This book had the promise of something much better. It has all the ingredients of what from me would rate a 4 or a 5. The information was there, some of the engaging details were there, but there was far too much other stuff getting in the way to be able to concentrate on Sylvia Beach, an incredible woman who deserves a better biography.

I was familiar with the author, Fitch, having read her book on Julia Child a few years ago. I went back and took a look at what I wrote about that book. I quote myself below so that I don't have to write the exact same thing again because the exact same thing applies here.

"The problem with this book (Appetite for Life, the book about Julia Child) is not Julia's story. The problem is the poor writing (others say bad editing -- but it seems like poor writing to me). All the information is there, but nothing was left out and the information often just reads like a list. Paragraphs do not give you complete thoughts, in fact, sentences often don't follow one from the other so that you have to look back to figure out what the author was trying to say, and finally arrive at the conclusion that there is no way to know.
But finding out about Julia made it all worthwhile. Her passion, her marriage, her friendships, her life, I enjoyed learning about it all."

The same here in the book about Sylvia Beach -- the founder of the lending library and bookshop Shakespeare and Company in Paris; first publisher of James Joyce's Ulysses in English (the book was banned in the U.S. and in Britain); supporter of Joyce in every imaginable way for over a decade; hostess, supporter and good friend to innumerable writers, students, and intellectuals for over forty years; friend and lover of Adrienne Monnier for four decades; protector of German refugees from the French just before the war and Jews from the Germans during it; recipient of the French Legion of Honor -- she was almost lost in interminable lists of names, details that didn't add anything to the subject, sentences that made no sense, and paragraphs that went nowhere.

Although much of the book reads like a list, if you are determined, you are rewarded with anecdotes and great stories and a good sense of what kind of person Beach was. I've added her to my very short list of women heroes. You also learn, in excruciating detail, what a son-of-a-bitch James Joyce was (although Sylvia never said a bad word about him but it does come out in all those details). I think it was worth reading, but, because the subject and information was great but the writing was poor, it didn't rate more than a 3. ( )

Just before reading this book I read a history of New York in the 1920's, roughly the same period as this book. That book suggested the changes that took place in the New York of the Roaring Twenties essentially defined modern America. Before me sits a book which in its own way refutes that hypothesis. Literary Paris of the 1920's encompassed characters as diverse as James Joyce, Andre Gide, Ernest Hemingway, composers like Igor Stravinsky (whose biggest works debuted in the decade before actually), and the Surrealists. Modernism graduated in the 1920's in Paris, not New York. The heroine of this book, Syvia Beach, bend over backward to bring Joyce's epic Ulysses, into the world. And being James Joyce's publisher was no picnic, either. Thank goodness for Beach's tireless efforts to promote her literary friends, and lend some of them a helping hand fleeing the Nazi's after the armistice France signed with Germany. Some owed her their lives. I've walked by the book store in Paris that bears the name of her original shop, Shakespeare & Company. I'm glad I know so much more about the amazing woman who created the original store. ( )

Nice overview that includes the whole cast of characters who were hanging out in Paris at the time. Makes one realize that the 20s were truly an amazing time when the arts were at a crossroad. A time when painting, music (jazz), and writing were all transforming themselves. We have not seen anything like except for maybe the 60s... ( )

Exhaustive almost to the point of tedium, Fitch’s work covers much of the same ground as Shari Benstock’s Women of the Left Bank and the documentary “Paris was a Woman.” Fitch’s approach, however, is the more banal one. Of course Sylvia Beach was dedicated to literature, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah. That should go without saying (rather than saying it over 400 pages). What explains Beach’s work at that particular time and place is better covered by Benstock—women of the Left Bank were drawn to Paris by a freedom that allowed them to take the other women in their lives as their muse. In this case Beach’s muse, Adrienne Monnier, goes a long way toward explaining Shakespeare and Company. This is an aspect that is hastily glossed over by Fitch, who sums this up in one line by saying “Eros channeled into sorority yielded both personal and literary fruits.” “Fruits”…ha! Said with humor, that would be a pun almost worthy of Beach herself; unfortunately, Fitch uses it as a whitewash to cover the likes of Beach and Monnier, Stein and Toklas, Flanner and Solano, Barney and every woman on the face of the earth…take your pick.

If you’re interested in who borrowed what book from Shakespeare and Company on which particular day, and if you delight in hearing just how big of an ass James Joyce was, take a gander at this book. It is thoroughly researched on the day in and day out history of Shakespeare and Company. Direct all other inquiries to Benstock’s Women of the Left Bank and “Paris was a Woman.” (There is also Andrea Weiss’ Paris was a Woman: Portraits form the Left Bank, which I’m guessing, sight unseen, is probably dynamite.) ( )

Earlier this year I read Sylvia Beach’s memoir of the 1920s and 1930s in Paris, [b:Shakespeare and Company|428456|Shakespeare and Company|Sylvia Beach|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328821013s/428456.jpg|417466], named for the English language bookshop and lending library she founded in 1922. I found it an engaging work overall, although my lack of familiarity with less well-known English and American writers of the period and with French literary figures of the early 20th century made some parts of the work significantly less interesting than others. In her memoir, Sylvia Beach comes across as a thoroughly nice woman and I wanted to know more about her.

After reading Beach’s account of her life, it was very interesting to read what others had to say about her in this very detailed biography. It’s not surprising that the author concentrates on Beach’s connection to James Joyce, as this relationship was central to Joyce’s career. Beach went from being a fan of Joyce’s writing to becoming his friend and then to being the first publisher of [b:Ulysses|338798|Ulysses|James Joyce|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1346161221s/338798.jpg|2368224] in book form. She also acted as Joyce’s banker, secretary, publicity agent, manager, real estate agent and nurse. While the improvident and self-centered Joyce was aware of how much he depended on her, he treated her poorly and his selfishness ultimately led to a breach in the relationship. In her memoir Beach merely hints at how exasperated she was by Joyce’s behaviour. The extent to which Joyce took advantage of Beach’s good nature and the growing distress his selfishness caused her is expanded upon in this work, in which Fitch uses sources including parts of her memoir which Beach suppressed.

The work deals not only with the relationship between Beach and Joyce. It goes into Beach’s family background, her relationship with her long-term partner Adrienne Monnier and her interactions with writers including Ernest Hemingway, F Scott Fitgerald, T S Eliot, Ezra Pound, as well as a host of other English American and French writers of the period. The work is structured chronologically, with each chapter covering a period of one or two years until 1944 and concluding with a chapter covering the rest of Beach’s life. To some extent, this means that the work suffers from the same problem as Beach’s memoir. The casual reader who is not totally familiar with the writers and the publications of the period is likely to find some parts of the work much less interesting than others.

That said, this is a great book to read for anyone interested in expatriate writers in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s. Fitch’s prose is clear and accessible. She engages in relatively little speculation and each chapter is extensively annotated. The work is a great evocation of Paris in a time of immense literary creativity and innovation. The work confirms my impression of Sylvia Beach as an intelligent, resourceful, persistent warm and generous woman. She is fascinating to read about and would have been wonderful to know.
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