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daysed 's review for:
Love Letters to the Dead
by Ava Dellaira
Dear Kate Chopin,
there's something extraordinary about writing letters the dead. I think it's because it's kind of freeing to write something to someone who will never ever read it. You don't feel silly about getting too deep or too poetic or too weird or nonsensical. And it's better than writing a diary, because a diary is basically one talking to oneself, and sometimes we don't want to talk to ourselves, we want to talk to someone else, but we can't because we don't want to sound too deep or too poetic or too weird or nonsensical. Besides, even though we might believe the dead will not read these letters, a tiny part in our hearts kind of believes (hopes?) that you can read them, but since you're dead and beyond, you don't really care how deep or poetic or weird or nonsensical we get, because you know about things beyond death, so the way we sound is the smallest of your thoughts.
So, for me, this is what this book is mostly about. Of course there are the issues, and the relationships, and the tough bits, and all of that is nicely written and greatly handled, but the best part is how it's freely written from the heart, through the letters.
I really think you would have liked this book, not because of its narrative, or the complexity of characters, ot its clever choice of words and references and poems, but because I think you would love something so raw, so openly written from someone's soul, even if that someone is fictional. I've read books like this before, of course, it's not something ground-breaking or anything, but I liked this one better because it was from a girl and about girls, and I really love girls. As people go, I like girls and kids most of all. Kid girls are the best.
But anyway, I felt like trying this, writing one letter to one dead person. I thought about writing to Elvis of Virginia Woolf or David Foster Wallace, but you seemed like the right choice. Studying about you has always been my favorite (that is, in the category where we talk and study about dead people). You were someone who had strong opinions, but didn't much care about making a fuss about it. Not that there's anything wrong about making a fuss about opinions, especially if they are important and right. But it's like... I feel like you kind of knew that people weren't ready to listen to what you had to say. So, instead of going crazy with frustration and sadness and anger, you wrote about it, and you lived your small, simple, happy life (I really hope it was happy), and you left your opinions for those in the future who would want to know about them. So now I'm writing this letter to you to let you know (though it's not like you're really reading this. Are you? Hello? We'll never know) that I liked this book, and I like what it means and I like that more and more people talk about messed stuff that they were not willing to talk about back when you were alive. I will never have a conversation with you, I don't think, so this letter is the closest I've got. So, for that alone, this book is special. But for many other reasons, too.
Love,
Dayse D.
P.S.: I'm really sorry your house burnt down.
there's something extraordinary about writing letters the dead. I think it's because it's kind of freeing to write something to someone who will never ever read it. You don't feel silly about getting too deep or too poetic or too weird or nonsensical. And it's better than writing a diary, because a diary is basically one talking to oneself, and sometimes we don't want to talk to ourselves, we want to talk to someone else, but we can't because we don't want to sound too deep or too poetic or too weird or nonsensical. Besides, even though we might believe the dead will not read these letters, a tiny part in our hearts kind of believes (hopes?) that you can read them, but since you're dead and beyond, you don't really care how deep or poetic or weird or nonsensical we get, because you know about things beyond death, so the way we sound is the smallest of your thoughts.
So, for me, this is what this book is mostly about. Of course there are the issues, and the relationships, and the tough bits, and all of that is nicely written and greatly handled, but the best part is how it's freely written from the heart, through the letters.
I really think you would have liked this book, not because of its narrative, or the complexity of characters, ot its clever choice of words and references and poems, but because I think you would love something so raw, so openly written from someone's soul, even if that someone is fictional. I've read books like this before, of course, it's not something ground-breaking or anything, but I liked this one better because it was from a girl and about girls, and I really love girls. As people go, I like girls and kids most of all. Kid girls are the best.
But anyway, I felt like trying this, writing one letter to one dead person. I thought about writing to Elvis of Virginia Woolf or David Foster Wallace, but you seemed like the right choice. Studying about you has always been my favorite (that is, in the category where we talk and study about dead people). You were someone who had strong opinions, but didn't much care about making a fuss about it. Not that there's anything wrong about making a fuss about opinions, especially if they are important and right. But it's like... I feel like you kind of knew that people weren't ready to listen to what you had to say. So, instead of going crazy with frustration and sadness and anger, you wrote about it, and you lived your small, simple, happy life (I really hope it was happy), and you left your opinions for those in the future who would want to know about them. So now I'm writing this letter to you to let you know (though it's not like you're really reading this. Are you? Hello? We'll never know) that I liked this book, and I like what it means and I like that more and more people talk about messed stuff that they were not willing to talk about back when you were alive. I will never have a conversation with you, I don't think, so this letter is the closest I've got. So, for that alone, this book is special. But for many other reasons, too.
Love,
Dayse D.
P.S.: I'm really sorry your house burnt down.