April 25th, 2020 || IT’S DEWEY’S 24 HOUR READATHON TIME 🥳🥳🥳 . This is my TBR for the next 24 hours starting with Beloved, which i’m halfway through and then will mix the others. I forgot to include Pride & Prejudice in the picture which will be a reread for me. . are you taking part in the @deweysreadathon? if so, what are you planning on reading? • • • #deweys24hourreadathon #ilovereadingbooks #tbrpile #readloads #aprilreads #beloved #tonimorrison #84charingcrossroad #readingpeople #heft #bookstack #lizmoore https://www.instagram.com/p/B_Z0oruqKuu/?igshid=1l9d0cgvr1tu1
The other night I watched 84 Charing Cross Road, the film adaptation of a book I read a couple of years back. It was one of those days where I just fancied something simplistic and escapist: it was the same day that a shooter was running round not far from my house. This is a story about a charming pen pal friendship and a love of books, and that’s it. Sometimes you just want uncomplicated cheeriness in your day.
Letters
The book is a collation of letters between an American book-loving woman in New York (Helene), and the head of a bookshop in London (Frank), located obviously in Charing Cross Road. She writes to him asking for old, out-of-fashion books that she can’t find in New York, and he writes back, sending her the requested books where possible. From this initially functional relationship blossoms a genuine friendship, born of shared book loving and growing into a charming 20-year relationship.
I think a large part of the story’s charm comes from its real-life basis. Of course, it’s a little dramatised in the film, but I’m just not sure it would have the same weight if the personalities were characters, rather than real people. I read another collation of letters, Adressat Unbekannt (‘recipient unknown’ in english), a few months ago - a correspondence between a fictional American Jew and a German during the Nazi era - and I found it completely uncompelling, despite the emotional content.
For me, what makes letters special is how they let you peek inside a person. They’re intended for a sole person, not edited for a public audience; they go into depth, not truncated for back-and-forth conversation; and they’re deeply personal, letting you get a glimpse of something inside. I’m unconvinced that even a beautifully-written fictional letter would evoke similar meaning to a standard correspondence between close friends.
Era
I also liked how the story captured a particular period of time (specifically, 1949-1968).
The letters are part of this. It captures a narrowing distance in the world. America and the UK were connected enough for Frank and Helene to communicate with each other, but not to really know each other. They could write, but not Skype. They could trade, but not meet. The opportunities for friendship were expanding in a way barely recognisable from just decades before, but yet with a tantalisingly stubborn distance. For me, it captures the excitement of contact with new people, without the perhaps excessive nearness we have today. When I get a text from a friend on the other side of the world today, it is no revelation - in fact, I might put off a response for a while, depending on my mood. This is a nice immersion in a world where hearing from your far-flung friends is a novel event, and worth cherishing.
The books are another part. International trade had long been around, of course, but ordinary individuals being able to purchase specific items abroad feels exciting and new here. The growing inter-connectedness of the global economy enables Helene’s passion for English literature. Set against a backdrop of UK citizens enduring rationed meat supplies, you get a sense of the world on the cusp of new integration and opportunities for trade. The film personifies this, with an individual buyer ordering from a personalised seller, and the film gives the dazzling opportunities for trade, and the ability to explore our own personal passions, a human touch (something I’ll appreciate when my Hertha Berlin football shirt arrives in America).
Friendship
I’m tempted to say the most charming part of the film is the growing friendship between Helene and Frank. But this isn’t really true. Rather, it’s the way this friendship is a vehicle for kindness spiralling into other people’s lives. Frank makes the effort to find obscure books for Helene. In turn, she sends a ‘rescue package’ to the meat-deprived, rationed workers in Frank’s bookshop, full of exotic foods like tinned ham and eggs. We see how this delights all the workers in the shop. We see how this then delights their friends and relatives when they bring the food home. We see how this is matched in turn by Frank’s neighbour sewing a Christmas present for Helene.
