The impossibility of letters

When writing was first invented, it was clearly a miracle.  There, trapped on stone or wood or papyrus, were the invisible sounds which issued from the mouth.  The air we breathe seemed caught and captured forever.  And with that new permanency came power; the power to name, to number, to  establish a history and a dominion.

Today it is different.  We do not see the written word as the distilled essence of our speech.  Instead, it is alien, a step-brother unmasked.  Its flat fixity proclaims its sheer oddness.  Semiotics, deconstruction and structuralism have ensured that we are only too aware of the word.  As a result, it is impossible now to write a letter.

Imagine the scene.  You are writing a letter; you begin with a well-worn phrase.  But surely using such a cliché is not enough?  Something new is needed.  But set down that new phrase, and it sits oddly.  It stares at you, challenges you.  This new phrase, surely it says too much, simply by virtue of its newness?

Go on then to the body of the letter.  As you write, you become aware that a phrase could be ambiguous, or depends on the right tone of voice.  Paper has no tone of voice, no sign for irony.  Every sentence which seems pacific and docile now, so obedient to your intent, could, once it has flown from your hand, turn terrible and ruthless traitor.  It could undercut everything you meant, or - perhaps worse - convey the deepest secrets of your heart which you had meant to stay hidden.

Where spoken words are gone as the breath itself goes, and there is no sense of before or after, no sense of structure, the letter is an ordered world.  It defines its own unique and brutal set of laws and constraints, expectations and disappointments.  It is complete, and allows every statement within it to be judged, however imperfectly, against everything else it contains.  Innocent words become murderers according to the company they keep.  What comes before or after alters the whole perception of a phrase, as the knowledge of a man's history or predestination changes our view of his present actions.

The final seal is set on the impossibility of writing letters by their immanence.  Spoken words can - are - denied; a court of law is always hungry for written and hence definitive proof.  And so every written word must be weighed as many times more as a page outlasts a breath.  Alas, a lifetime is not enough.

Imagine now the poor would-be letter-writer.  Every word is possible perdition; every combination an infinite fiendish chess-problem of meaning and apparent intent.  Every phrase must be considered not just for what it says, but what it says when placed alongside every other phrase, and the implications of all their relative positions.

A blank page seems safest; and yet not sending a letter is not a solution, because the absence of a letter is never neutral.  There is no way out; today, for all of us, it is impossible to write a letter.

(27.7.87)

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