting place for artists in Paris.
According to page 32 of abooklet, published by Silvia, a daughter of George Whitman who recently passedaway at the age of ninety-eight, she once asked her father whose whole life was about books, readers and writers if he ever wrote himself.
Mentioning a few love lettershe had written, he answered “I created this bookstore the way a writer writes a novel. I made each room like each chapter and I loved the way people opening the door of the bookstore as the way they open a book that leads them to the magic world in their imagination.
When he was young, he went on a trip to South America after graduating Boston University and suffered from a high fever on the road. Then a stranger, whom he met on the street, took him to his house and took care of him until he fully recovered. He was greatly inspired by this stranger’s hospitality. Out of this inspiration, the wall ofthe first floor in his bookstore reads ‘Be not inhospitable to strangers lest they be angels in disguise’
He put beds next to the bookshelves on the second and third floors and offered writers, artists and intellectuals a night’s lodging. He turned one section of the bookstore into alibrary where anybody can read antique books. Some of the lent-out books did not make their way back from time to time.
For him, however acommunity of readers and writers was more important than selling books.
Before it moved next to Notre Dame it had been located in a 16th centry building that used to be a monastery. He always said “At a monastery of the Middle Ages, there was a monk who lights up the fire after sunset. Now here, I am that monk lighting up the fire. This is my humble role in life”
For the writers, who stayed over night, George Whitman made pancakes on Sunday mornings and arranged tea times at 4 o’clock.
Curtains should be parted to the side, not in the middle and a line of theater chairs were positioned at the corner of the second floor. Books are products of imagination, therefore a bookstore, according to his philosophy, is naturally supposed to reflect its imagination as a theater does.
During my stay in Paris, I walked to visit the bookstore almost everyday.
I also participated in an event of a female writer from London which was one of the events he hosted every week ever since he opened the bookstore. The narrow road side in front ofthe bookstore where you can enjoy the grand view of Notre Dame, was packed with about eighty people sitting around. After her talk followed by serious discussions, the writer signed on her thick books.
Silvia Whitman who used toplay around in her father’s bookstore also came to the event. I handed mymother’s English poetry book that I have made to her, who was more attractive than Meg Ryan to me.
George Whitman taught his daughter, whom he had at the age of 67, this bookstore’s unique management skill to be loved. Retiring to an apartment above the bookstore he passed down his gemlike legend by posting on a bulletin board at the bookstore entrance which he used to call ‘Paris’ Wall Street ’ that “There was always somebody who lit up the fire in the dusk at any monastery. I have been doing that job over50 years and it is now my daughter’s turn”
Literature festivals with renowned writers were hosted there and the Paris Literature Award has been granted to the bookstore from the year 2011 then on.
George Whitman.
A person like him did exist who created such a bookstore kingdom with his passionate heart towards what heloved and devoted himself to entertain himself as well as people in the world.
He believed that opening and managing a small bookstore is the same kind of creation as writing poetry and a novel.
France, a country that loves literature and culture was the background and his wholly devoted heart must have comforted its people’s mind.
His mind comforted mine as well.
My country I left behindwas gloomy at that moment and, not long after having arrived in Marseille, I was robbed of my wallet with the whole budget for one month by a pickpocket of the century.
There, a man’s sprit was alive, who truly loved books, writers and readers. There were well-thumbed books and footsteps marked by Hemingway, Ezra Pound and T.S Elliot. Gazing at the architecture of great spirituality and the River Seine as if nothing ever happened, I sparingly had a salad and a delicious baguette at the next door of the bookstore.
I was reminded of my college period and of the bookstores in Shinchon of Seoul gradually shutting down one after another. Two cozy bookstores in my hometown, Seochon which disappeared, also came across my mind and I was thinking about ‘Dae-oh Bookstore’ that has survived half a century but has recently been turned into a café.
