84, Charing Cross Road (Criticism)

Criticism

Laura Kryhoski

Kryhoski is currently working as a freelance writer. She has taught English literature in addition to English as a second language overseas. In this essay, Kryhoski considers some of the ambiguities inherent in a literary work constructed solely from Hanff's personal correspondence.

Critics have commented on the elusiveness of the text of 84, Charing Cross Road in its translation onto screen or stage. What makes the work particularly beguiling for the reader (and for the screenwriter or playwright) is the ambiguous characterization of Helene and others, as well as of the specific events of the text, as influenced by its presentation as a bundle of letters. The choppiness of the correspondence leaves more open to interpretation than would the structure of a more traditional novel. Considering the inconsistencies in Helene's character, as well as the overall structure of the work, it is easy to see the story's power to stir the reader's imagination. Subsequently, there is a danger inherent in accepting any one interpretation of the work, or in assuming that it is conclusively a true representation of the author's life.

The characterization of Helene is ambiguous at best. At the outset of the novel, her correspondence is polite enough, witty enough, and acceptable enough to be considered well within the norm of letterwriting etiquette. As time goes on, however, Helene's demeanor changes, giving the impression that one is seeing a side of the writer that is more intimate and therefore more accurate than that which has been previously observed. In the first few months of correspondence with Frank, Helene is congenial in her request to Frank to translate his prices for her on specific items in an effort to pay him properly. Conscious of the slight burden she puts on Frank, Helene explains, "I don't add too well in plain American, I haven't a prayer of ever mastering bilingual arithmetic." She also closes the letter rather wittily, writing of Frank's last letter (in which he addressed her as "Dear Madam"): "I hope that 'madam' doesn't mean over there what it does over here."

In just a month's time, however, Helene's tone has completely changed, although Frank Doel's has not. Responding to his professional reserve, Helene fires at him of her latest purchase, exclaiming, "What kind of a black protestant Bible is this?" She insults the Church of England, claiming that they have "loused up the most beautiful prose ever written." Simply stating "the hell with it," Helene finally concedes to the idea of using her Latin teacher's Vulgate until Frank can find her a suitable copy. The writer comes off as a loose canon in her rather dramatic reaction to the receipt of an unwanted book. This response is particularly surprising because of the seeming liberties Helene takes with the bookseller in a relatively short time, such that her relationship with Marks & Co. might be jeopardized. From previous letters, the frazzled response of the writer is based solely on what seems to be an absurd dependence on books rather than on any prior experience with Frank. She has no reason to believe her request will go unheard, that the bookseller will be less than sympathetic to her plight, or that Frank will not satisfactorily address the problem.

The reader's assumptions of Helene based on this response could indeed be shortsighted. The tenor of further responses seem to be fairly consistent with the outburst in which Helene engages early in the story, a knife-edged sort of moodiness indicative of someone prone to temperamental flares. However, her correspondence with other members of Marks & Co. bear witness to a different image of Helene, that of the witty prankster. She does not react to Cecily's intrusion into her personal life in the same manner she does with Frank's seemingly harmless mistakes, but is instead chummy in her conversations with the inquisitive Marks & Co. employee. Helene willingly offers details about her life, such as her unflattering appearance, her occupation, and her living space. She is particularly pointed in sharing her feelings for Frank. Relating to Cecily the heap of abuse directed at him, Helene tells her that she purposely gives Frank a difficult time of it. "I'm always bawling him out for something," Helene says, "I'm only teasing, but I know he'll take me seriously. I keep trying to puncture that proper British reserve, if he gets ulcers I did it.

