How I Spent My Winter Vacation

Charlie Brown always had to write a report about what he did on his summer vacation, but I've never had to do that. (Did anyone have to do that? Maybe it was just Charlie Brown.) Anyway, I am back in Indiana after three weeks at home/my relatives on the other side of the state, all of which was lovely, fun, relaxing, and too too short. I spent a large chunk of my time curled up on the couch either reading or eating, in some cases reading about eating, and in two cases, reading through letters. And that is what I'm going to mention today.

While I was at my aunt's I read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. It's about the German occupation of Guernsey during WWII, something which I didn't even know happened! It's told through letters between a writer based in London and some people in Guernsey, and then she goes to Guernsey because she connects with them over books. I know it's been out for a few years so I'm a little behind the times, but it is such a good book. And a fairly quick read--I'm usually pretty slow and I finished it in a day and a half. It's sweet without being cloyingly so, and it's clever and the characters are people you genuinely would like to have tea with. But they don't feel one-dimensional either. The people in Guernsey had horrible, horrible things happens to them, and the descriptions by one character who was in a concentration camp are hard to get through. At the same time, some of the German soldiers who occupied Guernsey were kind too, and they were also starving and scared, which made me think about the German Army in a way that I normally don't. Having the book conducted through letters was a great way to do it. It's lovely.

Since I was on epistolary book kick (epistolary meaning something which consists of letters--I just looked that up), happily for me my mother got for Christmas As Always, Julia: the Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto, edited by Joan Reardon. It is fabulous. Having been raised watching Julia Child on PBS, I have known for a long time that she was a witty, opinionated dame, but so is Avis DeVoto, it turns out. Their friendship started because Avis's husband Bernard had written an article on knives which Julia, who was living in Paris with her husband Paul, had read and liked, and wrote to thank him and mailed him some knives. Avis, who answered her husband's letters from readers, wrote back. And they became friends.

Avis and Julia were penpals, so their letters were a bit different than letters between people who know each other in person. They sent pictures of themselves and their families, and eventually they met. They stayed in close contact for the rest of their lives. What is so cool about this period in Julia Child's life is that the letters started in 1953ish, when she was just beginning to work on her revolutionary French cookbook, which would eventually become Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Avis was instrumental in getting it published, through her connections with publishing houses. This was also the time when McCarthy was wrecking havoc on civil liberties, and as the DeVotos and Childs were all liberal, they had much to talk about.

As Always, Julia, encompasses 7 years of their letters, during which time Bernard DeVoto had a heart attack and died at a fairly young age, and Julia and Paul moved from Paris to Marseilles to Bonn, Germany to Washington DC to Oslo to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Avis also lived. One thing this book did was make me want to travel--I found myself getting quite jealous of Julia, who frequently zipped over to Paris while they were living in Marseilles and Bonn. Avis, too, spent all of her summers on the Cape or Maine or out West. I was also jealous about how passionate they were about politics. Avis was so proud of Adlai Stevenson that she wrote many letters about him, and helped fundraise for him. I can't think of any politicians I am excited about, and that is sad. This book also made me want to cook, but then also made me lose my appetite. I will never be excited about chicken livers or the best way to bone a duck. I don't need sauces on my vegetables, and though someday I would like to make beurre blanc, but it's not high on my list of life-goals. Still, it's fascinating to read about someone who is so focused on food, who wants others to love it as much as she does.

Both of these books got me thinking about letters, and really how important they are as a record. Yeah, we have email, but it's not the same. Emails won't be in archives for dorky researchers like me to someday pore over. Getting a letter from someone you care about is such a good feeling. My friends and I do send a fair amount of non-email mail, but my New Years goal is to write two letters a week. If you get one from me, you certainly shouldn't feel obligated to reply. But do think about writing a letter to someone.