The Culture Enthusiast

Now seriously, 84 Charing Cross Road is a favorite here in the Culture Enthusiast's household.  It is a movie adaptation of a book by the same name. This book consists mostly of letters, so it's amazing that the movie turned out to be so interesting. 

Helene Hanff, played by Anne Bancroft - one of my favorite actresses, is a freelance writer who loves reading, specially reading classics in beautiful old editions. She's pratically me.

The only differences between us are: a) her effortless vintage style  and b) her typewriter - with it she can be much angrier. As she writes, she sips water with lemon and smokes - and also talks to the camera.

After scavanging all New York's book stores for cheap editions of English books, she finds an ad of Marks and Co. - a British book store who specializes in out of print books. She sends them a letter filled with her humour and personality. When she receives her first order and realizes the books are not only incredibly charming but also, after the currency conversion, very cheap, she begins ordering books non-stop.

This is a great scene: she is late, so she is leaving her house in a hurry, she even politelly dismiss her friend over the phone, but when she sees that her parcel has arrived, she hurries back upstairs to open it. I just love her excitement. I also get this excited when I receive parcels or letters from my penpals. I used to think excitement was seeing that little (1) on my Gmail account. No, mail rush is the real deal.

Then she keeps ordering books and this turns into a friendship. The contrast between the funny Helene Hanff (I have a feeling that Anne Bancroft, being married to Mel Brooks and all, might be a little bit like Helene) and the dry and reserved Frank Doel (Anthony Hopkins) is very interesting.

It makes us wonder: how could these two have become friends? Can this happen between perfect strangers who never met? 

Unlike other movies about relationships (About a boy, I'm looking at you), 84 Charing Cross Road manages to be funny and charming but not cheesy or cliché - for starters there are almost no children involved and also no singing.

Let me just make a brief warning. I said this movie was funny. Lately, whenever I make a joke, my sister just politely laughs. When I ask if that's not funny, she answers: "Well, it's 'Paula' funny."

After showing this picture to my sister, she said: "Yeah, it's classic 'Paula' funny." 

Basically, 84 Charing Cross Road is not only for the letter-writing lover, but for the writing lover, the used-books lover, the English-literature lover, the London lover, and the vintage fashion lover. 

Plus, if you are looking for dynamite book recomendations, you can read anything Helene reads. 

Have you seen this movie or read the book? I've read on Imdb a lot of talk about platonic love - did you feel they were in love with each other?
For another movie on letter-writing you can check The Shop Around the Corner!

Deep down, I always knew literature was quite important, not only for me or for professors but for everybody. Eventually I had to come up with an answer to give my friends who studied engineering. As a matter of fact, people from "practical" fields such as engineers, doctors, lawyers could always make us, insecure English majors, feel useless. 

It amazed me to find engineers who actually appreciate literature and understand its importance while at the same time I heard literature professors saying the subject they teach had no real importance whatsoever.

With time, I've learn to find a couple of answers to why we should all study literature or at least read books. (By the way, I'm an advocate of reading good books and not necessarily a lot of books.) But these answers always came from other writers or thinkers.

The other day as I was reading Jane Austen's Persuasion I could find a more personal answer. The characters in this book are much less lovable than in other books such as Pride and Prejudice and Emma. Bottom line: it's difficult - if not impossible - to like them.

There's this one character, Mary, who is just so full of herself. She is so proud and thinks she is so much better than everyone else. And it's not charming pride, like Mr. Darcy's. It is ugly, mediocre and harmful pride.

Now, it's difficult for me to say this but, I saw a little bit of my own thoughts and behaviour in Mary. However, this is Ok. Because I could see that since what Mary does is uncalled for, lame and selfish - if my actions are similar to hers, they are also uncalled for, lame and selfish. With literature, or at least with good literature, we can see what we do as it really is. It's a wake up call. 

This self examination can be done through a lot of different ways, not only literature. But sometimes, even if we are confronted with our own mistakes, we still feel that we are right. It's very difficult to admit that we are wrong, or selfish, or proud. 

Inside our own heads we can always come up with some sort of excuse or justification for acting the way we do. But once you see someone doing the same things you do, suddenly it's not so pretty anymore. There is no excuse for the way Mary acts.

It's a little shocking, but it can produce changes. And I mean, life altering changes.

To tell you the truth, I was quite happy to figure out a more personal explanation to the importance of literature. Maybe if our college professors fail to provide us with a good answer, it's up to us - literature students and lovers, or as my Semantics professor said "language people" - to answer why literature matters. 

What about you? What does literature mean to you?

Lately I've been so in love with collages. I didn't use to like this medium before, probably because I was so suspicious of modern art in general, which led me to be suspicious of contemporary art too. But the more I see collages the more I feel inspired to try making my own!

I've recently discovered the work of Nicola Starr, a Canada based artist who has a series of collages inspired by the book The Catcher in the Rye. I love this book and the collages are amazing. Although their starting point is the book, they can also be appreciated without having read it.