kenny5Des Kenny, a member of the Kenny bookselling family in Galway, is one of the four sons and two daughters of Des and Maureen Kenny, who opened their first bookshop in 1940. Educated in Coláiste Iognáid, Gaillimh, University College, Galway and the Sorbonne, Paris, he has been a bookseller, real and virtual, all his working life. He and his wife Anne have four grown-up children and live in Salthill, Galway.

On Reading in Pubs

By Des Kenny

November 1970 found me living alone in a “Chambre de Bonne” on the 7th floor building on the Boulevard St. Germain in Paris. The facade of the building was elegant and suggested wealth and opulence. My entrance to the room, however, was through a back door in the courtyard having passed through a short hallway, under the suspicious eyes of the ever vigilant, ever present concierge and up seven flights of stairs. The bit of carpet that covered the steps petered out miserably on the fifth floor. It was my first time away from a happy, warm and loving home atmosphere and I reacted badly to it. My French was not good and I found it difficult to make contacts or friends. I wandered the streets Paris, alone, almost afraid to speak in case my right to be there would be challenged or that I would be laughed at. In fact, the only place I felt a small degree of comfort was perusing the Boquinistes that stretched a,long the banks of the Seine or in the second hand bookshops that dotted the area around the Rue de Bac and the Rue de Seine.

Despite this intense loneliness and feeling of alienation, I resisted returning to my room, especially in the evening. However lonely it was on the streets of Paris, it was a lot lonelier after I had climbed those 88 steps and entered the cell-like room. I soon became aware of the remarkable French ability to sit for more than an hour with just one of miniscule cup of Expresso coffee a lethal (to me) beverage unknown to Pre-Europe Ireland. You were warm, there was an artificial sense of belonging to the “Life” scurrying around you, it cut into the edge of the loneliness and you could read undisturbed to your heart’s content.

I never left my room, then, without a book. I quickly got to know the cafés where the patron’s patience and forbearance allowed me to extend my presence to two or three hours and, in these cafés I steadily read my way through the short stories of Guy de Maupassant and the 20 Rougon Maquart novels of Émile Zola. It is no surprise that Paris has always had a curious nineteenth century flavour for me.

This form of relaxation, reading in pubs, has remained with me to this day. There is nothing I love more than to find a well-lit quiet corner in a comfortable pub and, over a few pints, lose myself in the world of whatever goo book I happen to be reading at that moment. To find a quiet corner is increasingly difficult as most publicans (or dare I say it with the increasing franchises that now operate in our country nowadays most pub managers) wish to fill every corner of their establishment with the loudest and most inane noise possible. Again, well lit corners are also becoming something of a rarity. As with the quiet corner, more and more governors (to give them their English title) seem to be of the opinion that any light outside the perimeters of the bar counter would not only cause him untold hardship but would insult the sensibilities of his customers. In fact, he is convinced that his pub would earn a most dubious reputation should people actually see each other (not to mind the printed word) within the outer reaches of the premises.

All these are but minor obstacles compared to the fact that the pub going Irish do not have the same attitude to the sole book reader as do the café going French. Now, newspapers would appear to have Carte Blanche. You can burst your way onto a crowded pub counter, spread out the pages of the Financial Times, the Daly Star or Penthouse and people will neatly move aside, take their drinks off the bar, bunch close and even uncomfortably closer together to allow the intruder greater privacy in his or her most scared of tasks, the perusal of the paper. The newspaper reader can actually shove a newspaper in your face and be judged not to have insulted you. In fact, should you object in any way whatsoever is to commit a grievous sacrilege! The most serious and unforgiveable of all sins, of course, is to disturb the person who is perusing the racing pages. God and Allah forbid!

The Book Reader, on the other hand is the outcast of Irish pub society. Because of this and the fact that the Reader favours the well lit corner sets he or she up as a prime target for that most awful of animals, the Pub Bore. The Book Reader to him (for alas, this creature is far more often of the male kind) is the most delectable of victims. The Reader is alone, talking to nobody, defences are down. The Pub Bore will allow the victim to settle in, and just as he or she is becoming comfortable, will move.

Sometimes the approach is subtle: “That looks like a most interesting volume you are reading” Usually the Reader’s antennae will pick up the slightly raised West Brit accent and, by totally ignoring the approach, sometimes manages to get rid of the pest. Generally though, though, he or she is not so lucky. The Pub Bore is rather inclined to be more aggressive and will even go so far, without as much as a bye your leave as snatch the offending book from the reader. “Ah Yes! I remember reading this tome when I was but fourteen”. Nailed! The hapless reader is now subjected to the literary and cultural autobiography of his tormentor and is brought through a whole series of books that must be read that must be read in order to gain the superior intellectual his unwanted tormentor has so obviously gained until, in abject terror, he or she flees sometimes even leaving the precious book behind.

Recently I had an approach that not only bucked the trend, but can only be described as original. There I was, as I thought, in a safe corner nicely settled into a wonderful book with the counter and the rest of the pub to my right and so I was able to watch any unwanted approach, when all of a sudden the attack came from the right flank:

“You’re into the books are you? Fair play to ye! Jay, you’ll never be bored.”

Tell me about it, I thought to myself.

“You know I used to read once myself too”, the attack continued relentless, “it was great. Only good books now, none of your trash for me, once you started it you had to keep going until you finished it. Do you read much?”

Before I had time to answer, “There was a time when my head wasn’t out of one. You’d find me reading anywhere even up on the tractor! I haven’t read for years. You know one thing or another. I remember one great book though. The name on it now escapes me but it had everything in it, all about pisherogues and the like, you know the things that could happen ye!”.

Curious now, (“My, my, my”, said the spider to the fly), I asked could he remember anything at all about it

“Sure how could I? Wasn’t it near thirty year ago since I read it! I learnt great things from it though. Do you know the worst thing that could happen ye”, and he drew himself back with an air if triumph, “That ye’ld be buried in another man’s grave. Shure, Jaysus! You’d never sleep aisey!

And he left.

Conversation 1 Reading 0, Games Set and Match!