Of Books, Movies and People Who Make an Impact
November 25, 2009
My daughter is a senior in high school. One of her latest assignments is to compare a work of fiction with a film representation of it. She is behind in her work (due to illness) and was irritated by the assignment. She wearily asked her dad for book/film suggestions (she finds adults in general and her father in particular, verbose). Naturally, I had dozens of suggestions. Most of my choices got her eyes rolling, but she agreed (when I assured her that the book was short and the movie in color) to read Conrad’s novel Heart of darkness and watch Coppola’s film Apocalypse now.
I bring this up because mention of Coppola’s film (which I saw upon release and had not seen since) always brings back memories of Anne Chiquoine.
In the 1970s, I worked in a wine store in Santa Barbara. Through my job I became friends with Chuck Henderson, a Gallo salesman who serviced the store. Chuck had a dull job, but lots of outside interests and much more free time than I. He was a literature and film buff and most of our conversations were about books, especially modern fiction. We used to surreptitiously share wine and chat as I worked behind the counter. Often we continued our conversations over Margaritas after I got off work.
One day he loaned me a John Hawkes book: “The Beetle Leg”, which I loved. I had never heard of Hawkes and asked where I could buy more of his books. Chuck sent me to a tiny bookstore in Ventura, owned by Anne Chiquoine. He said her’s was the only store in the state to carry them. He said she had dozens and dozens of books from small publishers which could not be bought in LA of San Francisco.
A few weeks later, I drove to Ventura and found her shop. It had little in the way of window displays and was very cramped inside. It was longer and thinner, but not larger than the display area at Napa Valley Winery Exchange. The interior was entirely filled with revolving wire book racks and each wall was tightly packed also, mostly with paperbacks. One had to weave a path around the wire racks. When I stepped in, the only occupant was a small woman, apparently of late middle age. She stood, loading a wire rack, with her back to me.
When She heard me, she looked over her shoulder and asked tersely, with no warmth or welcome in her voice: “What do you want”. Rather startled, I told her I had been sent by my friend Chuck and that I wanted to track down some John Hawkes books. She turned backed to sorting her books and said, in a neutral voice: “You can stay”.
I looked through the dozen or so racks and was surprised to find but one copy of each book. Customers had to leaf through every section of every rack just to learn what was for sale. What was for sale was remarkable. Anne specialized in small publishing houses and bought only books she was excited about. She could describe any book you asked her about and could minutely criticize the vices or defend the virtues of emerging writers from all over the world. She was the only west coast source for much of her inventory. I later learned that college English departments from Northern California, Oregon and Washington would buy their books from her, making annual safaris down to Ventura to explore the new ones.
The Passions of the Day
One day, while shopping at Anne’s store, I became involved in a conversation with another customer about the just released film “Apocalypse Now”. He had read various pro and con reviews, but had yet to see it. I had gone to opening night (after rereading Heart of Darkness in preparation). I said that it was a remarkable and important movie, and then went on to nit-pick it to pieces. I said, rather emphatically, that it had missed being a great film because Coppola had so filled it with visual “impact” (the word I actually used might have been “distractions”) that the public might miss the message that the darkness (or its potential anyway) lay not in the jungle and in all the “rockets red glare”, but in the hearts of the men who hoped to conquer it. At a pause in this conversation, Anne interjected a comment. She too had been to opening night. She said the she also had some criticisms, but that: “Make no mistake, twenty years from now our complaints will be forgotten and we will be grateful that he has made such a remarkable film”.
I lived in Santa Barbara for over seven years and regularly made the 45 minute drive to Anne Chiquoine books. She introduced me to writers like Alain Robbe-Grillet, Sebastian Japrisot, Kodo Abe, Yukio Mishima and Heinrich Boll. She tracked down five of the six B Traven “Jungle novels” (we could never find an English copy of “Trozas”). She insisted that I buy the first ever reprinting of Ben Hecht’s (banned for 50 years as obscene) Fantazius Mallare novels, which I treasure.
I always thought Anne could smile a bit more and intimidate her customers less. I also came to think that her business profile might work well for a wine store.
After writing this blog, I watched Apocalypse Now and discovered that Anne was right, the essence of the book comes through clearly. I also Googled the name Anne Chiquoine. I learned that she passed away in 2003, leaving over a million dollars (apparently earned prior to the opening of her bookstore) to a college. I also learned that Anne is talked about in a book called: “An Alphabetical Life”, written by a friend who was also in the trade. I can’t wait to read it!
Posted in Uncategorized