I came across Helene Hanff and her 84, Charing Cross Road (Anagrama, 2002) thanks to a comment from a friend, an avid reader of good literature. The book is made up of the rather brief letters that the author sends to some English booksellers who specialise in obtaining second-hand books at reasonable prices, located at the address that gives the book its title. The correspondence goes from 1949 to 1969. Her pen pal is Frank Doel, one of the booksellers who worked in that bookstore, in charge of answering Helen’s orders. A beautiful friendship is born between them. The publication of the letters, after the death of her pen pal, brings this North American writer the success that she had not found until then. The tone of Helen’s letters is casual, fun, playful. Her requests include illustrious classics: Plato, John Donne, the Latin Vulgate, Catullus, Chaucer, John Henry Newman, Jane Austin, Walton, Pepys… A simple correspondence, whose letters have brought me pleasant surprises and more than one smile.
Helene knows what she wants to read. This is indicated by Thomas Simonnet in the book’s postscript: “from 1949, and despite her misfortunes as a playwright, she decides to make up for the years of study she has never been able to take and acquire, without teachers, an authentic classical culture” (p. 124). The books she requests are an example of this orientation in her readings. Latin, Greek or Old English do not discourage her. Likewise, she requests editions of books in their complete versions, no dull anthologies. When she receives a bad edition, she writes to Frank: “and you call this a Pepys diary?” Well, it is not a diary of Pepys (1633-1703, famous diarist), but a miserable collection of FRAGMENTS from Pepys’s diary, the work of a meddlesome editor (…) I will get on with this thing until they find me a real Pepys. THEN I will destroy this monster of a book” (p. 50). Helen has a strong character, enough to ruffle the feathers of her pen pal, who was rather calm and measured.
Book lovers will be familiar with her exclamations of joy at the publication of certain books. Thus, Helen answers Frank: “she says she has a first edition of Newman University for six bucks… and asks me innocently if I want it! Dear Frank, I do want it. I shall not be able to earn a good living. I have never cared much for first editions in themselves… but a first edition of THAT book…! Oh, heavens… I can see it now” (p. 29). More than one person will have their favourites. I have had similar joy with some first editions of books by T. S. Eliot, Christopher Dawson and Víctor Andrés Belaunde.
To lend or not to lend books? An endless dilemma. And it just jumps out when you are looking for the book that is not there when you need it. In a letter, Helene writes: “Do you have Tocqueville’s Voyage to America? Someone borrowed mine and has not returned it to me. Why is it that people who would never think of stealing anything find it perfectly permissible to steal books?” (p. 82). I am not so severe in my judgments on this matter. On more than one occasion we have talked among friends about that strange habit of “recollection” that exists in some of taking books and not returning them. In some way, bibliophiles count on this decrease in stock, and we keep the party in peace.
Read books, own them, but not just any edition… Frank writes to Helene: “We have finally been able to find an excellent edition of Tristram Shandy (novel by Laurence Sterne), with Robb’s illustrations, at a price of approximately 2.75 dollars. We have also acquired a copy of Plato’s Four Socratic Dialogues, translated by Benjamin Jowett, Oxford, 1903 (p. 87).” Good literature does not have to be expensive, but good editions are appreciated. We know serious publishers and the care they put into publishing their books. The effort of many to make great books accessible to everyone is also praiseworthy: simplicity of the edition and care in it are not opposed.
Helene likes good stories. She has her preferences. I partly agree with some of them. She is not interested in stories that are only made up, fiction is not her thing. She writes: “‘The reader will not believe that such things happened,’ Walton will say in one passage or another, ‘but I was there, and I saw it.’ That is for me. I am passionate about books written by eyewitnesses” (p. 109). Good books and masters of the art of writing awaken the reader’s imagination, transport him to other times and places, show him various fibers of the human condition in its dramas, joys, and in the whole range of situations through which the human adventure passes.
A suggestive book, that of Helene Hanff’s letters. It opens windows and awakens the curiosity to continue reading in order to understand a little more about the various folds of the intertwined biographies of human beings.