In this light, Helene knowingly tells Cecily of her pranks with Frank with the intention of reaching him. Cecily cannot help but be in the thick of things, and Helene is banking on this fact. She realizes that Frank may eventually be put off by her impetuousness or impulsive outbursts expressed in her letters. But at some point one wonders as to the sincerity of the admission. Based on subsequent responses, it is as if Helene is seeking permission to continue behaving in what she knows to be an unacceptable fashion, without regard for Frank. Although this may seem a bit thin-skinned a view — and although Frank seems to take subsequent outbursts in the true spirit one is to assume, at least according to Helene, that they are given — there is still an edge to her correspondence that creates an interesting picture of the author. She continually makes childish demands of Frank, of his time, and duly responds to disappointment with a flare for the dramatic. But what seems to be behind such behavior is her obsession with the written word, particularly fitting for a writer whose profession puts a great value on wordsmiths. For instance, Helene devotes an entire letter to Frank on the merits of her latest acquisition, a "Giant Modern Library book." Her discourse on the subject continues for a page or two, at one point pleading with Frank for help, concluding with her retirement to bed, where she will "have hideous nightmares involving huge monsters in academic robes carrying long bloody butcher knives labeled Excerpt, Selection, Passage and Abridged."

What seems to be painfully clear is that the narrator is perhaps unreliable in her perceptions. Wit seems to walk a fine line with the author's bibliomania, or obsessive book-collecting habits. Her concerns for the future can be taken as a humorous affront or the product of deeper insecurities. But all are hard to infer with any certainty, even by the text's conclusion. Correspondence with Maxine reveals yet another dimension to the communication between Frank, his coworkers at Marks & Co., and Helene. Helene candidly admits to Maxine her fear of meeting her friends at Charing Cross Road based on the persona she has put forward in her letters. Stating that she may not "have the nerve," Helene shares that she writes considerably more outrageous letters than she would if it were not for the safety of a 3,000 mile expanse between New York and London. "I'll probably walk in there one day and walk right out again without telling them who I am," claims Helene.

This is where Helene makes an impact on her audience at Marks & Co., and by extension, her world. She admittedly hides behind the elusiveness of letter writing to avoid intimate contact with those at the bookseller, making empty promises that she will indeed visit London. Yet the reader is privy early on to information that she will not make the trip. Who is to say the reliability of the text, by extension, is not consistent with Helene's own behavior and characterization of herself and the events around her? To say, then, that the author truly opens her life up to interpretation is subjective at best. The omission of various letters is intimated in the sparseness of the collection during specific time periods, and by the choppy progression of letters, noted in the intentional omission of responses logically linking one to the next. In this regard the work becomes truly one of fiction, based mainly on inferences of the reader as to particular details of the text. Relying on these letters, then, the reader finds him- or herself on a slippery slope, blindly relying on the discourse of an unreliable narrator.

Structurally the work also lends itself to various interpretations. Letters are rather temporary documents, momentary recollections suspended in time that may or may not truly reflect the writer behind them. A skilled writer may actually make their presence felt within the context of the correspondence. There is inherent danger, however, in guessing the nature of a person or a particular event or events based solely on such correspondence. Nora aptly demonstrates this to Helene, admitting she does not put the most impressive foot forward in her correspondence due to rather poor writing ability. Personality, then, is lost in the translation, as is additional information about the lives of the characters occurring in the white space of the work. The white space referred to in literature is that open or blank expanse created by gaps in time and plot unaccounted for by the text, literally the blank page. It is in this space that one must infer or make connections in the text as to the motivations of specific characters, or the impact of particular events on the story. The packaging by the author of a bundle of letters leaves quite a bit to the reader in terms of interpretation. Considering the task, it is understandable that critics the likes of Stanley Kauffman have pondered the logistics of the text only to conclude that the work does not lend itself to adaptation for stage or screen.

It is a work based purely on perceptions rather being driven by plot. To try to translate any one reader's experience with the text into another form, then, to universalize the experience for the reader, is perhaps doing both Hanff and the fans of 84, Charing Cross Road a great disservice. The power of the work lies within the imagination of the reader who happens on it at a particular moment. This idea seems to gel quite well with Helene Hanff's own feelings on London travel. She shares aptly, "I remember years ago a guy I knew told me that people going to England find exactly what they go looking for." Of the existence of the England of English literature, the author concludes, "Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Looking around the rug one thing's for sure: it's here."

Source: Laura Kryhoski, Critical Essay on 84, Charing Cross Road, in Drama for Students, The Gale Group, 2003.

Doreen Piano

Piano is a Ph.D. candidate in English at Bowling Green State University. In the following essay, Piano explores a writer's emotional and intellectual attachment to books as represented by her correspondence to a bookseller at an antiquarian bookshop in London.

