«…με είχε κυριεύσει μια αμείλικτη δίψα για κάτι νέο, για καινούριους τόπους και για συνθετικές εντυπώσεις. Τι περιμένετε λοιπόν μετά από παρόμοιες εξομολογήσεις; Τι να σας διηγηθώ; Τι να σας περιγράψω; Το πανόραμα; Την προοπτική; Κάτι που θα έβλεπε κανείς όπως το βλέπει το ιπτάμενο πουλί;»
Φ. Ντοστογιέφσκι, χειμερινές σημειώσεις

The Purloined Letter

The collection of stories with the title “The book of other people” is a presentation of fictional characters. In the introduction (p.viii) we read:

"There is, however, an element of their character that has been removed: the fonts. Publishers standardize fonts to suit the style of the house, but when writers deliver their stories by e-mail, each font tells its own story. There are quite a few writers in this volume who use variations on the nostalgic American Typewriter font (and they are all American), as if the ink were really wet and the press still hot. We have two users of the elegant, melancholic Didot font (both British), and a writer who centres the text in one long, thin strip down the page, like a newspaper column (and uses Georgia, a font that has an academic flavour). Some writers size their text in a gigantic 18. Others are more at home in a tiny 10. There are many strange, precise and seemingly intimate tics that disappear upon publication: paragraphs separated by pictorial symbols, titles designed just so, outsized speech marks, centred dialogue, uncentred paragraphs, no paragraphs at all. It seems a shame to lose these idiosyncratic layouts and their subtle effects. Anyway: I hope what remains will satisfy."

The bloggers have to choose between only 9 types of indifferent fonts. However the element of style doesn't only spread in this cyber-existance, but the adornment is dominant to the simple content of the text. Theirs consistency isn't up to the innocent intentions of any writer. As like the representation of the human characters cannot be fully controlled by another person, some letters will always be purloined.