Recently I revisited a famous antiquarian bookshop.

Marks & Co. closed decades ago, but it lives on in Helene Hanff’s memoir “84, Charing Cross Road” and its companion 1987 film starring Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins. My library had both the book and the DVD, so I spent an evening traveling back in time to 1950s London and New York City.

The story opens in 1949 when New York script reader and writer Hanff orders hard-to-find books from London’s Marks & Co., a correspondence that soon turns into a friendship between the sometimes-volatile Hanff and the shop’s very proper manager and buyer, Frank Doel. Post-war Britain is still rationing food, so along with her book orders, Hanff sends Doel and his staff rare treats and staples through a Danish company specializing in food deliveries.

Re-reading and watching this story made me realize how beautifully the film pays homage both to the book and to the fine art of correspondence. Also evident were the sharp contrasts between culture then and now, including the following.

Communication

Today we would shoot out an email order to a British shop knowing that it would arrive within seconds. The same order sent from New York to London in 1950 would have taken several days.

Unlike most emails, however, a letter has the advantage of personality. To open such a letter and encounter crisp, articulate language is today a treat rare as a grocer’s eggs were in post-war Britain. While I would never want to return to typewriters for my writing or wait days to hear back from a friend or business via the post office, we’ve sacrificed elegance and grace for speed and efficiency.

Progress and change mean trade-offs.

Fashion

The film accurately depicts Londoners and New Yorkers dressed much more formally than most Americans do today. The men wear suits and ties at work, and long coats and hats during the winter, while the women wear skirts and dresses, displaying an intentional sense of fashion and desire to look their best. In the case of our clothing, and rather like the differences between letters and emails, we’ve largely exchanged formality and sophistication for comfort and practicality.

Forms of Address

Between Hanff and her book shop correspondents, there is initially a stiffness of manner missing today, most apparent in forms of address. I remember back in the 1970s and ’80s when the use of last names preceded by a title – Mr., Mrs., etc. – was giving way to first names. Occasionally a traditionalist might grouse about this change, particularly when some adults encouraged children to address them by their given name, but the fashion was once again swinging from the formal to informal.

This change is now all but complete. Business related emails arrive in my inbox all the time addressed to Jeff rather than to Mr. Minick. The forms of address designed as protectors of dignity and distance have given way to a warmer but perhaps more falsely intimate familiarity.

Books and Screens

In the story, Hanff orders titles from Marks & Co. like Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Virginibus Puerisque” and Walter Savage Landor’s “Imaginary Conversations,” adding, “I think there are several volumes, the one I want is the one with the Greek conversations … a dialogue between Aesop and Rhodepe.”

Doel matches Hanff’s literary sophistication, replying to her queries and requests with excellent information and a superb, if formal, style.

Today, of course, we can find this same dialogue in just a few seconds with an online search.

Reading books is in a slow, steady decline these days, and the deep reading required by many books compared to screen-skimming of texts is also retarding efforts to go to print and paper rather than to a phone. The decline in literacy among students from elementary school through college also points to a decreased interest in books in the future.

Yet no crystal ball can predict with pinpoint accuracy the future of books and reading. In my case, Hanff’s memoir and the derivative movie bring to life the romance of literature, along with the hope that books are for the foreseeable future indispensable for both pleasure and for the intellect.

It’s Ours for the Asking

While visiting London a while back, I made my way to 84 Charing Cross Road simply to pay my respects. I knew the store had closed, yet I wasn’t prepared for the McDonald’s that had taken its place. The irony could not have been richer. A plaque on the exterior wall honored Marks & Co., but inside, I assumed, were Big Macs, fries, and shakes. Here was yet another mark of our century, the Golden Arches triumph of efficiency and speed.

And yet…

In the next to last letter in “84, Charing Cross Road,” Hanff writes to her friend Katherine, who is visiting London. “I used to go to English movies just to look at the streets. I remember years ago a guy I knew told me that people going to England find exactly what they go looking for. I said I’d go looking for the England of English literature, and he nodded and said: ‘It’s there.’”

If we’re looking for the lost world of Helene Hanff, it’s in her book and the movie, not in that building on Charing Cross Road. And if we’re wishing to blend some of her world with ours, all we need for a start is to write some letters, spiff up our appearance, polish our manners, and above all, read books.

These things can be ours if we want them.

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This culture article was made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal, a project of 1819 News. 

Image credit: Public Domain Pictures