Thursday, November 20, 2003

The first Frenchman to purchase a copy
of Ulysses was Andre Gide. (Actually, by
purchase, I mean fill in an order blank at
Shakespeare and Co to receive a copy of
the book when it arrived. ) The first
American: Ernest Hemingway, one of
Sylvia Beach’s best customers. Later
that same day, Ezra Pound personally
delivered a subscription blank filled in by
W.B. Yeats and put in his order.

Imagine Andre Gide, Ernest Hemingway
and Ezra Pound all coming in your book-
store on the same day. That’s what I call
a good day at work.

Monday, November 17, 2003

Have just started to read “Girls Lean Back
Everywhere” by Edward de Grazia and
have a couple of nice quotes to share
with you. Ezra Pound referred to the last
chapter of Ulysses as “Joyce’s Mollylogue”.

T.S. Eliot agreed with Pound that it was
one of the best things Joyce had ever done
and wondered how anyone could ever write
again “after the immense prodigy of that
last chapter”. Eliot also said, “I wish, for my
sake, that I had not read it.”

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