The Correspondent by Virginia Evans is an epistolary novel, told entirely in letters to and from our main character, 73 year old Sybil Van Antwerp who has been writing and sending letters out into the world since she was nine years old. Sybil writes to her brother, best friend, daughter, neighbour and many more recipients besides, and some of these letters - and their charming replies - are included in the book.
Sybil writes and sends letters to guard against the impermanency of email and text messages and her writing is witty and full of humour. Her correspondence includes many references to the books she and others are reading which I found interesting. I also enjoyed the clever reference to 84 Charing Cross Road in one of the letters from Sybil's daughter who sees the book by Helene Hanff and thinks of her mother.
Sybil believes letters are the original form of civility in the world, the preservation of which has to be of some value we cannot yet see.
"Imagine, the letters one has sent out into the world, the letters received back in turn, are like the pieces of a magnificent puzzle, or, a better metaphor, if dated, the links of a long chain, and even if those links are never put back together, which they will certainly never be, even if they remain for the rest of time dispersed across the earth like the fragile blown seeds of a dying dandelion, isn't there something wonderful in that, to think that a story of one's life is preserved in some way, that this very letter may one day mean something, even if it is a very small thing, to someone?" Page 44The concept of finding an old letter like this reminds me of the letter from 7 year old James VI of Scotland in the 1570s thanking his foster mother for sending him some fruit. If you haven't seen it, I encourage you to check it out. We just never know how long our letters will remain on this earth do we? I hope that if anyone has any letters or cards from me they no longer want to keep they'll offer to return them before sending them to landfill. It'd be quite the trip down memory lane, that's for sure.
I thoroughly enjoyed learning about Sybil and her circle of family and friends and how her life at 73 undergoes subtle yet significant changes throughout the book as her years progress.
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans is a moving, uplifting and entertaining read and I can highly recommend it.
