The Elegant Variation: AU REVOIR, LIBRAIRIE DE FRANCE

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March 07, 2009

AU REVOIR, LIBRAIRIE DE FRANCE

As promised, I braved some nasty New York winter cold last Friday and headed up to Rockefeller Center to pay last respects to my beloved Librairie de France, which is closing this year after 73 years. (The store's rent has skyrocketed from $360,000 a year to $1,000,000.)

Regular TEV readers will already know that it was a longtime family tradition during my childhood that on each birthday, my mother would take me into Manhattan to add a new Tintin title to my collection. My first Tintin adventure - Destination Moon - was given to me for my tenth birthday, and bought from LdF. (It's a two-parter, incidentally, with a cliffhanger ending, and I was left to wait a year to find out what happened. Agony.)

It was quite sad to wander the denuded shelves, the remaining books marked to fire sale prices. Several shelves were labelled "Do Not Touch - Not Priced Yet", books that are sure to come on sale before the doors close in September.

Of course, I bought a number of books, and my farewell collection is pictured below:

The Tintin book is a French edition of my favorite of the series, known in English as The Calculus Affair; it seemed an essential purchase. The middle row of books are bilingual editions, which I've always enjoyed using as study and practice guides. And the bottom row consists of some French-only sentimental favorites.

Something I'd forgotten, but was reminded of by a display of special books for sale on the first floor, was that the bookstore actually published a number of French authors during World War II, when they were unable to be published under the Occupation - Saint-Exupery among them.

If you're a devotee of French literature, or if you just find yourself up around Rockefeller Center, do try to stop in and say au revoir and merci before September ...

Posted at 02:10 PM in Personal | Permalink

Comments

Merde

Posted by: John Shannon | March 07, 2009 at 04:11 PM

This is so sad. It was the friendliest place for me to go to when I first moved here from Paris 15 years ago. Quel dommage...

Posted by: jacqueline azria-palombo | March 14, 2009 at 05:56 PM

In the Thirties, I used to visit the Librairie de France every few weeks and buy Larousse classics and other books of a similar low price. It was a favorit rendevous and I am sad to see it ago, especially since I was just going to ask whether they could recommend a comprehensive one volume edition of Maupassant's contes et nouvelles. Let me thank the bookshop for existing and furthering my education. David Braybroooke

Posted by: David Braybrooke | March 27, 2009 at 07:31 PM

We spoke with the owner, Emanuel Molho, who told us a bit about the bookstore’s history and his plans for the near future, and also a bit with his son, Brian, a representative of the third generation. Go to www.enlightenmenyc.com to check the video.

Posted by: Jonathan | September 28, 2009 at 05:23 PM

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The Elegant Variation is "Fowler’s (1926, 1965) term for the inept writer’s overstrained efforts at freshness or vividness of expression. Prose guilty of elegant variation calls attention to itself and doesn’t permit its ideas to seem naturally clear. It typically seeks fancy new words for familiar things, and it scrambles for synonyms in order to avoid at all costs repeating a word, even though repetition might be the natural, normal thing to do: The audience had a certain bovine placidity, instead of The audience was as placid as cows. Elegant variation is often the rock, and a stereotype, a cliché, or a tired metaphor the hard place between which inexperienced or foolish writers come to grief. The familiar middle ground in treating these homely topics is almost always the safest. In untrained or unrestrained hands, a thesaurus can be dangerous."

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The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

March 07, 2009

AU REVOIR, LIBRAIRIE DE FRANCE

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MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog. A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog "Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

March 07, 2009

AU REVOIR, LIBRAIRIE DE FRANCE

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE: Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism