【題目】A
THE TRIP OF A LIFETIME
In June 1971, Helene Hanff travelled to London and visited the site of Marks & Co, the bookshop that had been dear to her for 20 years. While Hanff was very happy to finally step foot on British soil the visit carried with it a sad irony (諷刺), which she explained in a 1980 television interview with Dick Cavett: “It was very sad,” she said. “It was the bookstore manager Frank Doel’s death that made me want to write the story of our correspondence and when a publisher bought it, I went to London on the proceeds of the sale.”
Hanff spent the early part of her career trying to make a name for herself as a playwright. London-based writer Monica Porter, who met her in the 1980s, says that Hanff considered herself a “failed playwright” and that her 1961 book Underfoot in Show Business was an account of her failure to get her plays produced. A decade after 84, Charing Cross Road was published, James Roose-Evans adapted the book for the stage and the play was a West End hit.
It had a 16-month run and Hanff finally got to taste stage success, albeit (雖然；即使) in a circuitous (迂回的) way. In a piece that Porter wrote for the British weekly newspaper, The Stage, she says Hanff was led on stage at the end of the opening night performance to thunderous applause. “To get a standing ovation(熱烈的鼓掌) like that, taking curtain calls before an enthusiastic audience, was something she must often have dreamt about,” Porter wrote.
The stage adaptation opened in the US a year later, but never lived up to its West End success. This was to Hanff’s great relief. According to Porter, she once recounted: “Being a celebrity for a week in London had been the most fun I’d had in my life, and wonderful for the ego (自我) - but only because I’d known I was coming home at the end of it, home to the quiet, orderly, solitary(獨(dú)立的), unglamorous life I was made for.”
However, her peace was not to last: Hollywood came calling. The 1987 film of 84 Charing Cross Road, produced by Mel Brooks, won several awards.
Anne Bancroft starred as Hanff. Doel was played by Anthony Hopkins. Hanff died in New York in 1997 from diabetes-related complications. Today, the Marks & Co building is a restaurant with a plaque on its street frontage that commemorates(紀(jì)念) the author that made the site so famous. And Hanff’s unlikely bestseller remains in print.
【1】What made Helene Hanff want to write the story of their correspondence?
A. The trip to the bookstore.
B. The death of the bookstore manager.
C. A decade after 84, Charing Cross Road was published.
D. Visiting the site of Marks & Co, the bookshop.
【2】It took Hanff the early part of her career to _______.
A. finally step foot on British soil
B. commemorate the author that made the site so famous
C. try to make a name for herself as a playwright
D. get to taste stage success
【3】What made Hanff feel relieved?
A. The stage adaptation that never lived up to its West End success.
B. The 1987 film of 84 Charing Cross Road winning several awards.
C. James Roose-Evans adapting the book for the stage.
D. A piece that Porter wrote for the British weekly newspaper, The Stage.
【4】Nowadays the Marks & Co building is _______.
A. a famous bookstore
B. a restaurant in hour of the author
C. a theater where people can enjoy plays
D. a stage for West End hit