There’s a term for one small event happening in one place, sparking ever-greater changes elsewhere through knock-on effects: the butterfly effect. The correct usage of the term centres more scientifically on changes in environment, but I feel it also applies somewhat more poetically here - a small act of joy spreading more joy, much as a butterfly might do when it flies by.
Film
I don’t think it won any awards, this film. In many ways it’s an odd choice for a film - a collection of letters isn’t obviously dramatisable, and little happens in the way of plot. My dad went to bed early and asked me the next day if anything happened in the end, and of course the answer was no. It’s not a blockbuster. I’m not even sure the film itself carries the sort of charm I attach to it myself - I think this is derived at least partly from my having read the book before.
But it captures something pure and joyful. Acts of kindness made in no attempt to get anything in return. The shared deep love of something quaint like old books. It doesn’t matter much to me that the plot is unstimulating, or that the dialogue is massively limited. It makes me happy.
Título original: 84 Charing Cross Road
País: Reino Unido, Estados Unidos
Dirección: David Hugh Jones
Guión: Hugh Whitemore (basado en el libro de Helene Hanff)
Música: George Fenton
Fotografía: Brian West
Género: Drama, Romance
Reparto principal: Anne Bancroft, Anthony Hopkins,
Judi Dench, Jean De Baer
Idioma: Doblada al Español
VER EN:
https://memoriasdelcafe.blogspot.com/2025/04/84-charing-cross-road-1987.html
RESEÑA EN EL CAFÉ
Introducción: Una entrañable historia epistolar sobre una amistad improbable que florece a través de las cartas entre una escritora neoyorquina y un vendedor de libros londinense durante dos décadas.
Trama: Helene Hanff, una escritora con una pasión por los clásicos británicos, comienza a cartearse con Frank Doel, un empleado de la librería Marks & Co. en Londres. Lo que inicialmente es una relación comercial en busca de ediciones raras, se convierte en un vínculo profundo y afectuoso a través de los años, compartiendo pensamientos, gustos y detalles de sus vidas.
Crítica: La película captura la sutileza y la calidez de la relación epistolar con actuaciones conmovedoras de Bancroft y Hopkins. La ambientación londinense y neoyorquina está cuidadosamente recreada, y el ritmo pausado permite que la conexión entre los personajes se desarrolle de manera creíble. Si bien algunos pueden encontrarla contemplativa, su encanto reside en la delicadeza con la que explora la amistad a distancia.
Recepción: Recibió críticas generalmente positivas, destacando las interpretaciones y la fidelidad al espíritu del libro original. Fue apreciada por su sensibilidad y su retrato de una conexión humana genuina nacida de la literatura.
CINE
84 Charing Cross Road (1987)
Título original: 84 Charing Cross Road
Reino Unido
Dirección: David Hugh Jones
1)Idioma: Doblada al Español
2)Idioma: Inglés
Atención: Solo para ver en PC o Notebook
Para ver el Film pulsa o copia y pega el Link:
https://artecafejcp.wixsite.com/escenario-cafejcp/post/84-charing-cross-road-1987
Reparto: Anne Bancroft, Anthony Hopkins, Judi Dench,
Jean De Baer, Maurice Denham, Eleanor David
Género: Drama romántico. Literatura
SINOPSIS:
Helen Hanff, una combativa escritora neoyorquina,
envía una carta a una pequeña librería de Londres
pidiendo varios clásicos de la literatura inglesa
difíciles de encontrar. Frank Doel, el reservado
librero inglés, contesta a su petición. Comienza
así una conmovedora correspondencia entre dos
continentes, que durará durante veinte años
Críticas:
"Un romance adulto poco común y dulcemente civilizado (…) Es atractiva por varios motivos, uno de los más notables es la fantástica interpretación de Anne Bancroft en el papel protagonista."
