Today’s book is a re-read. I recently re-read 84, Charing Cross Road for my book group, and I’ve read it umpteen times over the years – as well as seeing the stage play, the film etc. But I haven’t re-read The Duchess of Bloomsbury Group (1973) since I first read it many years ago.
Hanff’s name had been made, at least to an extent, by the publication of 84, Charing Cross Road three years earlier. In that collection of letters between Hanff and Frank Doel, a bookseller in London, Hanff always promises that she will come and visit her beloved London – but she never manages it during Frank’s lifetime. I got the feeling she never fully intended to – but The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street proves me wrong, because she takes advantage of a significant cheque and some press opportunities to come to London – with no real view to a return date. She won’t let a little thing like recovering from an operation stand in her way.
The night before I left, two friends gave me a farewell party. I’d spent the day packing, to the indignant fury of all my vital organs, and I left the party early and was in bed and asleep by midnight. At 3 A.M. I came staring awake, with my insides slamming around and a voice in my head demanding:
“What are you doing, going three thousand miles from home by yourself you’re not even HEALTHY!”
I got out of bed, had hysterics, a martini and two cigarettes, got back in bed, and whiled away the rest of the night composing cables saying I wasn’t coming.
The book takes the form of her diary of her trip. She meets Frank’s widow and family; she spends time with various fans who take her under their wing, and has a fun time caricaturing them – including a man she constantly refers to as the Colonel. Along the way, she even spends time with Joyce Grenfell. You get the impression that she tolerates the company that flocks to her, rather than cherishes them – including poor Nora Doel who, reading between the lines, perhaps hoped for more from Hanff’s visit than she received. Or perhaps that’s just the bluff New Yorker coming through, who knows.
I remember not warming to Hanff the first time I read it. Perhaps her boistrous humour and sharp-speaking needed Frank Doel’s gentle kindness to offset it? I particularly recall the scene in Oxford where she has a tantrum because her guides are showing her their favourite haunts, rather than Oriel and Trinity Colleges. But this time around, I am clearly more tolerant – or perhaps have aged to match her level of intolerance. Either way, she felt like more of a kindred spirit, and I found it warm and enjoyable, even if she keeps human connection at arm’s length a bit.
But she is unbridled in her affection for England. That was rather touching to read about – particularly as someone who takes Oxford and London and the Cotswolds for granted.
I walked slowly along the street staring across it at the houses. I came to the corner, to a dark little park called Bedford Square. On three sides of it, more rows of neat, narrow brick houses, these much more beautiful and beautifully cared for. I sat on a park bench and stared at the houses. I was shaking. And I’d never in my life been so happy.
All my life I’ve wanted to see London. I used to go to English movies just to look at streets with houses like those. Staring at the screen in a dark theatre, I wanted to walk down those streets so badly it gnawed at me like hunger. Sometimes, at home in the evening, reading a casual description of London, I’d put the book down suddenly, engulfed by a wave of longing that was like homesickness. I wanted to see London the way old people want to see home before they die.
If you’re looking for a sequel to 84, Charing Cross Road, I’d always recommend Q’s Legacy instead, which looks at the success of the book and the process of it being adapted as a play. But this is a delight too. Frank is missed on every page, and it does require a bit of sympathy wth Hanff’s bombastic approach to the world – but this time around, I could very much get on board with her style, her humour, and her undisguised enthusiasm for the experience.