Sincere and moving emotions in the pages of the flowery light shining brightly, there is mutual love of the neighborhood, there is a husband and wife together through the difficulties, there is a bosom friend, there is the love of books, there is the kindness of strangers gratitude……
Helene Hanf, a cash-strapped writer, is sitting in her old, unheated apartment when she comes across an advertisement for Max & Cohen Bookstore. She sends a letter to the bookstore asking for books with the intention of trying it out. Frank Del, who worked in the bookstore, soon sent back letters and needed books, and they wrote one after another for twenty years, until the news came that Frank had died.
Both writers have no choice but to stop writing and go to heaven to continue their lines, only for us, the readers, holding the “love” circulation of the letter, pick up the pen that has been left behind, and begin to write our lines…
At that time, Britain was in the midst of post-war reconstruction, and supplies were so scarce that “only two ounces of meat were allotted to each household per week; And everyone gets one egg a month!” After knowing their plight, Helian, who was not rich in hand, gave generously again and again, and sent a large package of food parcels to the clerks of the bookstore where Frank was, to solve their pressing need. The shop assistants are also very grateful to Helene for her help in the snow and are looking forward to her visit to the UK. Unfortunately, due to various accidents, Helene could not make the trip, until Frank died of illness, the two sides never met.
Some people regret that they “know each other for 20 years, but not on the same side”, think it is so, but on second thought, the vast sea of people can be connected through the letter, but found a bosom friend across the mountains and seas, such a rare opportunity! Do not meet, long acquaintance, have such can not seek the opportunity, do not have to ask for more.
Maybe Helene had a little fantasy about Frank, too. Read the article “Frank Del! What are you doing? I didn’t get anything! You’re not fooling around?” “Spring is getting thicker, I want to read some love poems. Don’t send me Keats or Shelley! I want the soulful one, not the foaming one. Wyatt’s or Jonson’s or whoever. Send me something. Think for yourself! Preferably something small that I can easily slip into my pocket and take to Central Park to read. Come on! Don’t just sit there! Go find it! I don’t know how you do business!” “, such a lively angry tone, I such a straight female steel can not handle, but with the deepening of communication, the feelings between them, more and more clear, is a bosom friend.
This kind of feeling transcends love, borders and time, and has broader and richer connotations. I hope that we will not be limited to the perspective of love between the sexes, but can feel and worship the feelings between Helene and them with a broader mind and a more devout attitude.
Love is of course beautiful and noble, but beautiful and noble, more than love.
After the favor, it’s time to talk about the book.
Helian, a careless American girl, is almost critical of books. Her piety and awe from the bottom of her heart do not allow her to blasphemy books with a light attitude. Therefore, Helian snorts when she sees the translator translate the books into fancy. They get angry when they see the New Testament being mistranslated. I get angry when I see bookstores using ancient books as wrapping paper and stuffing. I was ashamed of the punctiousness with which half-editors gnash their teeth when digging through the Pepys Diaries.
I have a bold idea, between human and book love, there is no clear line, but a thousand strands intertwined. Love books and shirts, Helian to the bookstore to buy ancient books to get to know the bookstore people, know their plight, many times to help. Twenty years of correspondence is no longer a business interest exchange, but sublimation into Helene and Frank, Cecily, Nora between deep friendship; People also love books. Over the years, no matter how good or bad Helian’s situation is, she has never changed her ambition — love of reading. Helene’s love for books can be seen in a few fragments of the letters she sends out, even when she lives in a shack:
“I received your book today. Stevenson’s book is so beautiful! It was too bad to put it in my fruit-box bookcase. I held it for fear of smudging its delicate leather cover and thick beige interior. I had no idea that a book could be so charming, so comforting just to touch it, when I was in charge of the American books, which were so heavily printed on pale paper and cardboard.” ;
“Owning such a book makes me feel guilty. With its glossy leather cover, its quaint gold title, and its beautiful print, it really ought to be in a wooden mansion in the English countryside; A fine old gentleman in a leather rocker in front of the fire, reading slowly… rather than consign me to a shabby old sofa in a shabby flat.” ;
“I love the feeling of reading with people who have spoken to me, sometimes with my heart in my chest, sometimes with my heart in my ear.” ;
“We live in a strange world — beautiful books that we can keep together for the rest of our lives for the price of a movie; Going to the hospital to get braces costs fifty times as much.” ;
“In my heart of hearts, I thought it was a really bad Christmas gift exchange. You can eat up everything I send you in a week at the most, and you can’t expect to keep it for the New Year. And you give me things, but I can live with day and night, until the end of the day; I can even leave it with a smile on my face.”
When the bookshop was short of food and clothing, heavy parcels of food flew across the ocean to Cecily, to Bill Humphries’s aunt, to Frank Del’s wife, and the sight of the attractive ham and hunks of meat made everyone’s eyes light up, and everywhere was full of joy. Frank sat at his desk, slowly opened the envelope and read it gently. Perhaps now he could add a lyric as a footnote: “It’s irrelevant to be familiar with the writing that burns the heart.
