What a Wonderful Way to Die
12.16.2011 
Our friend George Whitman died Wednesday.
The legendary, incredibly hospitable, and sometimes famously irascible proprietor of the latest incarnation of the Paris bookstore Shakespeare and Company was 98. We've shared our love of the bookstore here on Paris Play twice before.
In these latter years, George had turned over the operations of the store to his supremely competent, beautiful, and equally hospitable daughter, Sylvia Beach Whitman, who expands on her father's gifts by running the bookstore as a business, too, which wasn't really in George's nature.
Here's what we mean: Richard had the pleasure of being George's guest at his "Tumbleweed Hotel," a few times during the eighties, which sometimes entailed running the cash box while George stepped out. George was a wonderful, trusting soul, but Richard suspects that many of the other vagabonds who also found themselves in the position of watching the store may not have been as scrupulously honest.
George estimated that he put up more than 40,000 travelers at the bookstore over the years. In exchange for a bed, George asked them to work an hour or two a day, write a short autobiography and read a book a day.
In a video made by Book TV C-Span 2 in 2002 (when George was 90 years old and Sylvia was 21), the interviewer asked him about Sylvia:
Is she the only child you have?
George: In a way she's the only one. In another way, I have thousands of children all over the world.
Interviewer: She came a little late for you, didn't she?
George: Not for me. I'm just beginning to live. When I'm 100 years old, come and interview me again, I'll tell you some more interesting stories.
His friends recalled that George also had the habit of slipping large denomination franc notes into books as bookmarks, then reshelving them and forgetting where he put them. Since George ran Shakespeare as a lending library, too, people would report finding 50,000 franc bills, which George would pocket, saying, "Oh, I wondered where that went." He was a great lover and patron of literature, and counted among his friends many of the greatest writers of the 20th Century, among them Henry Miller, Samuel Beckett, James Baldwin, Lawrence Durrell, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg and Wiliam Burroughs.
Willis Barnstone read at Shakespeare in August
I met George in the nineties when Richard and I began traveling to Paris together. In his mid-eighties, he was lean and raffishly bohemian, and had the aura of a Merlin. As Sylvia said about her father in the 2005 video, Portrait of a Bookstore as an Old Man, "For me, he's more of a very eccentric wizard."
There are many fine obituaries out there with all of the pertinent "facts," how George was given the mantle and bookstore name by Sylvia Beach, who began the store in November 1919 (and closed it in December 1941 after threats from the occupying Nazis), and who first published James Joyce's Ulysses; how George and his friend Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Lights in San Francisco began their "sister stores" in the early 1950's, etc.; but what moved me was the way his death so beautifully mirrored his life. Sylvia was quoted in the 2002 Book TV interview, "People ask me what is his secret. I think it's that he's surrounded by books, which is his passion. And also surrounded by young people, so it kind of keeps him alive. He's got a buzz for life and so he's--I find him quite inspiring that way."
George Whitman died as he lived, above the bookstore in his tiny apartment facing the Seine and Notre Dame, in a 17th Century building that had once housed the monks of Notre Dame. He died surrounded by books, with his daughter, friends and his dog and cat by his side.
We walked by Thursday to bring Sylvia Whitman a bouquet of roses, and found the store closed, and dozens of people with the same impulse, creating a shrine of flowers, candles, and notes that we all hoped would withstand the near-freezing Paris wind.
George will be buried at Pere-Lachaise, our favorite cemetery, where Balzac, Proust, Oscar Wilde and Apollinaire rest, so we will visit him there, and will continue to greet his spirit at least weekly at Shakespeare, the fiercely independent and magical bookstore where we buy our books.
Reader Comments (30)
I had never heard of George Whitman or his famous bookstore before Paris Play. Thank you for opening the world up for so many of us. What a life, what a father (in so many ways and to so many), what an inspiration. My thoughts and love to anyone feeling his loss. xoj
Dear Jennifer,
You are so welcome! At a Christmas party the other night, I met an American woman who is married to a Frenchman, now lives in Paris and who grew up in Maine. I told her your novel had given me a vivid sense of Maine without my ever having been there. That's the great thing about stories. They bring us the world.
