James Joyce's Letters to Sylvia Beach edited by Melissa Banta and Oscar A.Silverman

James Joyce's Letters to Sylvia Beach edited by Melissa Banta and Oscar A.Silverman  published years ago by Plantin Paperbacks interested me a lot.

Weeks ago I read and reviewed The Letters of Sylvia Beach published by Columbia University Press and I thought all thrilled and happy at the wonderful possibility of reading also the letters written by James Joyce to her.

After all, of all the writers who marked the most the history of the first Shakespeare and Company, the American bookshop located in Paris and opened by Sylvia Beach on 1919 Joyce has been the most prominent one;  the world of Beach and her assistants rotated massively, reading this book is pretty clear, on James Joyce's necessities.

Sylvia Beach met James Joyce at the house of common friends and it was an artistic devotion crush at first sight; she fell enchanted by this distant hero she still didn't know.
Sylvia understood immediately that the most urgent problem for Joyce was the publication of the Ulysses. Sylvia Beach has great contacts and she discovered a way for giving at the print this book, spreading the news in the USA, where this book was banned.

Shakespeare and Company became a publishing house.

Problems were many, and later Beach discovered that maybe there wasn't any kind of contract, serious and legal with Joyce. You will see: the story is pretty complicated.

So, while Beach continued to support in any possible ways his favorite writer, James at the end signed with the American Random House for a stellar sum of money.

These letters go from 1921 to 1940.
I thought that these ones considering the great friendship felt by Beach for Joyce would have been beautiful letters.
I imagined the writing-style of Joyce, pretty informal and warm. Sylvia Beach's devotion for James Joyce has been remarkable and impressive.

Forget it: I can tell you that, at first when I started to read these letters, I was shocked.

These letters are pretty boring, cold, and distant; miss Beach is treated as a secretary, every letter written without any kind of sentiment and in a formal way, there is never an affectionate touch in the words used by Joyce regarding her and her life.
When he asks something about the private life of Beach is just for later, introducing the new favors that he will ask her and because he can't does differently. I have had this impression.

In these letters you find a constant story of lack of money and continuous requests to Beach.
Beach as you will read helped James Joyce financially a lot; she will sort out problems for publishing his works, not just the Ulysses; you will read of continuous requests of books that Joyce wanted to see; of his health's problems and also there Sylvia Beach was extremely helpful; also when Joyce was not anymore involved in Beach's life, he sent her two letters dated 1940 continuing to treat her as if she would have been the secretary.
Impressions that a person have of another one can't be removed with simplicity.

The richness of character, joy, enthusiasm that I discovered reading with joy miss Beach's letters, she was a voracious letter-writer for sure, in this book can't be found anywhere and it is sad because this lady changed in better the destiny of this writer, one of the most prominent ones of the XX century.

Sylvia Beach also when not anymore young loved to tell the story of her fabulous meeting with James Joyce and what she did for him. Genuinely passionate and a good person, she lived in frugality; legend wants that she didn't want to sell at a German Nazi officer a copy of Finnegans Wake by James Joyce on 1941 deciding of putting away all her beloved books and closing the doors and her adventures of her bookshop Shakespeare and Company forever. 

This book will help you to understand closely, to my point of view, the character of James Joyce but also the dedication of a lady, Sylvia Beach who didn't refuse any kind of favors at this writer per years, living with enthusiasm this adventure started with him and for him, creating the success of this writer.

Anna Maria Polidori