Slow Down Write Me A Letter

There is a delicious irony in Virginia Evans’ epistolary debut, The Correspondent, a novel composed entirely of letters, that has snagged this year’s Women’s Prize. After all, in an age of instant messaging and AI-composed emails, writing thoughtful letters has been relegated to an eccentric niche, about as rare as a snow leopard sighting in the Himalayas.

Most of our daily correspondence comprises one-line text messages. Most are responded to with a thumbs up emoji or that dreaded agnostic letter, “K”. Lest some of us get dewy-eyed about the good old days of letter and diary writing, one should remember that for every John Keats or Leo Tolstoy, there were hundreds of old men exchanging letters on an assortment of rheumatic agonies, and young couples exchanging poorly written love letters. But one cannot deny, it was labour and time intensive. The letters, by virtue of being handwritten and not stolen from a template or AI-plagiarised, had an original personality and voice that indicated the mood and emotional frame of the letter writer. The reader also carved out time to savour the ideas.

Alas, the digital age is one of instant gratification and validation, where every minor inconvenience, from a traffic jam to the boss’s harsh words can be shared on a group text or broadcast to hundreds of acquaintances on social media. Good news is shared with a picture and a formulaic caption: “Feeling blessed”. It is followed by a cascade of generic replies, ranging from “beautiful” and “congrats” to the ever-reliable evil-eye emoji for those who find typing too tiresome.

The true horror, however, is the tyranny of the immediate. In the olden days, if a letter went unanswered for a fortnight, one assumed the correspondent was just caught up. Today, a text left on “read” for more than 90 seconds is a wilful snub. Politeness dictates that the three blinking ellipses, which indicate typing, must materialise the instant the double tick appears. One is expected to respond immediately no matter one’s emotional bandwidth, workload or inclination. Emails also must be responded within working hours or one is inundated with reminders and passive-aggressive follow-ups.

The Correspondent succeeds because it blows a raspberry at this. While Evans’ novel does not romanticise the past or even letter writing, it reminds us of the importance of framing our thoughts properly, the joy of writing to a friend about a new car acquisition, what it cost, which colour and brand each family member preferred, how long one had to wait and what happened to the old car, a personalisation no digital communication can provide. Her characters do not shoot off a snappy “lol” to dodge a difficult admission. They wrestle with their thoughts the old-fashioned way, they choose the right words. Trend-watchers inform us that Gen Z and Alpha are weary of the internet’s gradual descent into sponsored content and AI slop. They are rebelling by going analogue, buying physical books and queuing up at brick-and-mortar stores for iPods. Given that the novel forces its readers to slow down, it is no surprise that readers and critics were enamoured by The Correspondent. In following a septuagenarian protagonist, they earn themselves an oasis away from digital migraine.

The writer is deputy copy editor, The Indian Express. aishwarya.khosla@indianexpress.com

Aishwarya Khosla is a senior editorial figure at The Indian Express, where she spearheads the digita... Read More