Here is the kind of father George Whitman was: On the 2002 Book TV video about him (link on this post), there is a closeup of a message posted on a Shakespeare and Co wall:
"Dear George, I'm just a poor poet; I only have 3 homes: my mamma's, a hotel room in Morocco, and the bookstore. And in all my life I've only known one father, you. I see you a few weeks every couple of years. It's not much, but it's all I've ever known in that department. You are like everything I've ever heard about fathers. Total mystery. --C. C".
Isn't that a short story in itself? Tells you everything you need to know about all his children all over the world.
Much love,
Kaaren and Richard
Dear Kaaren and Richard,
The latest blog on George Whitman was beautiful and moving. A Paris icon, so eccentric and loved. His life touched so many people. How many of us have "wonderful deaths"? I am definitely working towards that goal, but FIRST, some more wonderful living.
love,
Jane
Dear Jane,
Thank you so much. Yes! George was a Paris icon.
That's the right question: how many people on earth DO have wonderful deaths?
As for creating a wonderful life? THAT, you know how to do.
Much love,
Kaaren & Richard
What a wonderful tribute to such a special man. You're so lucky to have known him. Paris is blessed to have a bookstore with such a long rich heritage. Thanks for the stories about George.
Your posts often bring to mind long-lost memories. I was once reading a book an acquaintance had given me, back in the eighties, on economics, and out fell two gold coins from 1911! The guy was nowhere to be found, and the coins had a value of $1100!
I imagine many a meal was bought because of George's peculiar habit of using money as a bookmark. Just goes to show his priorities - books before money. Amazing that the store has thrived all these years.
I am especially missing you during the holidays. Paris Play is like a little visit from you guys, and I'm thankful you've kept it up! xo
Dear Diane,
The stories about George are myriad and enchanting, we think, because he created an enchanted life.
We love picturing you with coins falling on you from an ECONOMICS book. It just goes to show what happens when you focus on one thing. Your luck was surely an element, too.
You're probably right--not only did George serve regular meals to his "guests," but they likely dined out on the abundance hidden in his books.
We miss you too. But luckily you've continued the writing group long distance, so to my mind, you're making regular visits to Paris.
Much love,
Kaaren & Richard
What a lovely post about a fabulous man! Thanks for sharing and glad you're doing well!
Bisous,
Christine
Merci, chère amie:
Wasn't his a life well-lived, to the very, very, very end? We all wish for the same. See you here soon?
--Richard and Kaaren
Dear comment readers:
We get to post a CORRECTION to a comment. Whee!
One of our favorite humans and Bible fans wrote us to say:
"I went back and re-read my favorite post, the one on George, and in reading through the comments I found that you had credited Yeats with the "angels unawares" quotation. And as a diligent Capricorn, I must correct you, and I know that, as writers, you will understand.
"The quote is originally from the book of Hebrews in the New Testament, possibly written by Paul:
'Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.'"
Our reader is right! George attributed this variant quote to Yeats.
We sent her back this missive:
"We stand by our quote, as faithfully as the New York Times did: <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/21/pageoneplus/corrections-december-21.html>
Thank you, faithful reader."
We also were unaware that McCartney had stuff in the Bible, but you live and learn.
I wanted to share my story about George, who I met in 1972. I wrote this three years ago, and recently re-read it it honor of his passing:
<http://winsloweliot.com/2009/09/shakespeare-co-and-a-tribute-to-george-whitman/>.
He remains such a vivid angel in my heart and mind, and although his adage "Never be inhospitable to strangers lest they be angels in disguise," was how he welcomed me into his world, I always regarded him and continue to regard him as MY angel.
With love to both of you,
Winslow Eliot