14. The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street

By Helene Hanff

Just squeezed in The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street on the last day of April, with a total of six books read in a month - a new record, I think! One of them was a comic and Raising Girls was a parenting book that I'd been reading piecemeal since my daughter was in preschool.

The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street is the follow-up to 84, Charing Cross Road, which had some modest success upon its publication and was shortly bought by a London publisher to distribute in the UK.  This allowed author Helene Hanff to finally visit England after all these years and the sequel is comprised mostly of her journal entries with some correspondence and notes from her various friends, colleagues and contacts.  Like its predecessor, The Duchess of Bloomsbury was utterly charming and a very quick read. The only thing the sequel lacked was the connection between Frank, who died some years ago, and Helene, which anchored the first book.  In comparison, The Duchess of Bloomsbury felt much breezier, but that's not a bad thing.  This one is very much all about Helene!

Sometimes, it's better to read an introduction afterwards as they often reveal too much.  The intro by Plum Sykes is no exception but it does summarize The Duchess of Bloomsbury (and 84 Charing Cross Rd) perfectly:

I couldn’t put this book down for two reasons. One: It is the charming story of a midlife dream realized. Two: Helen Hanff was a completely and utterly neurotic New Yorker—my favorite kind of heroine. Although she eloquently writes that she would go to England “looking for the England of English literature,” the day before she leaves for London she also admits that she is “terrified of going abroad by myself (I am terrified of going to Queens or Brooklyn by myself; I get lost).” That evening, she confesses, “I got out of bed, had hysterics, a martini and two cigarettes, got back in bed, whiled away the rest of the night composing cables saying I wasn’t coming.”
     Helene does make it onto the plane, on June 17, 1971. The American publication of her book had brought with it avalanches of letters from adoring English fans, as well as offers from various correspondents to take care of her if she ever came to London. A former colonel, who had gone to work at Heathrow Airport after retiring from the army, volunteers to escort her through Customs and Immigration; Nora Doel, Frank’s widow, and his daughter, Sheila, insist on meeting her after Customs. A glamorous-sounding Old Etonian called Pat Buckley even offers to show her literary London. (It’s a very sweet idea, isn’t it, that you publish a book and various strangers offer to take you on jaunts in a foreign country. Nowadays, such offers would be met with a jail term for stalking.)

     Helene soon installs herself in the “shabby-genteel” Kenilworth Hotel, located on the corner of Great Russell and Bloomsbury Streets… Her trip starts in a blaze of glory—interviews with the London Evening Standard, the venerable BBC, and photographic sessions at Marks & Co., although it is no longer in business. There are dinners and lunches with her publishers and important journalists. But all that is just background noise for Helene. What she really craves is time to visit with Nora and Sheila, tour literary landmarks, and eat strawberries and cream with Pat Buckley in his Knightsbridge flat.
     Because she finds herself constantly being picked up at her hotel by someone who is intent on taking her off, in a Rolls-Royce or a Jaguar, on yet another thrilling English expedition, Helene soon christens herself the Duchess of Bloomsbury Street. Life is one long stream of excitement for Helene while in London—very different from her spartan existence in New York City.

There's more, but it's best to just read it yourself!

 

Note: This copy was a birthday gift from Olman.  I had requested a few books, including Ann Burgess' A Killer By Design, which is my next read.  Quite a change going from a charming wish-fulfillment travel memoir to one about notorious serial killers and FBI investigations!

Book 21 – The Sun Also Rises

By Ernest Hemingway

“You’re an expatriate. You’ve lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed by sex. You spend all your time talking, not working. You are an expatriate, see? You hang around cafés.”

“It sounds like a swell life,” I said. “When do I work?”

A couple of years ago, a friend, downsizing his collection, gave this book to me when I was over for a visit. It became my “commute” book over the winter, but my metro rides were usually too short and/or too crowded to read more than a couple of pages at a time. Then winter was over and I was cycling, and this book got left under a pile of other books, forgotten. More than a year later, I picked it up again, but had to skim over the first third again since it’s been so long!

I haven’t done this book much service as a reader, but it’s actually quite a terrific book. I mean, it’s Hemingway, so quality writing and literary merit are a given. The only other Hemingway I’ve ever read was his memoir, A Movable Feast, which I don’t remember much except that it had great atmosphere, in that Paris-was-yesterday kinda way. The Sun Also Rises is very similar in that respect, except it’s a fictionalized story of a group of American expatriates who pilgrimage to the Spanish town of Pamplona for the annual fiesta and bull fights. The story is told from the POV of Jake Barnes, an American WWI veteran and now a writer living in Paris.

Although I knew that Jake was injured from the War, I didn’t realize until much later that he actually lost his manhood as a result! The reference to Jake’s unfortunate injury is quite subtle if you’re not paying attention, which was what happened to me. If I had figured this out earlier, I would’ve understood better why Jake and Lady Brett Ashley have such an interesting, but complicated friendship. Brett is beautiful, narcissistic, self-destructive and destined to a series of failed relationships, while Jake is doomed to a life of celibacy, and unconsummated love for Brett. Sure this may sound clichéd and stupid, even back in the day, but with Hemingway, it works. It helps that the main characters are sympathetic and so goddamned likable. Like Brett’s talent as a quick wit and social catalyst, or Jake’s high-powered observations about his friends’ strengths and foibles, and his willingness to overlook gibes if a good repartee is going.

There is still a very modern and sophisticated quality about The Sun Also Rises, while at the same time, the novel truly encapsulates its own zeitgeist. There are fine and funny moments in 1920’s Paris when the characters go out on the town, wandering from café to café, or meeting up for a nice meal...

We ate dinner at Madame Lecomte’s restaurant on the far side of the island. It was crowded with Americans and we had to stand up and wait for a place. Someone had put it in the American Women’s Club list as a quaint restaurant on the Paris quais as yet untouched by Americans, so we had to wait forty-five minutes for a table.

Most of the key characters have been directly, or indirectly, affected by the War, having lost their purpose in some way (hence the “Lost Generation”). Since the majority of these early day slackers are full-fledged adults in their late-twenties or early thirties, they may lack direction in life, but they still appreciate good company, lively conversation and drink. The dialogue among these colourful people is constantly amusing – they exchange pleasantries, they gossip, they rib on each other. But above all, they imbibe.

There is a lovely moment when Jake and his friend Bill take a side trip to a remote Spanish village and go trout fishing. They pack a picnic and a couple of bottles of wine and have a great time. They get along with the locals and they drink more bottles of wine. They meet a British fellow named Harris and they get along well with him too. They find a pub and he buys each of them a bottle of wine apiece. Harris confesses to Jake and Bill that he hasn’t had this much fun since the war.

There are definitely undercurrents of loss and emptiness, and lots of post-modern aimlessness, but for me, it’s this awareness combined with the many little moments of humanity that makes this novel a memorable and enjoyable read.

It was like certain dinners I remember from the war. There was much wine, an ignored tension, and a feeling of things coming that you could not prevent happening. Under the wine I lost the disgusted feeling and was happy. It seemed they were all such nice people.