Published in 1970, 84, Charing Cross Road by writer Helene Hanff is an unusual memoir that reveals the author's love not only of books but also her passion for letter writing and, on a deeper note, human communication. The story centers around a series of letters written by Helene Hanff, a New York writer, to the bookseller Frank Doel, who works at the antiquarian bookstore Marks & Co., located for many years at 84, Charing Cross Road in central London. Beginning in 1949, the letters cover twenty years of correspondence, ending in 1969 with the death of Frank Doel, who has over the years provided Helene with an extraordinary number of used books ranging from the Socratic dialogues to nineteenth-century classics like Pride and Prejudice. Yet more than simply a business exchange or monetary transaction, the correspondence between Helene Hanff and Frank Doel shows how cultural difference and geographic distance cannot inhibit friendships from developing, particularly when both correspondents share a love of books. In addition, their trans-Atlantic friendship can be seen as a continuance of the congenial relations forged during World War II between the United States and Great Britain.

84, Charing Cross Road is made up of a series of letters in chronological order that convey a deepening intimacy and affection between the two main correspondents, Helene Hanff and Frank Doel. What is most striking while reading the letters is how very different these two people are. Right at the onset of their correspondence, the reader gets an immediate sense of two very different personalities emerging. On the one hand, Helene is direct, personal, and expressive. Her humor surfaces in the second letter where she writes as an afterward, "I hope 'madam' doesn't mean over there what it does here," referring to Frank's form of address despite Helene signing her name "Helene Hanff (Miss)." Although very little detail is given in terms of physical description, class background, or education, the reader is able to envision Helene as a typical New Yorker. She is quick to speak (or write) her mind about the books she is receiving, whether it is praising the beauty and condition of the books or castigating their contents. For example, in the letter dated November 18, 1949, she begins her letter with a question in capital letters, "WHAT KIND OF A BLACK PROTESTANT BIBLE IS THIS?," thus revealing her dismay at receiving a bible that does not meet her expectations. Whereas Helene's letters are often emotive, her outrage usually conveyed through the use of capital letters, Frank's letters are formal and direct, practically to the point of being anonymous and impersonal. This anonymity is seen in the way he signs his letters using his initials, FPD. From the tone of his letters, he is acting as one who conducts business should act, which is polite but distant. One can imagine Frank being quite alarmed at receiving some of Helene's letters, yet his responses hardly ever reveal that she has said something that may offend. He is the quintessential British gentleman, or at least he seems to be.

Although Helene Hanff and Frank Doel could not be more dissimilar, Helene's warm abrasive wit and generosity eventually breaks down the cool exterior that Doel exudes at the beginning of their correspondence. Her references to dental work, her badgering comments to Frank for not doing his job, and her joy at receiving books she loves all contribute to establishing a more intimate relationship not only with Frank but also with many of the staffers at the bookstore. Even more so, Helene's generosity in sending care packages reveals a sensitivity to the conditions of post-WWII England. Because a good portion of the letters are written when England's population was on government food rations and where basic goods like eggs were a luxury, affordable only to the most economically well-off, Helene's care packages make her a hit among the staff and Frank Doel's family. In fact, after she sends the staff a ham for Christmas in 1949, Frank begins to sign his name Frank Doel instead of FPD. Other staff members also then begin to write her letters. Her correspondence eventually extends to Frank's wife and later, when they are grown, to his children. In these letters, Helene is able to get a more in-depth portrait of Frank as well as the England that he represents to her.

In return for the gifts of hosiery and foodstuffs, Helene receives a number of beautiful antiquarian books and a handmade Irish linen tablecloth made by a neighbor of Frank's. In addition, Helene is offered free room and board whenever she decides to visit England by both the Doel family and others at Marks & Co. This cultural exchange reveals on a more personal scale the ties that have developed between Great Britain and the United States and contributes in a small way to the rebuilding of England's infrastructure, many of its cities having been destroyed by German bombing campaigns. As Helene herself notes in a letter to the whole staff, "I send you greetings from America — faithless friend that she is, pouring millions into rebuilding Japan and Germany while letting England starve." Thus, these gifts are an extension of her personal investment in English culture, especially its literature.

