Marcel's Letters: A Font and the Search for One Man's Fate

I was drawn to Marcel's Letters for their central feature: letters from a gentleman by the name of Marcel written from Berlin at the height of World War II and mailed to France. An avid reader of WWII histories, and particularly those with a connection to France, I thought this would be right up my alley. I couldn't have been more wrong.

For starters, the letters themselves are a scant handful covering a few months' time. They're interesting, sure, but don't form the bulwark I had expected. More problematic for me was the overbearing presence of author Carolyn Porter, and all her various neuroses. Even having read the book, I cannot understand how or why this woman became obsessed with uncovering the story behind these letters, nor how, even upon ultimately uncovering what happened to Marcel she still could not let go of the questions around how the letters ultimately made their way to her. (Or, more specifically, to a flea market in France where they were purchased by the owners of antiques stores in the U.S., where she ultimately purchased them.) Her (fairly vicious) comments in the afterward in regards to a woman who may or may not have other letters added a level of acidity to otherwise run-of-the-mill annoying.

The full backstory is that Porter purchased the letters because she was drawn to the handwriting and wanted to use it to design a font. Great. The font, which she ultimately named for Marcel, could also be called classical French, so typically traditional was his handwriting. I will grant that no such font existed, and I might have been more interested in the process involved in designing a font, if the process, in this case, were not rife with commentary on everything Porter did not know about World War II and tears, tears, tears. Everything gets to her. The project - not the font, but the search for the man - consumes her life. Her coping skills seem to be minimal.

The unexpected star of the book is Aaron, Porter's husband, who maintains a sense of humor, calm, and equanimity throughout. The glimpses the handful of letters do offer into life in Germany during WWII are interesting, but in hindsight it would have been more enjoyable for me to read only the letters.

Two stars.