The war was a career changer for Mike and Solly as much as a life and identity transformation.  The Kovsky brothers were getting an education beyond what we can imagine anyone in the family tree ever had in at least 400 years and possibly much longer.   Solly, in particular, was seeing the world, other nations and cultures, meeting different kinds of Americans from all over the country, learning foreign slang and new expressions, encountering new ideas, and fighting for a country he believed was his home.

Solly grows in the letters as fast as the new experiences come at him and there are periods, many connected to the journey on the Map (see Menu>The Map) where he is on the go, moving all day and night, with one thing slamming him in the face after another.

Early Observations on:

1. Change – At the very beginning of the letter’s series Solly is on a boat heading to war in Europe and he is naive, scared, having little real to say about himself or about what is exactly happening.  Partially because he is being censored by the Army, being constantly rushed through new preparations, he says a lot less about his situation than he does later on.  The truth is that it is all changing at a rate and magnitude that I found hard to imagine, yet alone comprehend, until I read up on some of the backstory and related facts from the letters.
2. The dash – It took me years to really notice it clearly: Solly uses the dash symbol (-) as his primary form of punctuation, replacing comma’s, colons, periods and more.  He is not lazy, he is talking his thoughts out.  A dash like that gives a writer a space to pause in their writing and speaking mind.  I can hear him reaching through a millisecond of space to a full second pause, following a thought forward, completing a phrase with a slightly shorter emphasis, or cooling something down. All the Kovsky’s reading this know exactly what I am describing.  It’s how they told a story, a joke, and even how they sat and questioned us – there were dashes back and forth, and lots of time in between for you to answer and for them to listen.
3. The dinner table – The dash, and other stylistic and content emphasis in the letters is similar to the rhythm and subjects Solly knew from the dinner table growing up with sister, brother and mother.  The table was the primary place for sharing news, information, and ideas, and it all continues as part of the conversation he has in his letters to Es, Dave and Eric.  Solly fills nearly every page of his letters with observations, details, and information and a good deal of it has the “newsy” feel of sitting around with family and bringing people up to date on what you did that day.  Solly also knows his audience well and he doesn’t bullshit them.  There is no bravado.  Solly also tells them when he thinks his objectivity is somewhat skewered by subjective feelings he has about a particular event or people.  Solly’s letters to Es, Dave and Eric are as much an exchange of ideas as anything else.

Unfortunately we do not have the other half of this conversation because the letters they sent to Solly no longer exist.  Remarkably, Solly’s reference to a question asked of him in a prior letter or an outright answer that begins a paragraph to follow are very rarely without some context.  Once or twice there is mention of someone back home who I did not know but it did not create any confusion.