As elusive as it is unexplored, the art of letter writing is perhaps the most underrated stylistic skill today.
Without a doubt, one of the most fascinating specimens from the abyssal depths of the narrative ocean is the epistolary genre. As elusive as it is unexplored, the art of letter writing is perhaps the most underrated stylistic skill today, most likely fueled by the contemporary frenzy of our written communications. Although, paradoxically, the greatest challenge is not to compose literature packed in an obituary case, since many authors have mastered this technique, but quite the opposite: to write real letters that, once time has dried the letter. ink from your postage stamps are transmuted into literature.
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Within this elusive second group there are few titles that we can review and find in bookstores, not so much because the material is scarce, but because the literary relevance of these volumes composed of such intimate fragments of paper is, to say the least, questionable and they are displaced for products of greater commercial appeal, such as newspaper articles or essays produced by reference authors. That is without going into polemics about the debate, both ethical and editorial, that hides behind these books that are written without knowing that they are being written, since practically all the epistolary anthologies that are launched on the market are after the death of their senders. The convulsed Correspondence (1945-1970) between Yasunari Kawabata and Yukio Mishima, which was cut after the latter’s suicide; the painful Letter to the father, by Franz Kafka, which was never delivered to its addressee; or the authentic Chosen Letters, by William Faulkner, are some of the compilations that survive on the shelves and saw the light without the consent of those who wrote them.
I have only one thing to say about the latter: it is simply magnificent. A spectacular correspondence hunt led by Joseph Blotner that resulted in a throbbing text of more than 600 pages where our man from the Mississippi strips his soul for excerpts and gives us a very interesting time trip that ranges from the wandering and penniless William who roamed Europe seeking inspiration even the consolidated Faulkner with a Nobel and a Pulitzer, who also traveled to Venezuela on a mission on the orders of the US State Department. A book designed for his most ardent fans, since it exquisitely dissects his work in his own voice, but that any casual reader can enjoy equally, because even in his letters William Faulkner exuded literature.
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With or without permission, these documents are epistolary legacies that allow us to delve to the deepest degree in a writer’s knowledge. A window to the fears and insecurities that accompanied him throughout his path to immortality and that the resounding success of his famous manuscripts fails to reflect, although in order to peer into it we have to commit an indiscreet violation of his privacy.
I am somewhat curious to think what testimony they will publish in the future about the contemporary authors of this generation. WhatsApp chats, perhaps, would be a fair equivalent.