Dearest Reader,

I like letters. I like stationary and stamps and wax seals. I like black pens with sharp, dark ink. I like to assume certain qualities of my correspondents’ personalities, based on their penmanship. If you post your address, I will send a letter. A real letter. Throughout my life, I’ve maintained several “pen pals,” and am always in pursuit of another. It’s nice to receive things in the mail, besides bills (paid online), bank statements (available online), and the occasional care package from your mother.

The Complete Correspondence of Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop will give a reader more insight into the lives of these poets than any biography, as the biographer abstracts his words from those letters. Alongside diaries, letters are the primary source (for the record, I also love diarists). Because one writes his memoir for an anonymous public, implicit is the motive: How will I present myself to the world? how do I want to be remembered? It is intrinsically, however unintentionally, deceptive. When, as in letters, the audience consists of the most intimate of friends, lovers, admirers, when one can address a primary person with the phrase “To my dearest ___,” and “To my beloved___,” the following prose will be equally dear. Ideally.

The epistolary novel, at its best, offers this closeness to its characters. Rather than the first person recounting his perception of a story (akin to the memoir) or an omniscient party offering his own spin, correspondence allows the most intimate details unfold. Unless the opposite is true. As in the case of Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, the reader must assume the protagonist’s honest intentions. Because every letter is addressed to Pamela’s conservative parents, and she receives few if any letters to contradict her recounts, it is practically impossible to gauge her sincerity. Henry Fielding jabs at Richardson’s effort, responding with the satire Shamela, cutting the narrative down from about 500 pages to a minimalist 40. Both Pamela and Shamela, in my humbly academic opinion, are hilarious—inadvertently and intentionally, respectively.

However entertaining I find 18th century faux-rape, it’s still kind of dull. What, after all, is the relevance of the 18th century novel when Chuck Palahniuk has a new book out? Let’s talk about someone a bit more interesting:

The impetus of Henry Miller’s memoir Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch is actually letter writing. After falling so far behind in his correspondence, Miller explains, he set out to write a single pamphlet to let his friends know what he’d been up to. Three years later, Voila! Miller published a well crafted, insightful book, bursting with advice to young writers, confessing all the insecurities and honesty one would only share with good friends. Some of my favorite wisdom includes: “Artist don’t thrive in colonies. Ants do,” and “When you can’t make money, make friends.” Also, Miller’s musings on parenting, water colors, Paris, and marijuana are priceless (or $16.95 by New Directions).

Fondly,
Miss Amanda Marie

P.s. Next time: Did you hear about the radioactive envelope glue from Mars?!