Ulysses

In France there is bravery.

In a week when people all over the US are trying to ban books that they consider offensive, it’s important to understand that this behaviour is neither new nor novel. This week it was Maus that came under attack. 100 years ago, almost to the day, it was one of the twentieth century’s most important novels: James Joyce’s Ulysses.

By most contemporary standards Ulysses is pretty tame. Leaving aside books, there are no end of films and television shows that could be described as more offensive or shocking. Still, one hundred years ago publishers in North America, and in the UK, refused to touch the book.

The publisher that took on that task was a small Paris bookshop called Shakespeare and Company. They described that event in an email this week to customers - and yes, I am one.

One hundred years ago, on 2 February 1922, Sylvia Beach, the founder of the first Shakespeare and Company, did what no one else dared: she published James Joyce’s masterwork, Ulysses, and thus ushered in modern literature as we know it.

What kind of woman was Sylvia Beach?

Beach’s bookstore was open until 1941, when the Germans occupied Paris. One day that December, a Nazi officer entered her store and demanded Beach’s last copy of Finnegans Wake. Beach declined to sell him the book. The officer said he would return in the afternoon to confiscate all of Beach’s goods and to close her bookstore. After he left, Beach immediately moved all the shop’s books and belongings to an upstairs apartment. In the end, she would spend six months in an internment camp in Vittel, and her bookshop would never reopen.

The current incarnation of Shakespeare and Company tries to maintain the same standards, and serves as reminder that yes, you can challenge authority, and yes you can do things even when you are told they are impossible.

Do not for one moment disregard the people that want to block you from reading certain books, and, if possible, put your money where your mouth is and actually buy a copy. If you don’t protect your choices, no one else will do it.

Maus

Ulysses

A final note. as I write there are neo-Nazis waving swastika flags in Ottawa, the capital city of Canada, alleging that their protest is about vaccines when it’s obvious to everyone that it’s really about racism.

And then they bullied a soup-kitchen into giving them a free meal….