Still perched high on the bestseller lists after more than 26 weeks in the top spot, Virginia Evans’ “The Correspondent” surely ranks as one of the most successful epistolary novels of all time. Now that Lionsgate has won a seven-studio bidding war to turn it into a film starring none other than Jane Fonda, one has to wonder how designated adapter Cat Vasko will handle all those letters and diary entries to make the film as compelling to viewers as it obviously has been to readers.
Using no dialogue, no expository narrative and no dramatic personal confrontations, Evans nonetheless was able to construct a decade-long view into the complex life of the cranky retired lawyer Sybil Van Antwerp and make it both credible and suspenseful. In an interview with The Rumpus website, the author said using the epistolary format made it possible to create a 360-degree portrait of her protagonist by having multiple other characters “hold up the mirror at a different angle to Sybil.”
1989’s “Valmont” with Colin Firth and Annette Bening was inspired by the 1782 novel “Les Liaisons Dangereuses.” (Orion via Bay City News)
“The Correspondent” is Evans’ first great literary success, but in undertaking it, she followed a long-established path, forged as far back as 1740, when the great English novelist Samuel Richardson first made storytelling through letter writing popular with “Pamela; or Virtue Rewarded.” In that lively tale, an exchange of letters between a maidservant and her parents, the resourceful heroine valiantly defends her honor and upholds her own moral standards. The French author Pierre Choderlos de Laclos followed suit and secured his place in literature in 1782 with “Les Liaisons Dangereuses,” which had a subtitle that reads in English “Letters Collected in Private Society and Published for the Instruction of Others.” Using that clever gambit, the author got away with publishing an extremely racy tale about the rivalry between two narcissistic schemers, the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil. Evans might be encouraged to note that that epistolary work has been transformed twice into very successful movies, 1988’s “Dangerous Liaisons” starring John Malkovich and Glenn Close as the former lovers/antagonists; and 1989’s “Valmont” with Colin Firth and Annette Bening in the very same roles.
It was an epistolary novel that made Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky famous in 1846, when his debut novel “Poor Folk” introduced two impoverished denizens of St. Petersburg. In it, Makar Devushkin and Varvara Dobroselova traded missives about their misery, evoking much compassion among readers for the psychologically devastating effects of destitution. Fast forwarding into the 20th century, British writer, intellect and theologian C.S. Lewis made a big splash in 1942 with “The Screwtape Letters,” a highly entertaining novel framed by letters Screwtape, the self-described right-hand demon to “Our Father Below,” penned to his nephew, the novice demon Wormwood. The subject matter: how to go about damning the soul of an ordinary young man in World War II London.
Saul Bellow’s “Herzog,” which won the author the second of his three National Book Awards in 1965, plumbed the depths of his Jewish intellectual protagonist’s troubled psyche thorough a series of letters he wrote, but did not send, to friends, enemies, family members and famous historical figures, such as the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. The book was also deemed one of the 100 most important novels written in English in the previous half century by Time magazine.
That giant of metafiction, the late John Barth, went all out with the epistolary form in his 1979 novel unabashedly titled “Letters,” which hilariously consisted of the author interacting by letter with six characters, all from previous Barth novels, including “The Sot-Weed Factor” and “Giles Goat-Boy.” It bears the sly subtitle: “An old-time epistolary novel by seven fictitious drolls & dreamers, each of whom imagines himself factual.”
Another celebrated, multi-award-winning writer, John Updike, used the form in his 1988 novel, “S,” a modernization of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter” in which Sarah P. Worth, the Hester Prynne character, abandons her life as a wealthy middle-aged housewife to join an ashram, sending a series of letters and tape recordings back to her family, her psychiatrist and her dentist. It was the final book in Updike’s trilogy riffing on the Hawthorne classic, which began with 1975’s “A Month of Sundays,” which sent a sexually disgraced minister (Hawthorne’s Arthur Dimmesdale) to a country retreat to practice penitence, and continued with 1986’s “Roger’s Version,” with a reimagined Roger Chillingworth as a cuckolded husband.
One must imagine playwright and novelist Mark Dunn twisting himself into knots to pull off his 2002 novel “Ella Minnow Pea,” which is more famous for his intricate word play (note the title) than for the fact that it consists of increasingly frantic letters the inhabitants of an unusual island write to one another. In it, Dunn deploys both pangrams (writing that uses all 26 letters of the alphabet) and the lipogram (which discards letters entirely in extended progression.) The islanders worship a statute to the fictional character who was supposed to have invented the “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” pangram but are alarmed when those letters start falling off the statue one by one, taking it as a sign that they must be retired from use. As they are banned, they also disappear from the text of the novel, making it increasingly difficult for Dunn to write and we the readers to interpret!
Page to screen: William Golding’s groundbreaking novel “Lord of the Flies” has been made into a movie three times, beginning with director Peter Brooks’ version in 1963, followed by a Filipino film called “Alkitrang Dugo” in 1975 and most recently with the 1990 adaptation directed by Harry Hook. Now, courtesy of the British production company Eleven Film and screenwriter Jack Thorne, whose credits include the impressive Emmy Award winner “Adolescence,” comes the first TV series, which aired on the BBC in February and debuts on Netflix here on May 4. It consists of four one-hour episodes, with English actor Rory Kinnear appearing in one of them as the father of Ralph, the conch-wielding kid who struggles to maintain order on the island. Advance reviews are all over the map, with some making scathing remarks and others calling it brilliant. Check out this preview clip to help you decide whether to devote time to it.
Ideas for your book club: If it’s your turn to make the next selection for your circle of reading friends to pick apart, you might consider accepting Rakestraw Books’ invitation to its 16th annual Book Group Festival at 6 p.m. May 21 at the shop in Danville. Best-selling author Steven Rowley, a winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor, will be on hand to discuss his latest novel, “Take Me With You,” as will Tom Benton, a rep from the Penguin publishing group, with discussion-worthy books to recommend. Tickets are $20 and include coupons for discounts on books bought at—you guessed it—Rakestraw Books. Sign up at rakestrawbooks.com.
Hooked on Books is a monthly column by Sue Gilmore on literary buzz and upcoming book events. Look for it on the last Thursday of the month.