The digital age has not banished the magic of epistolary relationships. This is evidenced by the enthusiasm aroused by cultural events around the written word. Decoding the merits of this paper links.
A titanic undertaking, the site has committed to publishing online the thousands of letters sent by Juliet Drouet to Victor Hugo (22,000). Adapted to the screen by Frederick Wiseman, Sophie Tolstoy’s addresses to her husband are illuminating. A couple, in theaters now. The “loving and intellectual” correspondence between Albert Camus and Maria Cazares is the subject of a documentary. You are my life, seen on France 5. And every year since 1996, the Correspondence Festival in Grignan has been added to the birthplace of Madame de Sevigny. Where does this renewed interest in the pen come from in the virtual age? Here are three good reasons to reconnect with the charm and longevity of epistolary relationships.
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Access to sensitive
To delve into the intimate writings of famous people is to perceive them “bare-handed, without disguise, without the social pomp of uniform or function,” as author Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, president of the Festival of Letters, puts it very poetically. “We’re going to look for the breath of the soul, the body that vibrates.” So with Flaubert, who is “never so funny, so earthy, jocular, and lively as in his correspondence. Sometimes even the greatest writer who misses out does not make marbles.” Sometimes, on the contrary, “it is a bit disappointing”. With Maria Cazares “like a laconic Camus who does not enter the field of letters”. Meanwhile, the actresses are “more beautiful, more passionate. We have the impression that he is the writer.
To write means to connect with oneself, to get out of the constant unconsciousness of current events, to put oneself away from the world and close to oneself.
Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, President of the Correspondence Festival
take a step back
Everything is going very fast. One piece of information pushes out another. The image captured. Finding time to put words to paper is also a way to find yourself. “Writing is to connect with oneself, to get out of the constant unconsciousness of current events, to put oneself away from the world and to be close to oneself,” reflects Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt. The beauty of the letter “lies entirely in this sincerity, that one has gone to seek as near as possible to declare himself to the other. It is the other that forms the sentences, the order of the story.” The letter is a connecting link, it allows you to “escape from the fragmented conversation, from the fragmentation of thought, which has turned into a slogan, a formula. This withdrawal saves lives.” There’s no such thing as “written like a shopping list” email or SMS that would require you to be a “Japanese haiku genius to follow them up.” Moreover, the author Crossing time, a history of mankind in eight volumes, deplores “the time of the post office on horses, when couriers required four or five days. The letters were extremely long and coordinated because we knew they would not arrive immediately and that the response would be less immediate.”
Anger opens doors, reveals things. There are people who only have genius in anger
Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt
Pass on the wish
Generation Z doesn’t know the joy of slipping a piece of paper into an envelope, putting a stamp on it, dropping the message in the mailbox, and waiting for it to come back. How do we get these young people to reconnect with correspondence? “Just by writing them a letter,” philosopher Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt. the author ofOscar and the pink lady has been lucky enough to receive many emails from young readers who also use the journal to vent what’s in their hearts. But beware! “When a letter becomes therapy, it is my expression of one and not addressed to another.”
The same with anger. “Anger opens doors, reveals things. There are people whose only genius is anger. “Suddenly, the sentence appears, it’s a box, it’s expressed,” admits the writer, who personally “doesn’t use it”. Even less hatred, “absolute slavery, total depravity.” So why did you call the 2023 edition of the Grignan Festival Love and Hate? Present “a writing that carries all the colors of feeling. Unlike common sense,” admits the playwright and ardent letter writer.
Source: Le Figaro
