Chapter 42 II Departing from Montparnasse to join the war (2) Friend's Bookstore

A small shop, a small store, a snow house, the backstage of a theater, a wax museum, a reading room, and a small bookstore with book sales and rental business can attract book lovers to come frequently, or buy , or reading, renting, can enrich knowledge and increase talents through reading. Jacques Prevet One winter morning, Adrienne Meunier and her young daughter (who came every day to help her mother place the bookstall on the sidewalk) went to the bookstore and opened the door.After the bookshelves and bookcases were placed, batch after batch of passers-by stopped in front of the bookshelves and bookcases, looking through them casually, but the mother and daughter were scared, excited, and embarrassed, so they both looked at each other. Go back inside the shop and hide.Because the bookstore does not have the capacity to buy all the books its owners love, their bookstalls range from home books for sale to literary and art magazines to contemporary literature.Therefore, the primary feature of a friend's bookstore can only be to do what it can, and to selectively purchase according to one's own financial ability.When the bookstore first opened, the only books people saw in Adrienne Meunier's bookstore were all the editions of the French Courier and the French New Magazine, which she bought. inventory backlog.Later, she also got a full set of magazines from the "Poetry and Prose" magazine.It was Paul Fore who sold her all the remaining unsold magazines, a total of 6,676 copies, in installments.

These magazines are subject to varying degrees of interest from customers.Some were sold out as soon as they were put on the shelves, such as the fourth issue, while some were completely ignored. The first customer to buy in this bookstore was André Breton.His beauty and sensuality alarmed and terrified the bookstore's mistress, who later wrote in her memoirs: Breton does not smile, but he sometimes gives a short, mocking laugh when he makes a speech, while his face can remain expressionless, the same way pregnant women keep their expressions serious for fear of ruining their beauty... According to tradition According to Physiognomy, his overdeveloped lower lip reveals that he was sexually voluptuous in the first place...he did have what Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, called a lecherous deterrent.

[Excerpt from Adrienne Meunier's "Memories of the Bookstore at No. 7 Rue Odéon" published in 1989] He came again, bought the fourth issue of Poetry and Prose, and then a third, and a fourth... A short time later, a well-dressed young man with a moustache, a top hat, and light gloves on his hands appeared.In his right pocket is a pen in the style of the French poet Verlaine, while in his left pocket is a book by the French poet Laforgue.He came to the bookstore and asked in the most polite tone if there was a fourth issue of Poetry and Prose. "Why is this set of magazines so attractive?" asked the female owner of the bookstore.

"Please open and look at page 69." The female proprietor of the bookstore opened page 69 and found the article "An Evening with M. Tester" by Paul Valéry that once fascinated André Breton. She should also see Louis Aragon often.When he came to the bookstore, he chatted with this person and that person for a while, often lasting three hours.All who spoke to him were overwhelmed by his art of speaking.When he was in Waldgrass Hospital, the people around him talked rudely and vulgarly, which was incompatible with his natural sensitivity and delicateness. But in the friend's bookstore, his long-term repressed nature found a suitable place to vent, and sometimes it was unstoppable. .

Like Breton and Su Bo, Aragon also wrote articles for the magazines "SIC", "North and South" and "Dada" sold by Adrienne Meunier's bookstore.One day, when a loyal customer asked the bookstore proprietress if she would agree to lend him the first two issues of the Zurich newspaper, the answer was: "Okay, but on one condition, you can't crop it, or I'll have to send it to you." A horrific incident was reported to the Swiss authorities..." The customer was Jean Pollen. Another time, a fat man with a pear head entered the bookstore after carefully examining the window of the bookstore.He looked for the female owner of the bookstore with his eyes, and when he saw her, he pointed his finger at her and shouted in a reproachful tone: "There isn't any book about the bloodshed and sacrifice of soldiers on the front line, it's a bit too much Bar!"

This person is Guillaume Apollinaire again. At that time he still had a huge influence on André Breton.Before Adrienne Meunier knew Guillaume Apollinaire, Breton had already talked to her about Apollinaire countless times: For Breton, Apollinaire was his "fanatic admiration object." ", Breton is his believer and faithful disciple. I will always remember one or two scenes that are truly unforgettable: Apollinaire sat opposite me, chatting with me about homework, Breton stood with his back against the wall, his horrified eyes were motionless, what he saw was not in front of him A real person, but a black god invisible to the naked eye, who seems to be waiting to give orders to himself at all times.

[Excerpt from Adrienne Meunier's "Memories of the Bookstore at No. 7 Rue Odéon" published in 1989] Apollinaire was not the only living poet that Breton admired very much at the time. The other one he admired was Pierre Levedi, the founder of the "North and South" magazine.Breton admired Levedi's unparalleled use of "the magic of verbs" and his outstanding theoretical ability.But he criticized him for being too emotional when discussing issues, and with too obvious "cubist expression in poetic creation" [from Breton's "Conversation with André Parino" published in 1969 "] Tendency to defend.

