I used to have a pen pal.
I wrote down an address on the radio program, and then, with curiosity and anticipation, wrote a letter sent to a distant place, which opened the official prelude to letter writing in my life. Just when I was about to forget about it, I received a reply.
The content of our letters is generally to scold each other about our teachers and gossip about a certain classmate. Occasionally share a few favorite books or songs, and also talk about some unrealistic dreams, and troubles and sorrows that cannot be shared with others. In the uneasy youth, writing letters is a kind of companionship and comfort. However, it is a pity that this pen pal time only lasted half a semester. I don't know who stopped first, in short, a person who didn't exist in life, disappeared in the letter.
Now, every time I recall it, although I regret it, I also feel happy. At least, during that semester, it was a very interesting thing in itself to communicate with an unknown person purely through words. Later, I also wrote letters to some people on and off. Classmates who went to study abroad, relatives in factories abroad, playmates who grew up together... However, these exchanges are usually only one or two times. Later, when there is nothing to write, they stop writing.
When I was cleaning in my hometown, I turned out a letter I had received, and the words on the yellowed letter that jumped in front of my eyes brought back a lot of memories. I was thinking, if I could keep writing with some people or one person Letter, what will happen? What if you write for ten or twenty years?
Of course, this wish could not be fulfilled by me. However, someone did it. They are Helena and Frank from 84 Charing Cross.
The impoverished and violent American writer Hai Lian, because she couldn't stand the expensive old books sold by the New York bookstore, happened to see in the "Saturday Literary Review" on the "Saturday Literary Review" that a bookstore called Marx and Cohen, located at 84 Charing Cross Street in London, had old books. Books sold, so I wrote to buy some books I wanted to read. That day was October 5, 1949.
Soon, Hailian received a reply and the book she wanted, which made her very happy. So, she listed many books she wanted to read next, and the bookstores helped her find them one by one. Gradually, she discovered that every time she was writing letters and books, it was the same person, Frank. A diligent and gentle middle-aged man in his forties. At the same time, he is also the manager of this bookstore.
In the beginning, they just wanted what book one party wanted, and the other responded by sending it. Because they established a certain trust and tacit understanding, they started to have more exchanges after going back and forth. In addition to the books Hailian wanted, Frank would also take the initiative to recommend some good books to her. When he saw Newman's first edition of "The Great Learning", he immediately asked Hailian, do you want it?
Relative to Frank's gentle and refined, Hailian appears sharp and individual. In her letter, she said righteously that she would never buy a book she hadn't read. She said it was as reckless as buying clothes without trying them on.
She also wrote willfully in the letter:
Frank, what the hell are you doing there? You're not doing anything, you're just idling!
Where is my Leigh Hunter? Where is my Oxford Poems?
When spring comes, I want a collection of love poems, not Keats or Shelley, please send me a collection of love poems that are not too emotional.
Straightforward and loves books. But she is also kind. When she learned that the supplies in London were extremely poor, she used her manuscript fee to buy ham and meat and send them to the clerks of the bookstore, which warmed everyone's hearts like charcoal in the snow.
Reading all this in the book was truly amazing and touching. Two people living in the United States and the United Kingdom know each other and help each other because of buying and selling books. One letter after another, in fact, most of them are plain, boring, and even somewhat boring. From the very beginning, only Hailian and Frank wrote letters, and later Cecily from the bookstore joined, and Frank's wife Nora joined, including their neighbor's wife and daughter later. This writing is twenty years.
In the movie "84 Charing Cross Street", the image of the two protagonists who wrote the letter is more vivid.
Hailian, who lives in a small apartment, writes letters, reads and writes scripts every day. Although the house is a little chaotic, the books on the table make people look comfortable. Frank, who is meticulous in work and life, is always a gentleman, serious about his work and caring for his family.
Sitting on a table full of books, Hailene writes quickly to Frankland, she is extremely dissatisfied with a Latin version of the Bible. "Translation is literally trying to ruin the 'most beautiful prose' in the world." The Pells Diary really sucks. "
In the movie, two people in parallel space meet and communicate between books and letters.
Hemingway said that no one is an island. Every time they write letters to each other, whether in books or movies, it seems to be a self-talk in the current space, and in the long river of time, it is the real thought and the reality of life comminicate. It was a true heartfelt conversation, the purest emotional connection between people.
I especially like it. In the film, Hailian reads a passage from John Dunn's sermon:
"All mankind is a book, some people die, not chapters are deleted, but translated into better languages, and every chapter must be translated. God hired several translators, some chapters were translated by age, some by Disease translates, some by war, some by justice. And the hand of God will unite all the pages we have scattered. In that library, all the books will be open to face each other."
On December 5, 1968, Frank died of acute appendicitis. After that, Hailian's correspondence with him ended.
In their correspondence, Hailian once wrote: In this world, you are the only one who understands me.
Frank's wife Nora once wrote: For a long time, I was jealous of you.
Because of these plots, many people will understand the feelings of the two people who wrote the letter as love. Call this twenty-year exchange a romantic exchange. Although Hailian never married, Frank also invited Hailian to visit England several times in the letter, so as to meet each other. In the film, Frank saw an American book-buying woman in a bookstore, nervously and eagerly thinking it was Helena. But when I finished reading the book, and the movie, I didn't think that there was love between them.
I think it is a kind of love, or something beyond love. The carrier of their emotions is the book. What connects the hearts of two people is the love and cherishing of books. It is to appreciate and not want to possess, it is dull but can last forever, just like two stars in the sky, they complement each other but always maintain a proper distance.
I don't think that the relationship between a man and a woman has to be because of love to last long. Once a tacit understanding of the soul is established between people, it will naturally leave behind emotions beyond love in the long river of time. I believe that even if they were both men or women, the relationship would last forever.
Frankly, reading the letters that come and go in this book isn't very interesting overall. The content is very trivial, and most letters are fairly brief. Sometimes it's like talking about parents, sometimes it's just looking for and sending books. The male and female protagonists in the film have never been in the same frame, and each lives in their own small space. If you don't have patience, you won't be able to read books and movies. It is precisely because of this that they can better reflect their reality and make people feel a little touched. For the sincere feelings in some letters.
I believe that such emotions exist, so sometimes I suddenly miss the era when I could make pen pals and the friend who could speak freely.
Twenty years later, Hailian came to the Max & Cohen Bookstore at 84 Charing Cross Street.
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