HOW EXCITING IT IS TO HAVE A READER WHO REALLY “GETS” WHAT YOU HAVE WRITTEN!

 I found her, and here is what she said about my Letters to Men of Letters—

 

Dear Diane Joy Charney,

 

Thank you.  

I love this.  I completely love this.

I love it so much that I want to sit right down and write you a letter -- not an email.

Which makes me realize how loooooooong it's been since I've written anyone -- anyone -- an actual, handwritten letter.  

 

I used to write long, long letters to people.  I loved writing letters.  I loved getting letters.  I still do.  Except these days, I never write any -- except condolence cards; how telling is that?! -- and I never get any letters.  Sigh.......it's all emails now, and as we all know, live by computer, die by computer, and should the computer crash, well.....there go the "letters"...

 

To backtrack a bit, I read about your starting out your Yale presentation about the book with Fats Waller’s “I’m gonna sit right down and write myself a letter” playing in the background. I think you played exactly the right song to introduce your talk because as you point out, in a very real sense, every time you sit down to write a letter to Balzac, or Christo, or Sartre -- or a lover, or a relative, or a friend -- you are in a very real sense sitting down to write a letter to yourself, as well. 

  

You are in that liminal space not only between times and places, but also between yourself and another. For that time, you are somehow in some way, in both times, in both places, and even, I think, in both people. In the receiving, you are both. In the re-reading, you are both.

 

And you are simultaneously many you's -- you are young you, and older you, and every you in between, and the you who first read the book and fell in love with book and author, and the you who allowed your life and your being to be changed by that book and that author, and the you who first thought to write a letter, and the you who did in fact write the letter, and and and and .......

 

I could say much more, but for now -- just thank you.  Thank you for being you, being all your you's, and for writing the book, and beginning to share it with the world, and with me, and for sharing with me these thoughts about yourself, and these authors, and these letters. 

 

Btw, I have a little personal theory about love.  I firmly believe -- and have for a very long time -- that love itself is self-referential.  I believe we most love those around whom we get to be a self we love being.  I think that's why you love these authors, and their books, and why you wrote them letters.  So in my eyes, your book confirms my theory.  One more reason I love your book.