Welcome to Litsy!

In the tagged novel, the editor & publisher Edmond Charlot scrambles in 1943 to find enough paper to print 20,000 copies of a clandestine novel, and ends up using a mix of coloured papers. It‘s a real book, The Silence of the Sea, written by Jean Bruller under the pseudonym Vercors, and it became a symbol of resistance against the German occupation. Have any of you read it?

A sweep of history in dual storylines following the fortunes of a real person—Edmond Charlot—who at age 20 in 1935 started a bookshop & publishing company in Algiers. In 2017, a young Parisian is sent to clear out the premises so it can be made into a donut shop. I loved hearing about all the now-famous writers that Charlot encouraged & published first. I was moved by the horrors of French colonialism & by Charlot‘s passion & his difficulties.

Abdallah pense qu‘on n‘habite pas vraiment les lieux, que ce sont eux qui nous habitent.
[Abdallah thinks that rather than us inhabiting places, it‘s places that inhabit us.]

(I used a photo of my garden for this quote because I‘ve lived in this house for 35 years and it truly feels like it‘s a part of who I am.)

I always notice when a book is printed on nice paper and had, in fact, been admiring the feel of the unusually thick ivory paper in this book (published by Éditions du Seuil, Paris). In this passage, in the voice of Edmond Charlot (a real historic figure) he writes about his paper preferences.