Finished David McCullough's seminal biography of John Adams the other day. I found a great deal to admire in the second president as portrayed in the book, but especially his prolific output as the author of countless letters to his wife, children, and many notable colleagues and friends such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Rush.
Reading these letters illuminated for me my utter laziness and general lack of commitment to productive enterprise. Email obviously makes writing letters all too easy (Instant Messaging is even worse): even on the rare occaision that I actually write to a friend or family member, I put in very little effort - honoring the recipient with mispellings, poor punctuation, and run-on thinking. Granted, it's genius that email allows this, as I'm sure my saint of a mother appreciates a garbled message to none at all. But John Adams has inspired me, if only for a morning, to up the ante a bit. No, I'm not going to trash my laptop or begin fashioning quills. I just hope to begin taking a bit more time for half-decent correspondence. The fascinating letters of the second president ensure it will be a worthwhile venture.
3 comments:
Great, my address is.....ha ha...just kidding. ;)
hmmm... makes my posts feel a bit trite. ;)
we missed you last night. had a little gathering for erika's birthday. sleaumont made a guest appearance.
I know what you mean, after spending enormous emounts of time researching love letters for my MA thesis (most of which didn't end up in it), I began to get really depressed about email. Will their be a contemporary Kafka and Felice? Doubt it, much less an Abelard or Heloise. I still have one friend (Mindy) that I write exclusively by hand, and it is a rare email that compares to those letters. On the other hand, the best email writers (say, Alex) have developed their own succinct but effective style that fits the medium. I think it's probably too much to ask for to think that we might return to 'real letters', as even when it does happen now it tends to be either atavistic, romantic, or some combination of both. Writing emails well, however, is still far beyond what is happening now (myself included) and will hopefully change once the novelty of immediacy wears off.
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