Humour: From text to text messages, the lost signs of letters

“Austin is the sort of person who feels he can change the world by writing a letter.” So says an Iris Murdoch character in her novel, An Accidental Man, of the titular character. The line made me pause. I’ve been that man in my time, with slightly less facial hair. The kind who writes a letter with such heartfelt emotion and linguistic rigour that the world ought to bend to its will. The world, sadly, is not the ideal reader. And letters remain unanswered as much by humans as by cosmic forces.