84, Charing Cross Road

A true story in letters by Helene Hanff

Stop for a minute and think, just think, about how many books there are in the world, how many books have been written or compiled and published. Even for the well-read (which I am according to multiple facebook and Barnes & Noble polls, thank you very much), the amount of books any one person has read compared to the amount currently in print is like a speck of pollen compared to a mountain. Or a Hoo to Horton. Tiny. That's how I feel when I come across a book like this.

You've probably at least heard of this book, or the play or movie adapted from it, but I am apparently completely out of it. Or I only read what they told me to in college. In one way it's kind of sad, and frustrating, and in another way, hooray! Think of all the books I have yet to read! I just hope I find all the good ones. As usual, the book club section at my public library is helping me with this. While waiting for my stack of beach reads to appear in my mailbox, I took the kids to the library and entrusted the seven year old with the life of the two year old while I perused the book club shelves, standing far back so I could read the titles at the bottom since I can't bend down over my seven and a half months pregnant belly. I got some weird glances, but hey, I am definitely not the weirdest character at my library on any given day.

I picked this one because A) It is short so I could read it before the mail order ones came and B) It is light, so I could talk the seven year old into carrying it in her library bag while I wrangled the two year old into the car and C) It looks British. What I was assigned to read in college was mostly British so it's a comfort area for me.

After all that, lo and behold, when I got home, I discovered this gem! It's a collection of letters between Helene Hanff, a New York freelance writer, and Frank Doel, an employee at a London used book store, beginning with a book order and ending up a truly darling friendship, cemented by a love of books. Hanff also includes letters she received from Doel's wife and other employees at the store, giving a fairly good picture of their wonderful relationship of cat and mouse, American and Londoner, blatant humor and dry humor. At times the letters are laugh out loud funny, as Hanff writes in all capitals when she accuses Doel of sending bad books and he replies with formal, understated jabs. Other times you want to cry at the sheer humanity that the people in the correspondence, who don't even know each other, demonstrate in the post-war world of 1949 to 1969.

Some short thoughts on a short book (I read it in a day):

I now want more than ever to revisit London, as Hanff continuously plans but never does in Doel's lifetime. I was sad to read that the bookstore is no longer (the building's not even there apparently) but there is so much more to see and show my husband! I won't waste time on this next trip going to the stupid Millenium Dome because some boy I like is going there.

I do not ever want to watch the movie, which I read implies a romantic relationship between them.  Since Doel is married, I don't want that alleged infidelity to sully this dear slice of life. Also Anthony Hopkins plays him and I still see him as Hannibal Lector, not a nice man in a book shop.

I feel at once validated that I knew so many of the authors that Hanff requests from Doel, but since they're all British I feel embarrassed that I haven't read most of them, but since they're all really old I don't actually care that much in the end.

The Paris Wife

Novel (ish) by Paula McLain

Novelish? What does that mean? It means another "true novel," one written in novel form with plot and dialogue, but based on letters and journals by real life people. In this case, Ernest Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley Richardson, are the real people. That sentence sounds false to me, though, because this book brings these real people to life more than they ever could have been in a historical account, and because Hadley becomes so much more than Hemingway's "first wife." That may be how history remembers her, but not so for anyone who reads this book.

I have to admit not knowing much about Hemingway or his writing. I know from literature classes that his writing was revolutionary in its simplicity and starkness and truth, and from pop culture movies that he was part of a hard-partying American artist community in the 1920's in Paris. I've only read a few of his stories, though, and none of his novels because I find his writing too sharp and dark. I guess it goes hand in hand with his depression/alcoholism and PTSD from World War I. Not for me, thanks.

The idea of this book, however, brings to life not just Hemingway but mostly his first wife, Hadley. They have similar upper middle class backgrounds in the United States but move to Paris for his writing career shortly after marrying. She keeps him grounded for a while, supporting his career and moving him toward the right decisions with friends and finances, but the very fact that she is his "first wife" tells us that eventually they divorce. There are three very short scenes from Hemingway's point of view that hint to us that it's his infidelity that drives the wedge, in addition to Hadley's own voice telling what she wished she'd known then and so on. You know from the beginning that this will have a sad ending.

