Week 2: When form is important - Epistolaries

When people ask me what my favourite type of books are, I know they are usually looking for a typical answer of a genre such as science fiction, fantasy, chic lit, biographies, etc., but I answer with a form opposed to a genre because I usually say I really enjoy reading epistolary novels. An epistolary novel is a novel that is written using documents such as letters, transcripts, e-mails, invoices, etc. leaving these documents to be the form a story is presented through, thus being a narrative style.

I like that epistolary novels present a variety of view points from multiple characters, however what I find most interesting is how they often account for how communication is becoming more and more digital. My favourite epistolary novel is a Love, Rosie by Cecilia Ahern where the novel first begins as handwritten letters and gradually moves towards transcripts of digital forms of communication such as e-mails, text message conversations, instant messaging conversations, etc.; this demonstrates the basis of INF233 as it shows how the world is increasingly moving from the printed to the digital. If an epistolary novel is to be digitized, the migrators of the book from the printed to the digital must be aware that epistolary novels are not written in verse form like most novels so keeping the form intact is rather important. Epistolary novels follow the usual conventions of correspondence (such as subject line, recipient address, etc.) and in this case form definitely effects the meaning as presentation of a document has an effect on how the reader interprets the text and is often connected to how realistic a document seems; for example: a letter without a salutation and addressee line is far less realistic than one that contains this line.

Epistolary novels I love, and therefore recommend:

Ahern, Cecilia. Love, Rosie. New York: Hachette Books, 2005. Print

Semple, Maria. Where'd You Go, Bernadette. New York: Little Brown, 2012. Print.