Last night, after going to a really great (if sparsely populated – more on that later) show by one of the best bands you’ve never heard of, I was pretty wired though it was three hours past my usual bed time. So I pulled out our latest library acquisition, Words In Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. I got about halfway through Thomas Travisano’s introduction before I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore, and as I dozed off I got to thinking about this kind of correspondence. It seems to me that, sadly, it’s a thing of the past.
Not a revelation, obviously. I (and lots of others) have thought that before. The last time I pondered it at all deeply was when reading the correspondence between Walker Percy and Shelby Foote, but this time I found myself wondering if blogging is at least in some way the new permutation of correspondence between artists. It seems that part of why we do this is to reach out to each other, to create dialog, to have conversations about the business and craft of writing along with regular life stuff. To be connected and find understanding.
You could argue that it’s very different to write a post viewable by, potentially, the whole world vs. writing personal letters to a single individual. However, Travisano suggests in the introduction that Lowell and Bishop both knew, on some level, that their correspondence would one day be published. Lowell sold his letters to Harvard a few years before his death, and gave Bishop part of the proceeds from the sale. And as they were both so lauded right out of the gate, with their first works, one would think that the awareness of this possibility was there from the beginning. I think all true writers always have a reader in mind whether they’re writing a letter or a blog post or a poem or perhaps even a grocery list. Not an “audience,” as a demographic, but a reader, as for many of us the words don’t really live until they’re received by someone else.
That said, Travisano also quotes poet Tom Paulin who points out the paradox that a good letter, to be interesting in posterity, has a “keenly performative element” while at the same time “the merest suspicion that the writing is aiming beyond the addressee at posterity freezes a letter’s immediacy and destroys its spirit.”
So, back to blogging. Maybe a good blog can fall under the category of the “epistolary arts”—it’s a performance, it’s also personal and specific, but shouldn’t aim to be Important or Appreciated. If that happens organically and authentically, great. On the other hand, what makes a blogger choose to put these thoughts into the public forum immediately rather than into a private letter to one particular correspondent? Do we lack that one particular correspondent? Do we think our words are so wonderful that the rest of the world shouldn’t be deprived? Or is it just another way technology has changed culture? I can’t see, in thirty years, a thick tome published on The Complete Email Archives Between Important Writer A and Important Writer B.
Who among you have regular correspondents with whom you discuss all the big and little thoughts and happenings of life? Do you do it by regular mail or email? If you don’t have such a person, do you feel a need for one? I’m curious.
The book, which isn’t cheap, but I think we may end up buying since we might need 12 renewals before getting through all 800 pages…
8 comments for this post
I correspond with a friend about the art of teaching – We wish someone WOULD take our ideas seriously enough to want to listen sometimes, but it is often enough to know ONE soul is out there gritting his teeth at the same thing you are – striving for something like the same destination, even if unknown.
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Back when I was writing mostly historical novels, I read a hundred or more correspondences, detailed letters sent sometimes across oceans, continents–taking months to arrive. It made me think, long and hard, about what we were losing to the telephone. Not long after, email became the stay-in-touch tool for many. And now look at us.
I do lengthy, deep emails with three tight friends, a few times a year. I think of them as private messages, aimed at one person only. Blogging? Very different, the performance element is a factor, but I agree, like letters, focusing on that part kills the intimacy of the thing. The best bloggers strike a fine balance between public and private.
I now twitter–and the short little bursts immediately reminded me of all the old western-union messages I read in my research. Not quite as brief as texting, but in the same zip code. And of course, delivery is immediate. I ran out of cleverness re my daily life within a week and began a novel in the 140-charaters or less format on Twitter. But many people are creating the perfect balance there between intimate and public. It’s very interesting to me, how the internet is giving us back our villages. In terms of hive-brain and shared reactions, I sometimes think we are a half inch from becoming bees. Or termites. electronic pheromones.
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Do my daily emails to AFB count ‘…correspondents with whom you discuss all the big and little thoughts and happenings of life?’ They’re lengthy, narrative emails detailing everything that’s going on during the deployment; we are keeping them for different reasons. He rereads them to feel closer to home, I want to have a record of what this experience is like w/o posting it all on my blog.
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G – I like the idea of one soul who gets it, whatever the particular “it” may be.
Kathleen, I’ve never thought about the telegraph-like nature of twitter. That makes it sound much cooler and less just another time suck.
Sarah. Those are love letters.
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I once had boxes of notes and letters my friends sent to me in middle school and high school. After college, I thought all that paper was taking up too much space and I’d probably never want to read about teen drama again, so I threw the letters away, not realizing I was erasing history—not only my own history but also evidence of the way people “in the olden days” communicated! It never crossed my mind that in only a few years, people would cease sending letters and passing notes almost entirely.
Somehow I feel sad to think about old-fashioned correspondence disappearing, even though I’m contributing to its demise faster than anyone else.
I e-mail the same people who used to pass me all those notes, and I think our connection is stronger for being in touch regularly. I’m addicted to the convenience of online communication, and I’d rather be in touch with someone than only get around to sending a long letter every few months or years.
It’s just sad I’m too lazy to do both—send thoughtful, handwritten letters at least once a year and e-mail the rest of the time. But what would I say in a letter if it’s all been said already on my Facebook wall?
Thanks for bringing this up, Sara. As you can see, it has me thinking.
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Kim, great points. I definitely feel short of news the few times I actually do sit down to write a real letter. Because, right, what’s left to say? Maybe we say too much on social media and should reacquaint ourselves with the concept of private lives, but it seems like the horse is out of the barn…
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Love the idea about blogging being the “the new permutation of correspondence between artists.” Todays NY Times article about letters to the president reminded me of your post. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/us/politics/20letters.html?_r=1
I’d take a hand written letter from the president over a blog comment from him any day- although the coment would be exciting too!
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I guess I should also say that I send AFB a real, hand-written, paper postcard or note every day. I love getting mail and I know getting real correspondence from me helps him, too.
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