84, Charing Cross Road is a charming record of bibliophilia, cultural difference, and imaginative sympathy. For 20 years, an outspoken New York writer and a rather more restrained London bookseller carried on an increasingly touching correspondence.
In her first letter to Marks & Co., Helene Hanff encloses a wish list, but warns, "The phrase 'antiquarian booksellers' scares me somewhat, as I equate 'antique' with expensive." Twenty days later, on October 25, 1949, a correspondent identified only as FPD let Hanff know that works by Hazlitt and Robert Louis Stevenson would be coming under separate cover.
When they arrive, Hanff is ecstatic -- but unsure she'll ever conquer "bilingual arithmetic." By early December 1949, Hanff is suddenly worried that the six-pound ham she's sent off to augment British rations will arrive in a kosher office. But only when FPD turns out to have an actual name, Frank Doel, does the real fun begin.
Two years later, Hanff is outraged that Marks & Co. has dared to send an abridged Pepys diary. "i enclose two limp singles, i will make do with this thing till you find me a real Pepys. THEN i will rip up this ersatz book, page by page, AND WRAP THINGS IN IT." Nonetheless, her postscript asks whether they want fresh or powdered eggs for Christmas. Soon they're sharing news of Frank's family and Hanff's career. No doubt their letters would have continued, but in 1969, the firm's secretary informed her that Frank Doel had died. In the collection's penultimate entry, Helene Hanff urges a tourist friend, "If you happen to pass by 84, Charing Cross Road, kiss it for me. I owe it so much."
Helene Hanff (April 15, 1916–April 9, 1997) was an American writer. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she is best known as the author of the book 84 Charing Cross Road, which became the basis for a play, teleplay, and film of the same name.
Her career, which saw her move from writing unproduced plays to helping create some of the earliest television dramas to becoming a kind of professional New Yorker, goes far beyond the charm of that one book. She called her 1961 memoir Underfoot in Show Business, and it chronicled the struggle of an ambitious young playwright to make it in the world of New York theatre in the 1940s and 1950s. She worked in publicists' offices and spent summers on the "straw hat" circuit along the East Coast of the United States, writing plays that were admired by some of Broadway's leading producers but which somehow never saw the light of day.
She wrote and edited scripts for a variety of early television dramas produced out of New York, all the while continuing to try and move from being what she called "one of the 999 out of 1,000 who don't become Noel Coward." When the bulk of television production moved to California, her work slowly dried up, and she turned to writing for magazines and, eventually, to the books that made her reputation.
First published in 1970, the epistolary work 84 Charing Cross Road chronicles her 20 years of correspondence with Frank Doel, the chief buyer for Marks & Co., a London bookshop, on which she depended for the obscure classics and British literature titles around which her passion for self-education revolved. She became intimately involved in the lives of the shop's staff, sending them food parcels during England's post-war shortages and sharing with them details of her life in Manhattan.
Due to financial difficulties and an aversion to travel, she put off visiting her English friends until too late; Doel died in December 1968 from peritonitis from a burst appendix, and the bookshop eventually closed. Hanff did finally visit Charing Cross Road and the empty but still standing shop in the summer of 1971, a trip recorded in her 1973 book The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street.
In the 1987 film of 84 Charing Cross Road (film), Hanff was played by Anne Bancroft, while Anthony Hopkins took the part of Frank Doel. Anne Jackson had earlier played Hanff in a 1975 adaptation of the book for British television. Ellen Burstyn recreated the role on Broadway in 1982 at the Nederlander Theater in New York City.
She later put her obsession with British scholar Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch to use in a book called Q's Legacy. Other books include Apple of My Eye, an idiosyncratic guide to New York City, and A Letter from New York (1992), which reprinted talks she gave on the BBC's Woman's Hour between 1978 and 1985.
Hanff was never shy about her fondness for cigarettes and martinis, but nevertheless lived to be 80, dying of diabetes in 1997 in New York City. The apartment building where she lived at 305 E. 72nd Street has been named "Charing Cross House" in her honor. A bronze plaque next to the front door commemorates her residence and authorship of the book.
我这个人总是过时的厉害,看过时的书,做过时的事情,尊重过时的信仰。 常常满心欢喜的拿些过时的书宝贝起来。就好像我在万圣拿起那本书眉页脚都泛着时间的陈色的书的时候。05年的书,放在现在,当真是有些年头了。 后来翻开的时候我还一直再想,究竟是因为放的太久而令纸页变...
评分常常会有这样的感觉吧,觉得自己就像一个人生活在这个世界。 多想推开一扇窗,就在窗外遇见一个能懂我一切的你。 只要一个你,就足以傲视所有的孤独。只要有你的爱怜,就觉得自己是时间最受宠爱的那朵花。只要有你的默认,就觉得自己有最举世的才华。 我们匆匆行走在每一个日子...
评分常常会有这样的感觉吧,觉得自己就像一个人生活在这个世界。 多想推开一扇窗,就在窗外遇见一个能懂我一切的你。 只要一个你,就足以傲视所有的孤独。只要有你的爱怜,就觉得自己是时间最受宠爱的那朵花。只要有你的默认,就觉得自己有最举世的才华。 我们匆匆行走在每一个日子...
评分If you happen to pass by 84 Charing Cross Road,kiss it for me! I owe it so much. 近来广受好评的一本小书。承多位朋友推荐,忍不住也买了来看看。 第一印象:很赞的装帧,淡雅素朴,却极见用心。扉页上的藏书票,页脚的邮戳,算是两样小小的惊喜;...
评分经常在看过一部故事特棒的书或电影之后,感叹这故事太好,只能在书或电影里发生。其实自己也知道,这感叹不大靠谱儿,毕竟大千世界里发生的故事,有时候比小说或电影不知道精彩多少倍,甚至故事好得不像真事儿。 《查令十字街84号》就是这样一个好得不像真事儿的故事。这本书...