What I wish I knew more is how much McLain's writing style mimics Hemingway's. Like I said, I haven't read very much by him and don't want to, mostly for the content. But this book seems to copy what I understand is his style in that it's very much to the point and journalistic, a simple retelling of events, while somehow also weaving a picture of the dazzling European scenes, the hectic and confusing post-war times, the conflicting emotions, the lavishness of their neighbors contrasted with the poverty that is their life. It's kind of remarkable.

I don't think I'll be reading Hemingway as a result of this book, though. I've had enough of him; he might be an amazing historical and literary figure but he's also a total ass. He makes his wife blame herself for his indiscretion and sucks up all the air and life around him. He WAS her life and I'm tired of thinking about him when I should be thinking about her. So there.

One thing I wonder is: how do they go on so many vacations even though they bemoan their poverty all the time? And hire a housekeeper and a nanny? Is it the place or the time or what? I wish I could have a nanny and vacation at the French Riviera. I wouldn't trade it for my non-cheating marriage, but still, sounds nice.

The Other

Novel by David Guterson

Dear book club friends: stop me now. Seriously. It's four days into my summer vacation and I need some light beachy reads or I may never be able to relax. I went from Wild to this, the story of two high school buddies from the late 1970's in Seattle who backpack together and talk exisentialism and Gnosticism. It's too much.

So now that you know how I really feel...this is actually a good book. I truly dislike very few books. I think I appreciate the work that an author put into them, and I like words that are put together well, and I just like to read. Period. It's hard for me to completely pan any book. David Guterson also wrote Snow Falling on Cedars, which is amazing, and East of the Mountains, which is fun to read (even though it's kind of dark in tone) because it's set in my home town of Wenatchee and the surrounding area. I like Guterson's style of rich but real description and deep characterization and his slow burning plots. But I think for me, this one came too close on the heels of another hiking book and too close to Crossing to Safety which shares this book's deep introspections on growing up and classism and loyalty and the nature of knowing others.

The bad news is I already started The Paris Wife, about Ernest Hemingway's first wife, so that doesn't promise to be much lighter. The good news is I have learned my lesson and will be ordering some Jennifer Weiner and young adult fiction books from the library pronto. I hope your summer reading is looking promising! Let me know if you have any great light reads to recommend.

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Memoir by Cheryl Strayed

Don't be confused by the rugged looking boot on the cover. Even I, a committed couch traveler, hater of camping, lover of the idea of nature but not so much the bugs and dirt and other yucky stuff, even I enjoyed this book.

When given the book I looked at the sub-title and thought, "Ha. Me? A hiking book? This must be for my dad." And so it sat on my nightstand for probably a year, next to reference books about writing and three books I've started and just can't finish (Everything is Illuminated,  One Hundred Years of Solitude, Reading Lolita in Tehran: see my post about being a literary fraud), until it was THE LAST BOOK. This is a desperate state for me. I will read my daughter's Highlights magazines if there isn't any other option, so in this condition, I finally picked up Wild.

I found a pleasant surprise. While truly about her hike on the Pacific Crest Trail (a mountain top trail from Mexico to Canada, which Strayed hikes for most of California and all of Oregon), it's also a completely cathartic experience for both writer and reader. Strayed goes on the hike because her mother dies, her siblings scatter, and her marriage dissolves within just a few years. She starts to veer off the path she imagined for her life and needs a new path to walk, so even though she's not an experienced hiker, she decides almost on a whim to do this thing. She encounters every expected but not truly imagined obstacle: bears, lack of water, losing five toenails, rain, snow, heat, and just plain pain. She also meets generous and loving strangers and real characters in unexpected ways and places. All the while Strayed journals and retells her experiences, memories of her mother, self abuse, and self love, hence the subtitle.

The remarkable transparency Strayed displays in her story reminds me of, my favorite, Anne Lamott, but also of Eat, Pray, Love. She simply doesn't back down from anything, both in the wilderness and in her self-exploration. It's endearing rather than off-putting, reminding me of how broken we all are, how close to the brink we could all be if we lost those people most dear to us, the ones who ground us and make us who we are. This seems to be a trend in both books and blogs, as I read Jen Hatmaker and Glennon Doyle and Rachel Held Evans admit over and over again that they don't know what they're doing as women, mothers, humans, but they are just putting it out there so that everyone else can admit the same thing. I can't hike the PCT (I would literally die) but I can be brave like all these women, Strayed included, and be a truth teller, admit that I would be even more of a mess than I am without this huge tribe that is holding me together. For Strayed, her tribe changes both on the trail and after, but she finds one, and find herself within it.