"Left Bank: Art, Passion, and the Rebirth of Paris, 1940-50" by Agnès Poirier (Henry Holt & Company)

ISBN: 978-1-62779-024-6

I can almost resist everything, except, any books about the Left Bank during the 1940s to the late 1950s.  Generally, readers/culture addicts are seduced by images of Paris and its culture throughout the years.   In a way, it's the conceptual 'Disneyland' for those who don't live there, yet, keep track of its beauty through pictures, movies, and of course, literature.  I'm so much in tune to that world that I pretty much started up a press, TamTam Books, just focusing on the Paris post-war years, due that I love the literature as well as the figures that came out of that time, especially Boris Vian.    

There are many books on Paris that was published throughout the years, as well as memoirs, diaries, and biographies - so it's not an obscure subject matter by any means.  But it wasn't until recently one hears the name Boris Vian in English reading books on the Existentialist period.  Vian was a significant figure in those years, and a lot of books about that period avoided his identity, I think due that none of his books were available in English at the time.  Therefore I have to presume editors for various presses probably decided if editorial cuts are being made, it is perfectly OK to eliminate Vian in its narrative.  That is not the case anymore.  Although he's a side-figure in the recent book "Left Bank" by Agnès Poirier, at least he's given credit as a writer and social figure in Paris.  

Beyond that, this book doesn't have any new information, and if one is a long-term reader of Paris literary and social history, still it's a fun read and Poirier does a  good job in covering all the loose ends of the rambling narrative that is the grand city of romance and ideas.  All the stars are here:  Juliette Gréco, Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Samuel Beckett, Camus, as well as the Americans that came to Paris during the post-war years, such as James Baldwin, Miles Davis, Richard Wright, Saul Bellow, Norman Mailer, and the old stand-by's such as Picasso and Jean Cocteau.   A colorful group of characters.  One is in good company.

"Dear Mr. Beckett: The Samuel Beckett File: Letters from the Publisher" Edited by Lois Oppenheim/Curated by Astrid Myers Rosset (Opus)

As a publisher (TamTam Books) I'm fascinated with books about publishing or about the publisher themselves. I'm especially interested in the great American publisher Barney Rosset.   His Grove Press is/was very much a presence in my library for nearly my entire teenage and adult life.   If it wasn't for example and inspiration I got from Mr. Rosset (from a great distance, never met him) I doubt I would have started TamTam Books.  Reading "Mr. Beckett" brought up my anxieties about my press, and I can totally 'feel' for whatever situations that Rosset took on or got himself involved in.

For one, anyone who has even the slightest interest in the world of publishing should read this book.  By no means is it a perfect book. In fact, it's kind of messy, but at the end of the read, a delightful mess of a book.  Some of the interviews repeat themselves and could have been edited down, but I think the purpose of the publication brings the reader to that era of Samuel Beckett and his relationship with his American publisher, Barney Rosset.

As the full title states, it is a file of Rosset's letters to Beckett, as well as some correspondence from Beckett to Rosset, but also interviews with Rosset, and Eugene Ionesco and Alain Robbe-Grillet, regarding their relationship with the publisher, but on Beckett as well.  There is an insight into various theatrical productions of "Waiting for Godot," as well as his other plays.   Also interesting interview regarding the making of Beckett's "Film,"  with Rosset (he produced the movie) and working with Buster Keaton.  The letters from Rosset to Beckett are fascinating, concerning the relationship between author and publisher.  Nothing dramatic or bad happens between the two guys, but the daily struggle of getting things done, and dealing with financial issues is at times painful (for me) and awesome at the same moment.   A magnificent monument to the publisher and the writer.  May it last forever.

April 13, 2014

April 13, 2014

Being an only child and surrounded by childhood friends who either had a brother or sister, left me with fantasies of being part of other families.   Oddly enough, I never fantasize about the families that I knew, but more with the families I have seen on TV at the time.  I was drawn into “Leave It To Beaver” at an early age, and the show which ran from 1957 to 1963, was about a middle-class white family somewhere in the United States (not Southern California, that’s for sure) where the parents had two sons.  The youngest son was Beaver, who had a child-like curiosity about the world, and therefore I identified with him, because of his struggle to comprehend his world and the emotional landscape that his parents live in.  The other son is Wally, who is someone I would want as a big brother.

I have been caught many times by my parents when I talked to my imaginary brother Wally.  At first they thought it was either charming or cute, but my discussions with the empty space near me, got stranger and stranger to them.  I, on the other hand, was quite comfortable with my relationship with Wally.   As I grew older, many things changed in my life, but never my bond with Wally.  I often ask him for advice, and for years I had a scrapbook that just focusses on the images of Wally, who was played by Tony Dow.  At first I pretended that it was a family photo scrapbook. The illusion became reality as I got older.

When I was in my early 20’s, and by chance, I met the famous French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, who was a friend of Andre Breton and the Surrealists.  In his later years, he was collecting photograph prints, and he contacted me because he had heard that I had a large collection of images by Pierre Molinier, who was known for his erotic self-portraits of himself either dressed as a woman or posing with prosthetic limbs, stiletto heels, dildos and an occasional confidante.  On one of my trips to Paris, I asked if I could bring up a delicate matter to his attention.  He listened to me as I talked about my obsession with my invisible older brother Wally.  At one session, we watched together at least five episodes of “Leave It To Beaver.” He was fascinated that I actually based my imaginary brother on a popular TV show.   Not only that, but a show that focuses on what looks like a “normal” American family.   He knew I had an interest in writing and he asked me who I like as a writer.  I told him that my two favorite writers are Georges Bataille and Samuel Beckett.  I didn’t know at the time that he married Bataille’s wife, and was actually a good friend of the writer as well.  He was proposed that maybe I should write a narrative with me and “Wally” as the main characters, but base it on a prose style by Beckett.

For the past thirty years, I have worked on one long piece, which I guess is a novel, about me and Wally going on a trip to France to locate images by Pierre Molinier.    The dialogue between us, is very much based on Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot,” as we wait in a train station for Molinier to pick us up for some unknown destination.  This is where the problem lies, because I don’t have the foggiest idea where that destination will lead us, but I feel that my brother need to hold my hand and direct me to the light, from the darkness of my mind.

"Dublinesque" by Enrique Vila-Matas

Enrique Vila-Matas can't do wrong in my book.  "Dublinesque"  starts off with a publisher on his last publishing days, approaching 60, and an ex-drunk.  How can I not like this book?   There is a strong narrative in this novel, but like his other books its a full length literary criticism as well as its history told in a novel form.   The focus on "Dublinesque" is the world of James Joyce via the eyes of Samuel Beckett and other Irish writers.   Riba, the main character, is aware of the beginning of the dying days of literature - and is compelled to visit Dublin, a city that he never been to -in a sense pay his lasting respects to a certain type of literature.   It is also a picture of a marriage disappearing in the cracks of indifference, literature, and drink.   A wonderful book.