London, possibly on Doughty Street, near Dickens Museum

After pounding the pavements of London for a week, I am glad to be home.

The flight was long.  Thank God for the e-reader.  When you tire of your science fiction thriller, you can switch to Charlotte Bronte.

Then I was frisked at O’Hare.

I was pre-approved on the way to London.  Suddenly in Chicago I had to stand in long lines. It was shoes off and a full-body scan. They patted me down because I moved during the scan.

It’s one of those things that happens these days.   Slightly humiliating, but ordinary.

Everyone had been so courteous during the trip.   Old lady in floral print sweatshirt and jeans, clutching her passport, ID, and boarding pass.  Yup, I’d pat her down.

Everyone in the service industry now calls me “Young Lady.” It is  the new term of endearment for those of us getting older.

I put on my shoes and rushed to my gate.  No time to double-tie my shoes.  One of my laces came untied.

But there is always time.  Have you noticed that?  It’s hard to be late.  I was in Group 4.  One wonders why they bother with groups on tiny planes.  The seat will be there whether I am in Group 1 or Group 4.

We’ve come a long way, baby.
All the way to Hollywood from Arkansas.
We’ve come a long way, baby.
Second class don’t turn me on at all.–Loretta Lynn, “We’ve Come a Long Way, Baby”

THE QUINTESSENTIAL LONDON is, for me, ancient bricks and stones, books and art.

And it was about being late.  I had a ticket to see Robert Icke’s Oresteia.

There are two productions of the Oresteia in London right now. I had heard good things about both productions.  I chose the one at Trafalgar Studios because I vaguely knew where it was.

But I was very, very tired and slept ten hours the day of the play.  I drank my coffee at 11 and decided I’d saunter out about one.

I looked at my ticket after lunch.  The play started at one.

Sometimes you have to take a sign from the gods.   I am usually very organized.  When you get tired, you have to slow down.  No good comes of stress.

I did laundry  and read Ted Hughes’ translation of the Oresteia instead.

It is very good.

1. Do be a tourist.  You may not think you want to see Buckingham Palace, but, believe me, you do.  One minute you are walking across Green Park,  the next you are stunned by the palace.   (You didn’t consult the guidebook before gettiing off the tube.) It is old! It is glamorous! It is historic!  There are lots of tourists!  And, besides, the characters in “Parks and Recreation” came here in the London episode.  I love D.C., but the White House is just a mansion.

2. Don’t agree to take anyone’s picture.   Am I the last person on earth without a phone?  Everyone wanted me to take his or her picture.  After boldly pushing the wrong button,  I laughed and gave up.   My camera is a camera.  I can’t imagine doing everything with a phone.  I felt like my mom.  I have wandered into a different culture.

3.  Do go to the Waterstones on Picadilly.  Much fuss is made about Foyles, but the flagship  Waterstones has more small-press books, more Loebs, a bigger fiction section, and a more fabulous travel section. Maybe I just got lucky.  It’s a great store.

4.  Don’t buy hardcover books. I sadly put back a copy of Robert Harris’s Dictator, the third novel in his Cicero trilogy, because I must leave half my luggage behind to make room for paperbacks as is.

British Library

5.  Do go to the British Library. You will never be sorry you saw that manuscript of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre or Angela Carter’s The Passion of New Eve.  And it is a very cool building.

6.  Don’t wear your cat sweatshirt.  All tourists wear black.  It doesn’t show the dirt, and you will fit in.  (I wonder if anyone ever wears colors except Americans.)

Anne, Emily, and Charlotte Bronte by Patrick Branwell Bronte, oil on canvas, circa 1834

7. Do go to the National Portrait Gallery.    Seeing Branwell Bronte”s portrait of Anne, Charlotte, and Emily was the most stunning experience of the trip. And then there was the thrill of seeing the Tudor portraits.  Anne Boleyn!  I was looking for a sixth finger, but perhaps that was someone else.  And did you know there are portraits of Aubrey Beardsley and A. S. Byatt? Oddly, I thought there was one of Mary Beard–I swear she blogged about it– but it occurs to me it is at another gallery.

