Chronic
Every week
Geneviève Jurgensen’s column
“When you read these lines…” I loved this expression which has now fallen into disuse. WhatsApp and others have made it useless, imposing so-called “real” time in exchanges, and relegating to the rank of suspects all hesitations, changes of direction, the maturation of thought and feelings of which the first nourishment is precisely time. “When you read these lines…” establishes the complicity of the interlocutors who feel the fragility of what they are telling each other, the essence of which may have changed between writing and opening the letter. Mail in France took a day or two to reach its recipient. For the foreigner, it was at least double. The letter often became obsolete before it was even read. This led us to exercise some caution in writing content. When possible, we made sure to stick to subjects that in principle would last a few days in the news.
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