Even more than being war allies, it is Helene's love of books and passion for Western literature that fuels her passion for maintaining relations with people she has not met. The correspondence, while divulging personal information, especially in Helene's letters, is primarily focused on keeping Helene well-stocked in many of the canonical works of literature and more obscure items such as musical scores. Her references to reading and receiving books from Marks & Co. take up a good portion of the contents of her letters. In her brash demands for books to be hunted down is a zest for reading great literature. In fact, her drive to acquire quality books is a way for her to develop a repartee with Frank. A letter, dated February 9, 1952, is a particularly noteworthy example of not only her desire to read the literary classics especially when they are bound in beautifully made books, but also her reliance on Frank to find what she is searching for. Addressed to "SLOTH," the letter reveals Helene's despair of not having anything substantive to read. "I could ROT over here before you'd send me anything to read. i oughtta run straight down to brentano's which i would if anything i wanted was in print." She ends the letter, "MISS Hanff to you. (I'm Helene only to my FRIENDS)," acknowledging not only Frank's inability to fill her book requests but also his unceasing formality, even after three years of correspondence and the many care packages she has sent.

Moreover, by reading books by England's finest writers and being in touch with the staff at Marks & Co., Helene begins to envision an England that most likely exists only in her imagination. Despite her many letters that claim she will be in England soon, Helene never ends up going. On the surface, it seems like a monetary problem. As a struggling writer, Helene's income is unpredictable, and what she does earn seems to go to her dentist. Later, after she begins making more money, she moves into a bigger and better flat. Yet, as the years go by, there seems to be something else more at stake in her not going. By the end of the correspondence, it is evident that Helene will never go. Physically being there is impertinent as for the past twenty years Helene has been imagining England through the books she has. As she says in her last letter dated April 11, 1969,

years ago a guy I knew told me that people going to England find exactly what they go looking for. I said I'd go looking for the England of English literature, and he nodded and said, 'It's there.' Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. Looking around the rug one thing's for sure: it's here.

For Helen, 84, Charing Cross Road is part of a world that she prefers to keep isolated from the material world of actual people and places. Instead, the bookshop and its occupants is contained within the books she buys as well as a product of her imagination.

In the end, 84, Charing Cross Road is an homage to a place never visited and people never seen, only imagined. In her letters, Helene's passion for reading spills over to her passion for all things British that results in making deep connections to a number of people from Frank Doel to his fellow workers and family. It is not surprising that Frank's wife, Nora, writes Helene about her husband passing away since they have exchanged letters as well as gifts over the years. Nora even admits that she has been jealous of Helene because "Frank so enjoyed your letters and they or some were so like his sense of humour." Thus, she makes clear that two people who appear to be so different on the surface are actually quite similar. Although Helene will probably never make it to England, she realizes that she does not need to go to wonder at its marvels. Rather, the marvels are imbedded in both her memory and the books she has received over the years.

Source: Doreen Piano, Critical Essay on 84, Charing Cross Road, in Drama for Students, The Gale Group, 2003.

WHAT DO I READ NEXT?

• The Library of Helene Hanff, by Helene Hanff and edited by Stephen Pastore, was published in 1998. The work is a warm and personal biography of the author, further illuminating her correspondence with the bookseller at Charing Cross. It provides the reader with valuable insight into Hanff's collection of books, and by extension, her life.
• Bookstore: The Life and Times of Jeannette Watson and Books & Company, by Lynn Tillman, was published in 1999. An account of what has been called one of the most interesting bookstores in New York City, the work covers not only the opening and closing of the shop, but the life of the young woman who founded and ran it. In addition to a forward by Woody Allen, the book also includes shared recollections of Books & Co. by authors and other New York notables.
• Bookends: Two Women, One Enduring Friendship, by Madeline B. Stern and Leona G. Rostenberg, was published in 2001. The memoirs of two rare-book dealers and lifelong friends, the work chronicles the lives of two single Jewish-American women, and their struggles and successes against the backdrop of the twentieth century.
• Bridget Jones's Diary, by Helen Fielding, was published in 1999. This novel is a warm, humorous look into the private life of a thirty-something publishing professional, as related in a series of diary entries. Bridget Jones is on a quest to quit smoking, lose weight, and find her own sense of inner peace.