Saturday, January 19, 2002
Nothing lasts forever, except books - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER -- Heretofore, I had not heard of Helene Hanff. A few years ago, somewhere on the Internet I caught a little blurb about a movie called 84, Charing Cross Road. A most peculiar movie title I thought, learning that it starred Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins, I put it on a ‘to watch’ list of mine. Oddly enough flipping for something to watch an idle evening a while back, I saw that one of the endless digital channels was playing 84 Charing Cross Road. Making sure it was the right film, I hit the little ‘info’ key on the remote and up popped a little description of the picture and its players.
I managed to get to the picture at its start and watched the Oscar-winning Bancroft and Hopkins act in a film that they were both integral too, but really had no scenes together. This is a movie I liked because it had a bit of Britain in it, as any close friends know that I’m on bent soaking anything British as of late. The story’s about Helene Hanff, a sort of writer in New York, chain smoking incessantly with that ‘tell it like it is,’ ‘take no nonsense’ demeanour. She loves books, another shared interest of mine, except the books she’s interested in are English literary stuff like Chauser or practically anything Elizabethan. Trying to find out-of-print gems, she writes an outfit called Marks & Co. on -- oddly enough -- 84, Charing Cross Road in London. The year is 1949 and while encouraged not to send cash, she does. The letters she writes Marks & Co. are intercepted and responded to by one F.P.D., a most British of blokes you’ll ever get who’s a clerk at the bookseller. Over time Helene’s frank and sometimes curt requests entertain Frank Doel, who’s F.P.D., and there begins a 20-year correspondence between Doel and Hanff.
Hanff herself a struggling author, buys up rarities of literature that Doel dutifully mails over the pond. The movie plays this out and it got me thinking about the characters. They say the sign of a good movie is where the viewer, long after the movie’s finished, cares about the characters. Long after the movie 84 Charing Cross Road ended, I knew I cared about the indomitable broad played by Bancroft and the characters played by Hopkins and Judi Dench. So I took out of the library the book, 84, Charing Cross Road. The book happens to be a printing of the actual correspondence between Hanff and Doel, who really did exist. Along with their thread are letters mailed by other workers at Marks’ and even Doel’s wife, Nora. The bookseller and book buyer’s relationship is solidified. Both love books and the former does everything he can to provide the latter with what she’s wanting to buy. Profit and cost seem to not worry true book lovers. I can attest to that.
84, Charing Cross Road, the book, is a slim volume of letters. Other than Anne Bancroft’s own introduction in the 25th anniversary print, there’s no dialogue nor any commentary. All that are in this tome are the letters and wonderful letters they are. Having seen the movie first, I must say I understood more what the letters meant, but I think that observation is restricted only to this viewer, and this reader. Generally reading the book and seeing the movie, in whatever order, makes you really care about the people involved all the more.
Remember this is 20 years of correspondence between Hanff, who never ventures to Blighty, and Doel. She lavishes her pen pals with gifts of food delivered through some outfit in the Netherlands and in the time of post-war rationing, the Brits at Marks and Co. relish in fresh egg and bacon. What I liked about the story and why I cared about these characters, least of all they actually did exist, was the kindness both afforded each other. Doel, very well could have been less than courteous to a foreign customer who paid after delivery. And Hanff needn’t have sent gift baskets of rations, even though they were “monstrous cheap”. I guess your sentimental scribbler, just felt comforted by the kindness of these strangers.
I will admit that with an inordinate amount of reading for school to do, I finished 84, Charing Cross Road in about an hour. It’s delightful and it brings the experience of watching the movie -- a movie I truly enjoyed -- full circle. It made me think of, like Helene Hanff, my desire to one day see and feel London. It made me think of the lost art of correspondence and how even in prose we can be closer than ever to friends and even strangers. 84, Charing Cross Road made me realise that nothing lasts for ever. Doel died in 1969, 20 years after his correspondence with Hanff began. Marks & Co. was razed in the early ‘70s, and from Internet research I did, now stands a record shop on 84 Charing Cross Road; though a plaque is erected recognising Marks & Co. and the book by Hanff. Helene Hanff too is dead, dying in 1997.
84, Charing Cross Road made me realise that books are worth more than the price we pay for them. And in the age of Internet, they mean a whole hell of a lot more. I also realised people matter and how in all of us our most human of qualities can be our most endearing.
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An archive of Joseph Planta's previous columns can be found by clicking HERE .