The recent publication of Willa Cather’s letters caused a stir in the United States. The American author, surprisingly underrated here, had explicitly and repeatedly said she did not want her letters made public. Some believe her wishes should be respected; others say the demands of history are greater than those of a long-dead individual.
This, of course, points to part of the allure of reading the private letters of famous people. Through them, we glimpse multiple facets of personalities that have been airbrushed by publicists: the grumpy and the affectionate, the outrageous and the encouraging, the truly intelligent and the superficially smug. We get flashes of insight into political and artistic decision-making and delicious celebrity gossip. Half of it would be actionable if everyone involved were not already dead.
Here and Now: Letters, 2008–2011 by Paul Auster and J.M. Coetzee
Harvill Secker, $27.99 pb, 248 pp, 9780571299270
Distant Intimacy: A Friendship in the Age of the Internet by Frederic Raphael and Joseph Epstein
Yale University Press (Inbooks), $39.95 hb, 347 pp, 9780300186949
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