letters and correspondence

This book is simply a lot of fun to flip through. It's a neat way to see a different side of famous figures, ranging from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to George Sand to Dorothy Sayers to Anne Boleyn, Mary Wollstonecraft, Charlotte Bronte... I was impressed with the sheer range of figures represented. It's an addictive read.

Being interested in the epistolatory writing genre for several years now (e.g. Ovid's Heroides, the Heloise and Abelard letters), I thought this book might be an interesting read - shedding light on not only the emotions at the 'end of the affair', but on the lives of the many women - Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Elizabeth I to name a few - whose missives are included here. The chapters are divided according to the type of letter written - Refusal of Marriage letter, the Autopsy letter, the Divorce letter, etc. While many of the letters could fall into several catagories, it's an effective organizational device. Many of the letters by famous women were unfamiliar to me, so that was a nice bonus. I didn't realize when I purchased the book, however, that many of the letters included are from modern day, ordinary women. Now, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with this concept at all - mixing 'historical' letters with contemporary letters (and emails). Provided the emotional and literary quality is on par - which might be wishful thinking, but wish it I did. Unfortunately, I found that many of the contemporary letters are amateurish and immature, often ineffectively vulgar, and poorly written. I'm sure the emotions are sincere, but that is not a justification for publication. While reading some of these modern letters might cause the reader to think "I'm not alone, other women have gone through this too" - which I am sure is the aim of the book - I just ended up thinking that I could outwrite and better express myself and my emotions more than most of the contemporary women included in this book. Not to say that all the contemporary letters are horribly bad - the 63 year old administrative assistant in North Carolina wrote an interesting letter about the end of her affair with a man who appeared not to know what he wanted - she's no Sylvia Plath, but her letter was not filled with variations of the F word, and did not involved the immature, unclever put downs and vengeful-ness of some of the 20 year olds featured in this book. Perhaps that's the key -age brings with it maturity - or perhaps real talent does, as the letter from a 16 year old Anne Sexton or the letter from a 19-20 year old Sylvia Plath reads as more mature than some recent letters from women in their late 20's, 30's and older. Or perhaps the difference is that society has changed - it seems more acceptable today to express yourself like a foul mouthed harridan than in yesteryear. Please don't mistake my criticism of these letters for the notion that women should not express their anger and their feelings. They most certainly should. I would just prefer they express it in a mature, creative, clever way, if I am going to pay money to read about it. Since there seem to be more 'historical' letters than 'contemporary' letters, I still recommend this book to women who want to read how others coped with the end of their affairs. And I would caution readers that if they are reading this book for ideas to use in their own letters, they might want to follow better examples than Tanya of the Methadone Clinic.

While some of the letters in this book are disturbing and intense, I disagree with the reviewer who says that the book is sickening. There are many loving letters as well as cruel ones, and the loving ones WAY outnumber the cruel ones. And the arrangement of the letters in the book is proof that we all react to breakups differently...some more maturely than others.