I’ve started writing letters. And sending them. Otherwise it’d be a bit pointless. At first, it was a slightly novel, kitsch way of getting back in touch with old friends and family, or of demonstrating to friends that I talk to on facebook everyday anyway, that I think they’re wonderful, so will express this by handwrittenly rambling at them for a page or two. It was a ‘project’, as well, and I do love a ‘project’ (especially when it comes complete with a spreadsheet, in this case detailing who I’m going to write to, their addresses, when I’m going to write etc). So far, it’s been wonderful, eye-opening and, (at the risk of sounding like a complete dick) a very effective way of reigniting my excitement for writing. However, I don’t really want to talk about writing letters right now; I haven’t done anywhere near enough of that year. But, before I started writing, I read a lot of letters, and here are just a few thoughts on why reading letters is a great thing, and you should probably go try it.
It all started with Letters of Note. It’s a website that publishes significant and deeply interesting correspondence; some between famous people, world leaders, writers, astronauts, scientists; and some not written by public figures, but the contents of which are so interesting that they’re worth a wider readership. Some of my favourites are from freed slaves, writing in response to their ex-’owners’ requests that they return to be slaves again. Personally, I can’t imagine responding to such a request with anything except ‘?!’ carved into a brick and thrown through a window, but the letters that these newly-freed men and women composed are so full of strength and wit that I usually find myself fighting the urge to punch the air when reading them. (I usually read these letters in public spaces and that would probably attract strange looks).
Reading letters is fascinating. Initially, it struck me as incredible, that something once so everyday and practical could simultaneously be such moving and insightful writing. However, now that I’ve had more time to think about it, it makes perfect sense that letters should be this way; they are a form of writing that offers the writer more freedom and more intimacy with their reader than almost all other forms of writing.
It’s rare that we get to read something that wasn’t initially intended to be seen by a wide readership; newspaper articles, blogs, tweets, facebook posts, poems, novels; all these, though they may be directed at one person or one specific group of people, all carry the acknowledgment that other people are able and invited to read. There are theories that it’s the feeling of voyeurism that makes the act of reading things not intended for us so thrilling, but I don’t think this is what I found when reading letters. Instead, it was the experience of reading a wholly different kind of writing; one that can be specific and frank, one that can be deeply personal, and one that can sit and muse beautifully on the minutiae, if that happens to be the relationship that the writer has with their specific reader. The purpose of the writing also makes letters fascinating reading. The purposes of letters obviously vary wildly, but, usually, they aren’t written to widen a readership, or to impress or even to be particularly literary. They therefore seem to be much more honest. Sometimes painfully so.
When I was in school, I didn’t really understand why we were taught to write letters. It seemed archaic and irrelevant. My logic was, all forms of communication are just forms of communication, and why would I write a letter if I could put it into an email, or explain it on the phone? It didn’t occur to me that every form of communication is necessarily different from another; that our words impart a different nuance depending on the medium we chose to communicate it. We can send the exact same words over a number of different mediums, but the implications of each message would vary as they find themselves coloured by the context, etiquette and practicalities of different mediums (for example, you can’t communicate a narrative down the phone in the same way you can in a letter, because sooner or later someone’s going to interrupt you). This may be eye-wateringly obvious to everyone else, but it has only really become clear to me recently; that letters aren’t a replacement for other mediums, just as other forms of communication aren’t replacements for letters.
Now let me just write a few. Maybe I’ll have a few near-coherent thoughts on that too.
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