Time Was Soft There: A Paris Sojourn at Shakespeare & Co. [Paperback]

Jeremy Mercer (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 19, 2006

Wandering through Paris's Left Bank one day, poor and unemployed, Canadian reporter Jeremy Mercer ducked into a little bookstore called Shakespeare & Co. Mercer bought a book, and the staff invited him up for tea. Within weeks, he was living above the store, working for the proprietor, George Whitman, patron saint of the city's down-and-out writers, and immersing himself in the love affairs and low-down watering holes of the shop's makeshift staff. Time Was Soft There is the story of a journey down a literary rabbit hole in the shadow of Notre Dame, to a place where a hidden bohemia still thrives.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Mercer explains his memoir's title this way: "Hard time goes slowly and painfully and leaves a man bitter.... Time at Shakespeare and Company was as soft as anything I'd ever felt." His graceful narrative follows struggling writers as they live on potato soup and dreams at Paris's famous expatriate bookshop. Mercer, a former Ottowa Citizen crime reporter, finds himself at Shakespeare one gloomy Parisian day in 1999, in his late 20s, with not much money and no plans for the future, trying to evade some angry newspaper sources back home. With little fanfare, he is taken into the store by its owner, George Whitman, a kindly yet scatterbrained man, who explains, "I run a socialist utopia that masquerades as a bookstore." Mercer begins working as an eager unpaid employee, running errands, acting as a referee between the writers who hang out there and ringing up sales (it's no B&N superstore: when Mercer asks where the credit card machine is, he's told, "Dude, Shakespeare and Company doesn't even have a telephone. Of course we don't take credit cards"). Mercer portrays the assorted characters and their adventures with an eye for detail and a wry sense of humor. Francophile book lovers will enjoy his finely crafted memoir.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From The New Yorker

As a crime reporter in Canada, Mercer received a threatening call after naming an underworld source in a book. Fearing for his life, he quit his job and flew to Paris. As his funds dwindled, he stumbled upon Shakespeare and Co., a small bookstore on the Left Bank across from Notre-Dame, and spent nine months living rent-free in the upstairs library, along with a rotating cast of backpackers and aspiring writers. Despite Mercer's predilection for melodramatic flourishes, the memoir ably captures a romanticized version of the bum's life, with elaborate schemes to scrape up money (like buying designer handbags on behalf of Asian tourists) and nights spent drinking wine and swapping stories. But the real star is the eccentric and charming bookstore proprietor, George Whitman, who remarks, after losing a stack of two-hundred-franc notes to nest-building mice, "At least it's not the books."
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Picador; First Edition edition (September 19, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312347405
• ISBN-13: 978-0312347406
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #722,939 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 43 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Charming Memoir of a Modern-Day Paris Bohemian January 2, 2006

By Amy Senk VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Time Was Soft There is a charming memoir that reads like an exceptional novel. It tells the story of a jaded, hard-drinking Canadian cops reporter who must flee after a betrayed source issues threats.

Mercer ends up in Paris to finish a college language requirement. Then, just as he is running out of money, he spots the Shakespeare & Company bookshop during a downpour. He slips inside for a peek, and immediately finds friends, a home, a way of life that is seductive and artistic and romantic all at once.

The story does read like fiction from another era. Mercer's writing is so smooth and honest, and his story is incredible. He captures a very magical place in a magical city. Anyone who loves to get lost in bookstores will savor this book.

There is a fair amount of history in the story, which gives the book a spine. He explains the family background of the bookshop owner, his political leanings, his ties to the City Lights bookstore in San Francisco.

Mercer also does a wonderful job of showing the downside to such a romantic and crazy life choice. Giving up everything in order to live in a famous book store in a famous city sounds wonderful, but there are filthy toilets and hunger pangs and thieves and heartbreak, too.

This is an honest and well-written book about a fascinating subject. Time Was Soft There will surely catch the fancy of anyone who loves books and writers.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Romance and Reality in Literary Paris December 11, 2005

By Paris fan

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

In this memoir of his stay at Shakespeare & Co., Jeremy Mercer skillfully uses his talents as an extraordinary writer-storyteller. He captures the Romantic notions of all who go (or long to go) to Paris to experience the mythical pasts of the writers and artists who have flocked there for hundreds of years, and balances these notions with the often harsh realities of living the life of the starving artist. These experiences are couched in the Romantic life of George Whitman, the bookstore's founder, who in his free-wheeling life as an ex-patriate with all of its ups and downs, must ultimately face the realities of life as an aging rebel, grappling with the future of his haven - the Shakespeare & Co. bookstore.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Amazing bookstore, unappealing author. January 28, 2008

By Charlie M

Format:Paperback

Jeremy Mercer's biographical description of Paris's Shakespeare & Company offers an amazing insight into the bookstore which accepts struggling travelers (who have a knack for writing... or at least try) by offering them a place to stay for as long as necessary (5 years for one visitor). But perhaps the most interesting aspect of this bookstore is its eccentric owner George Whitman, a man who regards money with disdain, sets fire to his hair in order to give it a trim, and decrees the bookstore's motto to be `Be kind to strangers, lest they're angels in disguise'.