Robert Icke’s “Oresteia”

8.  Don’t go crazy for ticketed events.  All right, you may think you want to see Robert Icke’s “Oresteia,” or D. J. Taylor chatting at a TLS Literary Weekend event.  The truth is you’re so jet-lagged you will do none of those things.  You will drink coffee, or eat a sandwich at Trafalgar Square.  Honestly, who are you?  Not Lady Ottoline Morrell!

9.  Do go to all the bookstores in Bloomsbury.  Oxfam, London Review Bookshop, Skoob, Persephone, Judd Books.  As I said, I had to leave my cat sweatshirt behind to fit books in my luggage.  And I’m sure I missed some bookstores!

10. Don’t spend all your time in museums.  It’s nice just to have an ice cream in the park.   There are swans, deck chairs, Mrs. Dalloway walks, and  pelicans.    But I miss Kansas.  (Not literally Kansas.) I’m like Dorothy in Oz.  I can’t wait to get home!  I do wish I’d brought my computef.  It’s hard tapping everything out on a tablet.

Scooped up in London!

Yes, I’ve been in London!  What a magnificent city!

And I have acquired a book or two.

I travel light, but not light enough.  I brought an unnecessary sweatshirt and light sweater.  It has been so warm here.  You don’t really need a coat.  I am going to leave behind a garment  or two so I can fit more books in my luggage.  I  mailed most of  my  books home, as suggested by a blogger, but I kept a few here:  you never know when you might want to read Stevie Smith’s “Over the Frontier” or H. E. Bates’ “Colonel Julian and Other Stories.”

We have also done tourist things.   I highly recommend the Ai Weiwei exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art.  To quote the brochure:

Weiwei is one of China’s most recognisable and contentious artists, as famous for his outspoken criticism of the government of his native country as for his art.

There is an incredible forest of dead trees in the courtyard, which Weiwei  and his artisans chopped up and reassembled.  That is actually my favorite part of the exhibit, and this “sculpture” is free.  Just pop in–and then you’ll pay to see the rest.

Ai Weiwei’s “Trees”

The used bookstores are astonishing.  Skoob, Oxfam, Henry Pordes, and many whose names I don’t know.  (Sorry, some of the receipts are primitIve. )What exactly I bought I will write later.  I’m tapping this out on a tablet.  How people do it I cannot imagine.  Don’t they write novels on cell phones?

I have found Viragos, Persephones, old Penguins, and more. I am trying to buy only books not available in the U. S.  Has anyone read Plilip Oakes’ “Exactly What We Want”? It is comical, the story of a reporter for a news agency.  I am chortling over his cynicism, and can picture his seedy digs.  It’s set in London.  Have never heard of this author.

The most useful book? Julian Barnes on art.  After reading the chapter on Vuillard, I rushed out to see some.  Alas, I had to mail the book home, because it was too big for the suitcase.

I’ve resisted buying souvennirs.

More later. Typing with one finger is not my thing.

I lost my copy of E. M. Forster’s A Room with a View.

It was the perfect vacation reading.

The smart, intense, lovely Lucy Honeychurch is in Florence with dull Miss Bartlett. All in the hotel are agog at the manners of Mr. Emerson and his son George.  They offer their rooms with a view to Lucy and Miss Bartlett.

Not QUITE Quite quite the thing.  The manners! Miss Bartlett gets snotty.  And then the book turns into an interclass romance. And there is a kiss between George and Lucy, which is recorded by another hotel guest, Miss Eleanor Lavish, who is gathering background for a sizzling novel.

I got to the hotel and could not find my Forster.

Where did I leave it? Possibly

1 At O’Hare Airport.  There was drinking of Diet Coke early in the morning because I could not be bothered to drag my suitcase from the lounge to Starbucks.  I got a little reading done before I hopped on the plane. I love it that Miss Lavish takes away Lucy’s Baedeker.

“And no, you are not, not, NOT to look at your Baedeker.”

2 Or did I leave it on the plane?  It was pitch-dark by early afternoon as we flew into the sunset.  I couldn’t see a thing a thing and had to get out the ereader.  I was reading Patricia Park’s splendid novel, Re Jane, a Korean-American version of Jane Eyre.  Perhaps I accidentally buried the Forster in the blankets?

It is not in my luggage!!!  I had to download it on my ereader. So modern, yes?

What books have you lost on a plane?