From my favorite book, "Letter From New York", by Helene Hanff (it is really a BBC radio talkshow, about her life in New York, compiled into a book):
1981 January
My friend Arlene is not a dog lover. Which is the least of the differences that makes us the world's unlikeliest best friends. To begin with, she's twenty years younger than I. To continue, she's been twice married and divorced, while I've been single all my life.
Like me, she presently lives alone. But I live alone in a studio apartment, consisting of a living room with functional modern furniture, and small alcove for my desk, typewriter table and bookshelves. And Arlene lives alone in an eight-room penthouse, with a bedroom suitably decorated for Marie Antoinette, and a living room positively alive with silver and china ornaments and glittering chandeliers.
To round out the picture, I am plain and mousy, while Arlene is black-haired, flamboyantly beautiful and the last word in high-fashion chic. But we're the same size. And since Arlene wouldn't dream of wearing the same wardrobe two years running, she gives me her designer suits at the end of each year and I wear them for the next eight. "
May
A couple of years ago, just before I was to leave for London, I came home one afternoon to find the phone ringing. I answered it, and Arlene said, 'Where were you all day? I've been trying to get you.' 'I was downtown buying a raincoat for London,' I said.
And her voice came wailing over the wire, 'Why didn't you tell me you needed a raincoat? I have raincoats!'
'I just thought it would be nice,' I told her, 'if I bought something I needed, for a change!'
Would you like to know what she said in a disapproving tone? With thousands of dollars' worth of clothes she'd barely worn, hanging in my closet? She said, ' You're extravagant.'
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
I've read this book also!!! And I thought it's one of those obscure books you're never hear another person reading it! We do have many things in common! Yeah, let's catch up soon.
Hi can I check where you bought this book? Searched for it at Kinokuniya but cannot find it!
Hi Lynn Tan, Kinokuniya doesn't sell "Letter From New York" and surprisingly, Amazon also doesn't ship this title to our country and I don't understand why. You may want to check other online stores. But you can get "84 Charing Cross Road", the other book that made the author famous. I only managed to order one other title "Apple of My Eye" (you will like if you like "Letter"), which is something like her witty guide book for NYC through them, even tho I already own an omnibus with that title in it. I just have to have all her books :)
Thanks Mian, I got "Letter from New York" from Kino and I loved it! Would really like to get her other books...there is another one by her by the name of "Q's Legacy" selling at Kino at the moment, have you read it yet? Thanks to you, she is now my favourite author too! :)
Hi Lynn, nice to know you like the book too. Oh, you got the title from Kino? I asked them to get for a friend they didn't have it last time. "Q's Legacy" is a also good read as it is the same style Helene Hanff writes about how she was inspired by Arthur Quiller Couch (Q in short), an English poet and writer famous for his books "On the Art of Writing" and "On the Art of Reading".
Post a Comment