So my friend Katie, who is living in Paris for the year, posted this video on a friends wall, and I absolutely love it. It takes place in the bookstore Shakespeare and Company.
(Watch the full video by clicking on that link below)
Spike Jonze: Mourir Auprès de Toi
When I saw this, I thought about That Summer in Paris by Morley Callaghan, a memoir about Morley’s friendships with Hemingway and Fitzgerald in the summer of 1929.. in Paris. I was thinking that Shakespeare and Company was the bookstore that is refers to multiple times. So instead of looking in the book that was right next to me, I googled it.
And I found a blog which cited a bunch of sources on the topic of Paris in the 1920’s. The Phd that has the blog even does presentations on the topic.
So I was pretty sad when I read her annotation of That Summer in Paris, “Morley Callaghan. That Summer in Paris. New York: Coward-McCann, 1963. Callaghan was the timekeeper for the famous Hemingway-Fitzgerald boxing match, and he’s dined out on that story for years. A lovely memoir of a memorable summer.”
I underlined all the things that are wrong in that paragraph. Callaghan and Hemingway were the ones boxing together and they did so quiet often. Fitzgerald only accompanied them once as a timekeeper (and not a really good one.) I do have to agree that it is a lovely memoir on a memorable summer.
Thank you for finding my blog and catching me out. I did only say ‘match,’ not ‘matches.’ I was commenting on a book I had read a while before and should have double fact-checked. Callaghan was not in the group of writers I focused on for my Ph.D., so the error wouldn’t have affected my research or results. WIll put a link to your blog on mine, as you obviously are a stickler for detail as I am,
And it is ‘quite often’ not ‘quiet often.’
Sorry Kathleen, I didn’t mean to offend. I was just upset that Morley wasn’t getting the proper recognition he deserves. And I will learn how to spell one of these days. Oops.
No problem-o. You follow me and I’ll follow you…