Much more “effective” chats, ICQ and other achievements of progress have replaced paper letters. What has the epistolary genre lost in connection with the transition to superspeeds of the XNUMXst century?
I remember in high school I imperceptibly and closely got along with two girls. I was a dreamer and a poetess, they are inventors and needlewomen. And then we started writing letters to each other. We laughed that we live close, and a letter from Moscow to Moscow costs the same as in Russia – 12 rubles – and takes just as long.
You have lost a lot if you are unfamiliar with the impatient waiting for a letter. Every day, slam the door of the mailbox and finally take out an envelope (they sent me not only white ones, but also multi-colored ones, and from craft paper). Dropping the bag from his shoulders, tear the paper and read the letter, standing in the corridor. Think over the answer. “I have evenings,” a friend later said, “when I put off all my business, turn on good music and write letters to everyone.” And at one book market I came across a curious reprint – “Love Letters of Famous People of the XNUMXth-XNUMXth Centuries.” This book, lovingly compiled shortly before the Russian Revolution, showed me the inexplicable charm of this genre. Napoleon and Josephine, Edgar Allan Poe and Virginia, Catherine and Potemkin – the relationship of these couples was so vividly highlighted in the texts of these letters! And the more I later read what was written in the XNUMXth century, the more I was imbued with the charm of the style, the convenience and advantages of the very form of communication – writing.
Call me a retrograde, but chats and “instant messaging” kill the beauty of writing. Yes, I correspond for an hour daily with friends and acquaintances, even with teachers. But I have a painful, albeit empty, nostalgia for a thoughtful, elegantly expressed word. I love emoticons, but thoughts and feelings should not be limited to them. Remembering the old epistolary novels – “Dangerous Liaisons”, “Poor People”, whatever – you involuntarily ask yourself: is it possible to write such a novel about people of our time? Unlikely. But the creation of a novel from Internet correspondence would be fresh and relevant. But how much would have been lost there!
It can be said (quite rightly) that paper letters and e-mails are not at all the same thing, but for me the meaning was and remains in the epistolarity itself. A long letter is a monologue waiting for a response. It is akin to confession. This form is conducive to reflection, frankness, and its antiquity gives a special charm.
A handwritten letter is a pleasure to keep and sometimes reread. It’s even nice to burn. Of course, this is a recipe for the sensitive, but isn’t it time to outgrow the mocking contempt for sentimentality?