Variety Staff: Variety
Premios:
BAFTA 1988: Premios de la academia de cine británica (Películas de 1987)
ganadora. Mejor actriz (Anne Bancroft)
nom. Mejor actriz secundaria (Judi Dench)
nom. Mejor guion adaptado (Hugh Whitemore)
"It's dim inside, you smell the shop before you see it, it's a lovely smell, I can't articulate it easily, but it so combines must and dust and age, and walls of wood and floors of wood. Toward the back of the shop at the left there's a desk with a work-lamp on it, a man was sitting there, he was about fifty with a Hogarth nose, he looked up and said "Good afternoon?" in a North Country accent and I said I just wanted to browse and he said please do."
84 Charing Cross Road was my favorite book that I read in July. Full wrap up will be posted on my booktube on Friday! What was your fav book of the month? #booktube #bookstagram #84charingcrossroad #readingwrapup #asburyparknj #reader #bestbookofjuly #helenehanff #letters #letterwriting #nonfiction #backlistnooktuber #backlistreader #nonfictionreader #nonfictionlover #readmorebooks https://www.instagram.com/p/CSHL63YHwbr/?utm_medium=tumblr
#84CharingCrossRoad 몇 달 전에 추천을 받아 보게 되었는데 그 후로도 틈틈이 볼 정도로 정말 좋다. 뉴욕의 가난한 작가가 런던의 한 중고 서점에서 필요한 책을 주문하며 시작되는 특별한 인연이 영화의 주요 내용인데, 매우 특별한 우정에 대한 이야기라고 할 수 있겠다. 주인공들은 편지를 통해 책에 대한 생각을 공유하고 책을 추천하며 서로에 대해 속속들이 알아가는 지음이 된다. 50년대 뉴욕과 런던이 배경이기 때문에 주인공들의 물리적 거리감이 영화를 보는 내내 더 애틋하게 만드는 거 같기도 하다.(그렇다고 제목 번역이 '84번가의 연인들'인 것은 매우 큰 문제다) 2차 대전이 끝나고, 엘리자베스 2세가 즉위하는 등 역사 격변기에 개인들의 일상은 어떻게 흘러가는지를 따뜻하게 그리는 게 인상적이었다. 편지와 물건을 주고 받으며 서로의 일상을 소소하게 공유하는 장면들에서 뭉클한 마음마저 들었을 정도. 저 시절의 빈티지한 패션과 도시의 풍경, 인테리어 또한 영화를 보는 큰 재미다. 특히 주인공 헬렌이 로브를 입고 타자기를 치면서 담배를 피고 진토닉을 마시는 것은 겨울에 아랫목에서 귤 까먹는 듯한 아늑함을 전해준다. (꼭 술을 마시며 보는 것을 추천한다^^!) 뭐 요새는 AI가 나의 지음이 되어 내가 사고 싶은 물건도 광고로 막 띄워주고^^ 내 취향 영화와 드라마도 바로 추천해주긴 하지만, 사람과 사람 사이가 이렇게 따뜻했던가- 하는 생각이 절로 들었던 영화. 누구나 한 번은 보길 추천. https://www.instagram.com/p/CIBdf6opTGa/?igshid=f6vwfnlgh3w
April 26th, 2020 || the lovely @ns510reads tagged me to do the #lastnownextreads tag and i decided to use it as a way to wrap-up the Dewey’s readathon 🥳🥳. . 🌿last - i finished Beloved and 84, Charing Cross Road (my edition also has its sequel but i will be reading it next month). . 🌿now - currently rereading Pride and Prejudice. this stunning edition is in Spanish and is edited by @albaeditorial. . 🌿next - i also wanted to start Heft by Liz Moore but didn’t have any time left. will be reading it next week. . i hope you are all having a great Sunday and if you want to do the tag, please feel free to do so :) • • • #beloved #tonimorrison #84charingcrossroad #helenehanff #orgulloyprejuicio #prideandprejudice #janeausten #rereading #heft #lizmoore #aprilreads #unitedbookstagram #readingwrapup #deweys24hourreadathon #readeveryday #sundayreads #bookstagrammersunite #readersofinstagram https://www.instagram.com/p/B_cYwanqQGb/?igshid=1le10h4kins0v
