New Column: "For the Typewriter"
I believe Man exists to leave his species and the world in a better place for his children than they were left for him. And while I’m not sure whether we’ve succeeded at this with any generational regularity, I stand firm in the knowledge “My Humps” (by the Black Eyed Peas) being beamed directly to cell phones doesn’t make the world a better place. In fact, being that “My Humps” is the worst piece of tripe ever recorded by someone not in charge of a murderous cult, I’m pretty sure it makes the world worse. Noticeably worse. Which is why I rally heartily against pointless technologies like those, and lately find myself longing for the manual typewriter.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal a few weekends ago, it was revealed that Tom Wolfe has just now – in 2006, at age 75 – abandoned his manual typewriter and purchased a computer. Why? Because “keeping a typewriter is pretty hard. It really is like owning a buggy. You have to have all these parts made, or else cannibalized from somewhere, and you have to have your ribbons re-inked. That tells you it’s time to move on.” Wistfully, I opened a closet door and eyed my manual typewriter (a Smith-Corona Galaxie Deluxe) and thought, Well hell, when the Old School loses Tom Wolfe, what’s the use?
Emotionally, I feel compelled to fight for the manual typewriter even though computers and the Internet have always served me well. Most writers over a certain age got their starts on the dusty old manual typewriters their parents abandoned after high school or college (this was cheaper than buying them electric typewriters or word processors, which more likely than not would have been tossed aside once the young author realized good writing requires uncommon effort and skill), and I was no exception, in the beginning sitting behind this hideous light green and tan, sticky-keyed, off-brand disaster that was so old it typed in pencil.
Time, forced room cleanings (as a teenager) and various moves from city to city (as an adult) did away with virtually all these old pages, but I’ve never quite fallen out of love with the process. There is just something romantic about the typewriter – Ronald Lewin, most famously the author of Ultra Goes to War, spent his last, cancer-riddled days sitting at a large table, surrounded by mounds of research and his typewriter, struggling to finish Hitler’s Mistakes. Stephen Ambrose writes in the introduction that Lewin “died almost literally at his typewriter; like the good soldier dying with his boots on, he was facing the front, doing his duty.”
Ronald Lewin died as all writers – and by “writer” I mean someone who was meant to write, who is compelled to manage words by a force he cannot understand – hope to die: At home, hip deep in his work, more than likely hoping against hope he could muster the strength to finish the next sentence, the next paragraph, the next chapter. And God bless him, because how many of us will get to do the thing we love most until the last moment of our lives? Still, Lewin’s dignified death wouldn’t have carried nearly the same resonance if he’d slumped over a Dell PC, inadvertently typing continuous pages made of the letter “e” with his forehead.
See what I mean? Doesn’t the alternative seem somehow fraudulent?
I dusted the Smith-Corona off and propped it up on my desk. Out of practice, I slowly fed in a piece of paper and plunked out my favorite quote of Wolfe’s from the same interview: “Using the Internet is the modern form of knitting. It’s something to do with idle hands. When you knitted, though, you actually had something to show for it at the end. Thomas Jefferson used to answer all his mail from the day before as soon as he got up at dawn. In his position, think of the number of emails he’d have had. He never would have been Thomas Jefferson if he’d been scrupulous about answering all these things. I think email is a wonderful time-waster. It’s peerless.” Sitting back and smiling, I decided to write the first draft of my Lincoln book with the old thing, because it’s the least I could do.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal a few weekends ago, it was revealed that Tom Wolfe has just now – in 2006, at age 75 – abandoned his manual typewriter and purchased a computer. Why? Because “keeping a typewriter is pretty hard. It really is like owning a buggy. You have to have all these parts made, or else cannibalized from somewhere, and you have to have your ribbons re-inked. That tells you it’s time to move on.” Wistfully, I opened a closet door and eyed my manual typewriter (a Smith-Corona Galaxie Deluxe) and thought, Well hell, when the Old School loses Tom Wolfe, what’s the use?
Emotionally, I feel compelled to fight for the manual typewriter even though computers and the Internet have always served me well. Most writers over a certain age got their starts on the dusty old manual typewriters their parents abandoned after high school or college (this was cheaper than buying them electric typewriters or word processors, which more likely than not would have been tossed aside once the young author realized good writing requires uncommon effort and skill), and I was no exception, in the beginning sitting behind this hideous light green and tan, sticky-keyed, off-brand disaster that was so old it typed in pencil.
Time, forced room cleanings (as a teenager) and various moves from city to city (as an adult) did away with virtually all these old pages, but I’ve never quite fallen out of love with the process. There is just something romantic about the typewriter – Ronald Lewin, most famously the author of Ultra Goes to War, spent his last, cancer-riddled days sitting at a large table, surrounded by mounds of research and his typewriter, struggling to finish Hitler’s Mistakes. Stephen Ambrose writes in the introduction that Lewin “died almost literally at his typewriter; like the good soldier dying with his boots on, he was facing the front, doing his duty.”
Ronald Lewin died as all writers – and by “writer” I mean someone who was meant to write, who is compelled to manage words by a force he cannot understand – hope to die: At home, hip deep in his work, more than likely hoping against hope he could muster the strength to finish the next sentence, the next paragraph, the next chapter. And God bless him, because how many of us will get to do the thing we love most until the last moment of our lives? Still, Lewin’s dignified death wouldn’t have carried nearly the same resonance if he’d slumped over a Dell PC, inadvertently typing continuous pages made of the letter “e” with his forehead.
See what I mean? Doesn’t the alternative seem somehow fraudulent?
I dusted the Smith-Corona off and propped it up on my desk. Out of practice, I slowly fed in a piece of paper and plunked out my favorite quote of Wolfe’s from the same interview: “Using the Internet is the modern form of knitting. It’s something to do with idle hands. When you knitted, though, you actually had something to show for it at the end. Thomas Jefferson used to answer all his mail from the day before as soon as he got up at dawn. In his position, think of the number of emails he’d have had. He never would have been Thomas Jefferson if he’d been scrupulous about answering all these things. I think email is a wonderful time-waster. It’s peerless.” Sitting back and smiling, I decided to write the first draft of my Lincoln book with the old thing, because it’s the least I could do.
28 March 2006
posted by Brian S. Wise | 7:43 AM
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