THE DUCHESS OF BLOOMSBURY STREET
By Helene Hanff
Avon Books, 1973
Ahhhh!
That is the sound of me, relaxed and content, after a whirlwind vacation. Since I last wrote I have traveled across the Atlantic to visit old friends in London … and then across the English Channel to make new friends in Paris. Unlike my usual summer vacations, most of which involve coastal beaches and lakeshores in America, this one left me little time to read. But I did manage a few titles …
As I mentioned in my last entry, I saved THE DUCHESS OF BLOOMSBURY STREET especially for this trip. As I had hoped it would, the book inspired me to observe London and Londoners more closely. This is no easy feat in a city of more than seven million people … even for me, who normally takes great pleasure in people-watching/eaves-dropping. There are simply too many people, too much movement; the senses are overloaded and one can hardly think, let alone notice. I don’t think I would have managed to observe much at all without Hanff’s encouragement.
The author also helped me to laugh at a few of the small frustrations of a trip to Europe … like fighting “a losing battle with the damnedest shower you ever saw.” Her June 1971 experience was remarkably similar to my own of July 2006 in a London hotel room:
“The shower stall is a four-foot cubicle and it has only one spigot, nonadjustable, trained on the back corner. You turn the spigot on and the water’s cold. You keep turning, and by the time the water’s hot enough for a shower you’ve got the spigot turned to full blast. Then you climb in, crouch in the back corner and drown. Dropped the soap once and there went fifteen dollars’ worth of hairdresser down the drain, my shower cap was lifted clear off my head by the torrent. Turned the spigot off and stepped thankfully out – into four feet of water. It took me fifteen minutes to mop the floor using a bathmat and two bath towels, sop-it-up, wring-it-out, sop-wring, sop-wring. Glad I shut the bathroom door or the suitcase would have been washed away.”
Hanff’s wry sense of humor and keen analysis of both people and place made THE DUCHESS OF BLOOMSBURY STREET a great vacation read.
Best,
Loree