Friday, December 20, 2002
Title: Special Delivery
Author: Iselin C. Hermann
Publisher: Harvill Press
The attraction to Special Delivery is its vividness of language. Which is interesting given that it has been translated from Danish and is supposedly in French. I've picked up this slim edition published by Harvill Press, who seem to specialise in translated works, and reading the back had a certain curiosity. This time picking it up I read the first couple of pages, which are pretty short, and was caught up in the sense of how this could work.
Delphine is a Danish girl, who inspired by a painting by Jean-Luc, a French artist, decides to send him a short note on a post card to tell him how it has affected her. To her surprise she receives a reply to her note. With a correspondence growing from there over the next 18 months. The two write back and forth in French, becoming increasingly flirtatious as they do - conjuring scenes and scenarios where they meet and engage. Mixed through this are discussions on who the people are, key sequences in their lives, on art and how it describes what is going on between them, and language and it's interpretations, which are especially relevant given the pan-European aspect of this building narrative.
With out doubt this is a romance story, and okay I admit it, there is part of me that is just an old romantic. But there has to be more to a piece than slush for it to have a real attraction to my more cynical side. Special Delivery works, it is an exercise in that it builds a restriction and works with that - everything that happens must do so through the form of a letter - so we have short note, postcards, long gaps between responses that provide tension. The characters come through in the writing style - Delphine is young and passionate, linked to France by her French Grandmother, Jean-Luc is older and hesitant, he is married, though gains a flush of excitement from the emotions he has sparked in this woman, despite any reticence he may display.
The progression is such that these two must meet. Though there is the warning from Jean-Luc that neither of them are really who they are on the written page and the illusions could just as easily be shattered as fulfilled. With this one becomes curious how the ending will be brought about, how the life outside the written page will be conveyed to the reader. This is achieved by the end note, which is supplied by Jean-Luc who is supposed to be have published this correspondence in this form.
Cells are tingling in me - Delphine says at the start of one letter. For me this is a perfect description to this book - the words come alive and tingle like those cells on these pages.
RVWR: PTR
December 2002