Shakespeare & Company was originally a bookstore owned by Sylvia Beach, running from 1919 to 1941, attracting such literary heavyweights like Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce and F. Scott Fitzgerald. After being closed (with one rumor being that it was shut down when Ms Beach refused to sell the last copy of `Finnegan's Wake' to an occupying Nazi officer), a decade late George Whitman opened his own, similar bookstore in Paris under the name `Le Minstal'. It would eventually adopt the Shakespeare & Co. name, and would become renowned for its open door policy to visitors; its deep rooted communist ideals; its run-ins with the government; its cluttered yet enchanting makeup; and its undeniable charm and allure that has attracted so many thousands of visitors.

Into this world enters Jeremy Mercer, a Canadian crime-writer whose open honesty about his true character in the opening chapters immediately alienates the reader, who is likely to be somewhat put off by Mercer's admitted taste for the violence he witnesses whilst reporting.... Mercer is by no means a dark and unlikable character, but his opening few chapters present him as such, with the added drawback of portraying him as an innocent young man wanting to get his hands dirty. Honestly, the reader has to struggle to persevere through this start (I not only found this, but so to did several people who also read it). But as the reader reads on about this charming bookstore and peculiar owner, Mercer finds his rhythm and is able to sustain the reader's interest.

From the moment of his discovery of the bookstore, Mercer reveals a world that seems utterly unbelievable at times. Whilst it may have appeared to be a cluttered, yet cult bookstore from the surface, the reality awaiting Mercer is one which at times appears to be sheer madness. From the employee toilet being surrounded by stacks of books (which unfortunately suffer from ungraceful sprayback), a resident locking himself in his room day and night to escape imminent eviction, to tea party's featuring guests more likely to come from a Roald Dahl fantasy, the bookstore constantly lives up to its famous and offbeat name. Ultimately the numerous misadventures and anecdotes serves to incite an intense desire on the reader's behalf to go and discover this world themselves, with the firsthand account of Shakespeare & Co. appearing almost unbelievable.

I give the book 3 stars yet this is more of a compromise. For its insight into the enchanting world of Shakespeare and Co., I would say it's 4/4.5 stars, yet for the tabloid style writing and the author's general appeal to the reader, I would say it's 1.5/2 stars. `Time Was Soft There' is however well worth the read, for it tells the tale of a bookstore inhabited by such an array of odd individuals that one can hardly believe that it is a memoir and not fiction. It makes quite easy reading (one can race through it fairly quickly), and once the hurdle of the introductory opening chapters is finished, you are able to enjoy the extraordinary tales of Shakespeare & Co., and its eccentric owner. Read more ›

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Vivid, witty and Engrossing November 10, 2005

By E. Sutton

Format:Hardcover

With wry wit, self-deprecation and profound humanity, Jeremy Mercer takes us into the unique world that is Shakespeare & Co on the Left Bank of Paris. It's a warts and all look at the scraggly, literate residents, and an honest and loving portrait of the store's octegnarian owner, George Whitman, who emerges as a classic flawed hero, a man who built an instituion on a quixotic dream and little cash. When you finish this book, you will feel like you lived in the store yourself for a while.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a Winner! January 29, 2006

By Robert F. Burgess

Format:Hardcover

Reading about life inside Paris' Shakespeare and Company was a hoot. I laughed out loud so many times I thought the neighbors would complain. I stopped reading the book for a week five pages from the end because I didn't want it to end. Jeremy nailed the character of George Bates Whitman not to mention all the other delightful characters in that toppling pile of old books that teeters on God knows what alongside the Seine.

Two years before Jeremy I interviewed George for my memoir of Hemingway. When I asked him to comb down his wild hair for a photograph, he looked at me in shock and said he hadn't used a comb for years. When he had to, he told me,he used a fork. I combed his hair with mine and shot the picture.

Now, thanks to Time Was Soft There, I learned how George got a haircut...by burning it off! Thank God we didn't get to that!

This book is a pure delight from cover to cover and I am sending a copy to an old WW2 Army buddy who was with me for that interview. I know he will laugh himself into the funny farm from reading it because his self-control is not as good as mine.

Robert F. Burgess