The Prince of Parkview

Written in August 2023.

Mark Inman runs the enigmatically named bookshop The Old Limpopo Curiosity Shop. A saying comes to mind whenever I see the sign. ‘Be careful what you name your pet dog; he might just adopt that personality’ – be it a German Shepherd named Kaiser or a cat called Napoleon. Similarly, Inman’s shop is just what its name implies – a curiosity shop! And, curious and curiouser, it’s not actually located in Limpopo, but in the lush green heart of Johannesburg’s Parkview. 

In it, you’ll find objets d’art, first editions, book presses, nude photos from Scope magazine and, locked in a glass display cabinet, there might even be a first edition of  Sir James Percy Fitzpatrick’s 1907 classic, Jock of The Bushveld. Poor lighting on disorganised bookshelves adds to the mystique. I use the light of my mobile phone to home in on items of interest. And watch out for the discarded packaging material on the floor. Visiting this shop must be viewed as an adventure, not an exercise in Amazon-style book-buying efficiency.

Unlike Collectors Treasury, near Maboneng, which stocks a staggering two million books, this is a small space, which doesn’t allow Inman the luxury of being able to wait for customers to call in. No, Inman’s low-mark-up, high-turnover business model is to place particular items with particular clients. He keeps a massive mental database of his clients’ interests and wants, and leverages technology by WhatsApping customers with his latest finds.

In the trade, he’s known as ‘The Prince of Parkview’. This reference is, in part, due to his prime location on Tyrone Avenue, ground zero for his target market. In the highly sought-after neighbourhood of Parkview, there is no shortage of common-or-garden-variety lecturers, professionals and well-off retirees. 

Born in West Germany and then growing up in Hong Kong, Inman washed up on the dusty mine dumps of Johannesburg in his early twenties. He did time as a doorman at the Summit Club in the notoriously colourful Hillbrow and his tough-guy stature has never left him. One could be mistaken for thinking that Inman is the boss of some underworld cartel, like a cigarette-smuggling mafia. These concocted credentials have endowed him with the necessary Joburg street cred. To some, he may sound like an accented foreigner, but Inman is very much a son of the multicultural mega-city of Johannesburg, which, from its inception, has always thrived on the idiosyncrasies of its foreign-born citizens.

I once witnessed an antique furniture dealer, disrespect Inman. Like a Komodo dragon, Inman’s face flushed crimson as he barked, ‘Fuck Off! JUST FUCK OFF’ to the cretin from a lower social order who had dared to crawl out his cage. It bears saying that there is most certainly a hierarchy in the antique trade. Booksellers are of course at the top, then art dealers, possibly next, vintage jewellery dealers and so on. But to Inman, the easiest of the trades is that of antique furniture dealing. He might actually have jibed, ‘Does one even need to be literate to master that trade?’ Like one-upmanship among primates, this posturing dynamic never ends. We love to know our place in society.

Rhino-like, Inman walks with purpose. I imagine that his sight might be as bad as a rhino’s, but his sense of smell for sniffing out rare books is superb. Like a truffle hound, he has found everything from letters by Cape commanders to a first edition of  William Cornwallis Harris’s magnificent Portraits of the Game and Wild Animals of Southern Africa (1840).

Inman is a book or two taller than six foot and almost as wide. He certainly has presence. One can see him chewing away as he contemplates a book, always held up close to his face – so that he can smell it, you see. His choice of clothing is strictly jacket and tie, long flannel trousers and polished shoes. In an age in which a classic sense of style is dwindling, Inman maintains the standard for the book trade. I’ll let you in on a secret… Each of the vast range of silk ties that Inman wears was bought for R15! They were all purchased from various Northern-suburb charity shops. Forget Brakpan or Germiston – one never finds a designer tie there! How do I know this? Well, my collection of 50+ ties was also thrifted.

The Prince of Parkview is generous with his bookish stories and anecdotes. He loves the drama of a story and sells a book by being the author incarnate – only better. Mark can tell a Hemingway story without the fluff; he masterfully discards all that detritus that authors often use as fillers just because publishers back in the day wouldn’t print a 20,000-word book. One can just imagine the banal small talk in the publisher’s office. ‘Who’s going to buy this thin book?’ or ‘The printing costs for 20,000 words or 40,000 words is practically the same. Hemingway, just fill this skinny thing out a bit!’

I remember discussing A Farewell to Arms with Inman and our conclusion was that if only Hemingway had cropped the work down to half its length, it would have been more of a masterpiece than it already is. Inman has the ability to step in where Hemingway stepped down and tell that epic tale in a way that it deserves! *

At the annual Rand Club Book Fair, Inman usually gives a 20-minute talk. The Armoury, as the room is called, is always packed out. People listen attentively, hanging onto his every word. He is very much the puppeteer.

‘This is a first printing in English of a Martin Luther Bible’, he once declared, as if he were holding a holy relic.

Afterwards, I asked: ‘Church – what were you doing in church, Mark? I thought you were an Atheist?’

‘I am, but my family is very religious. Hoc est corpus.’ ‘This is my body’ – Inman blessed me with a parody of the words of Christ, usually reiterated during the Roman Catholic Eucharist.

‘Yes, it sure can feel like a bunch of hocus pocus,’ I said.

On any given weekday, one might find Inman dining either at The Perfect Cup or Croft and Co. My trips to visit him always centre around this ritual. His transient lunch guests have included the likes of staunch communists, lapsed priests, self-proclaimed magicians and professors of this and that. ‘Boring’ would never be an adjective to describe time spent with Inman. He’s very much a connector. If you have yet to visit The Old Limpopo Curiosity Shop, it’s a Joburg landmark and not to be missed. 

* Yes, yes, my style of writing is intentionally satirical and is meant to be read with tongue firmly in cheek.