Email

I read way more reviews of books than actual books. Often the review renders the read unnecessary. I find out that the book is just not going to be that good, or the review was so good it told me all I wanted to know. For whatever reason, I sometimes prefer the review (short, pithy, and pointed) to the book anyway. They do after all, have different subject matters.

Janet Malcolm recently reviewed in the NYROB Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home
by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe. Here's my favorite paragraph from her review:

On the face of it, an email and a letter are the same thing: a piece of writing addressed to one or several persons. But letter-writing was never the fraught activity that email-writing is. Shipley and Schwalbe believe that the trouble derives from a fundamental flaw in email for which the user has to compensate:

If you don't consciously insert tone into an email, a kind of universal default tone won't automatically be conveyed. Instead, the message written without regard to tone becomes a blank screen onto which the reader projects his own fears, prejudices and anxieties.

I love that idea--that there is no 'universal default tone.' As a poet, I am most interested in the tone of a piece. And I often wonder how best to convey the right tone in my writing. But even better is the 'blank screen' idea. Hah! and OMG! I better be careful:-)

Comments

[Mary]

That's an interesting observation, but I wonder why it is true. Why would an email present more of a blank slate than a letter? Is it because the idea of a personal letter has become quaint in its scarcity so that it is greeted with default delight? Is it because we fire off emails without observing the niceties (such as a salutation, something like, "Dear Sister")Or is it a "medium is the message" thing? I can picture you standing, or sitting in an armchair, holding several sheets of a letter. That's different than sitting at a desk looking at a glowing screen. Although, to be honest, I am sitting up in bed, under the blankies, looking at a glowing screen--I love my laptop.
Interesting.
Thanks for posting it.

[Carol]

Thanks for your comments!

[Shisa]

Isn't it the idea of time being of the essence in an email--
and the lack of handwriting or even paper choice to convey clues to the recipient that makes an email give off no scent -- smoke all you like while writing, cry (no tears on the page) or seal it with a kiss (lipstick doesn't traverse cyberspace)--- BUT that's what emoticons are for I hate the little bastards myself but over-use them anyway.

;)

Shisa

[Carol]

"Smoke all you like while writing," hee hee. Now I am remembering the lavender scented paper from my childhood. Eeeew.

Shisa and Mary, you made my post!