坦白说,一开始我以为这会是一本枯燥的文献汇编,毕竟主题围绕着书信。然而,我很快就被书中那种渗透着英式幽默的文字风格所吸引。作者的措辞精准而又风趣,即便是谈论那些严肃的学术或收藏问题,也能让人会心一笑。这种幽默不是那种浮夸的段子,而是那种建立在对生活深刻理解之上的,带着一丝自嘲和达观的智慧。书中关于书籍本身的探讨,也让我这个书虫大呼过瘾。她谈论的不仅仅是书的内容,更是书的物理形态——纸张的质地、装帧的工艺,甚至油墨的气味。她将一本旧书描绘成一个活着的历史载体,充满了故事和记忆。这种对物质载体的尊重,让人在阅读数字时代的今天,重新审视“阅读”这件事的完整体验。这本书的每一个章节都像是精心挑选的古董,值得我们驻足欣赏很久。
评分这本书的节奏把握得极其巧妙,它不像现代快餐文学那样追求即时的刺激,而是采用了一种更加古典、更有韵味的方式来叙事。我常常在阅读那些信件往来时,忍不住会想象一下写信人当时所处的环境,以及他们打下这些字句时的神态。作者的叙述视角非常独特,她像一个高明的园丁,精心修剪着时间的长廊,让读者得以窥见那些时间沉淀下来的美好。书中对于“等待”的描绘尤为深刻,那种跨越地理距离的、对回复的殷切期盼,那种因为一封信件的迟到而产生的细微的焦躁,都被刻画得入木三分。每一次期待的回响,都像是一场小小的庆典。这种细腻的情感刻画,让我对人与人之间通过文字建立的连接产生了极大的敬畏。读完之后,我反而对那些即时通讯带来的便捷产生了些许疏离感,仿佛丢失了某种更深层次的、需要时间去酝酿的情感深度。
评分这部作品的魅力在于它的“留白”。很多情节和情感都没有被直白地挑明,而是巧妙地隐藏在字里行间,需要读者主动去挖掘和填补。这种需要参与感的阅读体验,比被动接受信息要有趣得多。我感觉自己像一个侦探,在那些泛黄的信纸上寻找着蛛丝马迹,拼凑出两个主角日益增长的友谊和相互依赖。更难能可贵的是,作者成功地将“商业往来”和“真挚情谊”这两种看似矛盾的关系处理得天衣无缝。在买卖交易的框架下,诞生了一种超越了物质交换的精神共鸣,这非常耐人寻味。它探讨了价值的多元性——一件物品,除了市场价格,它承载的个人情感价值又有多少?这本书像一面镜子,映照出我们日常生活中那些模糊不清的界限,促使我们去区分“交易”与“连接”的本质差异。
评分翻开这本书,一股浓郁的、带着霉味的纸张气息扑面而来,那种感觉就像是走进了一个尘封已久却又充满生命力的老书店。作者的文字有一种魔力,能将寻常的日常琐事描绘得如同史诗般重要。我特别喜欢她对于人与人之间那种含蓄而又深刻的联结的捕捉。她似乎总能精准地找到那些隐藏在书信往来、只言片语背后的情感暗流。比如,她描述某次偶然发现一本绝版书时的那种近乎狂喜的心情,那种对知识和美的纯粹的渴求,简直让我感同身受。这本书不急不躁,它更像是一杯慢火熬制的浓茶,需要你静下心来,细细品味那些看似漫不经心的对话和信件。它不是那种情节跌宕起伏的小说,它的魅力在于细节的堆砌和情感的微妙变化,让人在不经意间就被深深吸引,并开始反思自己生命中那些被忽略的、却同样珍贵的关系。我合上书本时,感觉心灵被洗涤了一遍,对“拥有”和“渴望”有了全新的认识。
评分这本书带给我一种非常强烈的“怀旧情结”,但它不是那种空洞的对过去的缅怀。它更像是一次成功的“时间旅行”。通过阅读这些跨越数十年的通信,我清晰地感受到了世界在悄然发生着变化——从通信手段的更新,到生活方式的转变,再到潜在的时代背景冲击。然而,在所有这些外在的变动中,那份基于共同爱好和相互尊重的关系却展现出了惊人的韧性和持久力。这种对比极具震撼力。它让我思考,在追求效率和速度的现代社会里,我们是否为了“快”而牺牲了某种“深度”?作者的文字有着一种不动声色的力量,它不试图说教,只是平静地展示了一个事实:真正有意义的连接,往往需要时间和耐心去灌溉。读完后,我深觉自己仿佛参与了一段私密的、珍贵的历史,收获的不仅是故事,更是一种对慢生活和真诚交往的向往。
评分"...I dreamed about it for so many years. I used to go to English movies just to look at the streets...The blessed man who sold me all my books died a few months ago. And Mr. Marks who owned the shop is dead. But Marks &Co. is still there. If you happen to pass by 84, Charing Cross Road, kiss it for me? I owe it so much."
评分这样的书店怕是合了所有爱书的人的遐想了~HELENE,你应该去一次英国的
评分邂逅:2013年初电子书; 旅程:2013.3.2.; 地点:床头; 原本是毕业行的旅行读物,现在短暂回来后一天读完。二十载爱书年华,一纸唏嘘。
评分首次中英对照读
评分"...I dreamed about it for so many years. I used to go to English movies just to look at the streets...The blessed man who sold me all my books died a few months ago. And Mr. Marks who owned the shop is dead. But Marks &Co. is still there. If you happen to pass by 84, Charing Cross Road, kiss it for me? I owe it so much."
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