One day in 1917, poor Levedi insisted on reading one of his works in the presence of André Gide, and he was mercilessly condemned and attacked.Breton, with the poet behind his back, made for a powerful counterattack to those attacks.Breton's above criticism of the poet is incomparable with the vicious attacks the poet has suffered from others. Here's the thing.One day, Pierre Levedi, the reckless man, found Adrienne Meunier and said to her: "Dear Adrienne, Mr. Gide insists on listening to my poems with you, can you Would you like to lend me your bookstore?" Since Adrienne Meunier often organizes such events, she readily agreed to his request.So she invited her friends: Leon-Paul Falger, Paul Leotto, Max Jacobs, Eric Satie... After the above-mentioned writers had read their works, all Participants were invited to have some refreshments: port wine from Portugal with sandwiches and sweets…

With the consent of the female owner of the bookstore, the poet Levedi went to Andre Gide's house. He said to Mr. Gide respectfully: "Dear master, Miss Meunier asked me to tell you that she is eager to Let me read my poem "The Cape of Good Hope" in your presence." "Well, it's a deal." Gide replied. In May 1917, Jean Cocteau published a poem "Snack Restaurant" in the magazine "SIC" No. 17.This work has caused some rumors.Not because of the poor literary quality of the poems, but because of the acronyms they contain: the first letters of each line combine to form an incantation for the president of the magazine.Cocteau denied that he had written the poem.At one point it was attributed to Mei Jingqi, Varnaud and a few others, but the author of the playful poem was Théodore Vracelle, a close friend of André Breton.

Adrienne Meunier was not only a bookstore owner, librarian and organizer of poetry readings, but also a publisher.She published several books, one of which was a famous book by James Joyce.She published the French edition of the masterpiece.The original English version of the work was published by Adriana's friend Sylvia Beach. Sylvia Beach is an American who loves France. Her father is a priest.She was able to find the bookstore at 7 Rue Odeon after reading an advertisement in the magazine Poetry and Prose.With the purpose of buying this bookstore, she immediately came to No. 7 Odeon Street.However, following the advice and support of Adrienne Meunier, Sylvia Beach opened her own bookshop on Rue du Potten: Sarkespier & Co.Two years later, she moved to 12 Rue Odéon, opposite her friend's friend's bookstore.

American writers who came to Paris after World War I chose to live in Sylvia Beach's home.Her bookstore became the meeting point, the drop-off point for the mail and the first place visited by scholars from across the Atlantic.Among these literati and scholars, there is the American writer Hemingway.The young lady boss lent him many books on credit, as well as Ezra Pound, who persuaded James Joyce to come to Paris. In 1918, New York's New Literature Publishing House began to publish it, but it stopped publishing in 1920 due to the society's appeal to delete the defects (it was not until 1933 that the US judicial department approved the publication of this masterpiece).The following year, James Joyce completed his book.Sylvia Beach suggested that he publish an English edition of the work in France, and Joyce accepted her suggestion.The work was published on the author's 40th birthday - February 2, 1922. Valéry Larbeau had seen it at the New Literature Publishing House before this.The work so captivated the family-branded apothecary's son that he wrote to Sylvia Beach that he was "beguilingly in love with Ulysses," And Mao proposed to translate several fragments in the work and publish them in the "French New Magazine". In February 1921 he gave a lecture on James Joyce at Adrienne Meunier's bookshop.Both James Joyce and Adrienne Meunier asked him to translate them all.After some twists and turns, it was finally decided that the author of "Barnabooth" should translate the last part of the work, and the remaining parts should be translated by a young man, August Morell, and an English judge, Stuart Gilbert.Valéry Larbeau and James Joyce participated in finalizing the translation. In February 1929, the French version of the book appeared on the shelves of a friend's bookstore.Adrienne Meunier to Paul Claudel (1868-1955), who was the French ambassador to the United States in Washington at the time, a French writer and diplomat who once served as ambassador to Japan, the United States and Belgium.Mail a copy.Ambassador Claudel wrote back to her as follows: Please forgive me for sending you back this book, I think it has some sales value and has benefited me a lot too.I have spent hours in the past reading about this young man by the same author, and that is enough for me. [Excerpt from a letter from Paul Claudel to Adrienne Meunier, May 4, 1929] Two years later, Adrienne Meunier wrote again to Ambassador Paul Claudel.In France, it was learned that there was a bootleg copy of the original book published by Sylvia Beach in the United States, which had been distributed everywhere in the United States.Adrienne Meunier asked the Ambassador to intervene and demand that the relevant US authorities hold the publisher accountable.Claudel rejected her request with various excuses.The final wording of the letter is as follows: Ulysses, as a portrait, is full of the foulest blasphemy, in which one sees the hatred of an apostate, and suffers the torment of a true demon for want of talent. [Excerpt from a letter from Paul Claudel to Adrienne Meunier, December 8, 1931] Paul Claudel lacked the ability to appreciate the modern essence of the richest parts of the novel.He hated James Joyce and was hated by the pioneers of surrealism: Breton, Aragon, Soupeau, Volacaire, and all her friends in an era when defense became a literary battle. Long before the work was published, SIC, North and South, and Dada had accepted the challenge.They later gave way to the magazine "Literature" which was the weapon in the hands of André Breton and his friends. Shameful writers of patriotic poetry, those disgusting Catholic professional writers" were left speechless.Adrienne Meunier soon forgave everything, but never for Breton's attack on her esteemed ambassador.So since then, people have never seen the "Literature" magazine for sale in Odeon Street... However, this was after World War I...