Love Letters of Great Men

John C. Kirkland, author/compiler of Love Letters of Great Men, is a talented man. Unfortunately, his talent lies in making money, not in writing. Kirkland successfully capitalizes on the popularity of Sex in the City, in which character Carrie Bradshaw reads from a fictitious book of the same name. Recognizing the demand for an actual book, Kirkland compiled and self-published his own version.

While self-publishing may have its own benefits, it is clear that Love Letters of Great Menwould never have reached publishing house standards. The book is riddled with typos, ungrammatical sentences, shoddy research, and has a table of contents with incorrect page numbers.

Though the book is a compilation of real letters, Kirkland makes his presence felt through a foreword, afterword, and brief biographies of each letter writer. His style is turgid, with overly long sentences consisting mostly of platitudes and similes. His forward is in homage to the “poet warrior,” a label which apparently belongs to any male who combines passion with something more manly. Kirkland defines the poet warrior through the haphazard strings of adjectives endemic to his style. He writes, “Like a first growth Bordeaux he is deep and complex, rich and balanced, dedicated to both the intellect and the corpus, the field of study and the field of battle.” Last I checked fine wines do not study much.

Such glaring mistakes make it seem impossible that anyone proofread Love Letters of Great Men. A particularly absurd passage involves a description of the tasks Gaelic men performed in order to become members of “fianna” warrior groups (not that they wrote love letters). Kirkland writes, “One who demonstrated sufficient skill with words… or singing of odes of leitmotiv and mediation, may be invited to face the trials...” The idea that Gaelic warriors “sang odes of leitmotiv” is nonsensical and anachronistic. “Leitmotiv” is a word of Germanic and French origin defined as a recurring melodic passage related to a specific element. Not only is leitmotiv a term inappropriate for the historical context of the fianna, it is not even a plausible subject for an ode. It is unclear whether Kirkland is more to be faulted for questionable research practices or bad English. At the very least, the text gives the impression of someone hastily jotting down every “big” word he remembers.

The love letters themselves do little to transcend their shoddy presentation. Many of them are simply unromantic. A few “dearests” does not hide when a letter is mostly about finances, or, in the case of Henry VIII, thinly veiled threats. However, even the passionate letters are insipid. “Great men of history” apparently also find it difficult to escape the cliché when writing sentimentally. It is especially difficult to surrender to the “romance” when most of the letters are accompanied by blurbs detailing the failure of the relationship. Despite the chick-flick premise, the flawed construction of Love Letters of Great Men prevents it from being even a guilty pleasure. - Manon Gray