Purchase
A Fragmented History of Typewriting
Cornell University Press
March 2007
On Sale: March 7, 2007
331 pages
ISBN: 0801445868
EAN: 9780801445866
Hardcover
Add to Wish List
Non-Fiction
The Iron Whim is an intelligent, irreverent, and humorous
history of writing culture and technology. It covers the
early history and evolution of the typewriter as well as the
various attempts over the years to change the keyboard
configuration, but it is primarily about the role played by
this marvel in the writer's life. Darren Wershler-Henry
populates his book with figures as disparate as Bram Stoker,
Mark Twain, Franz Kafka, Norman Mailer, Alger Hiss, William
Burroughs, J. G. Ballard, Jack Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson,
Northrop Frye, David Cronenberg, and David Letterman; the
soundtrack ranges from the industrial clatter of a newsroom
full of Underwoods to the more muted tapping and hum of the
Selectric. Wershler-Henry casts a bemused eye on the odd
history of early writing machines, important and unusual
typewritten texts, the creation of On the Road, and the
exploits of a typewriting cockroach named Archy, numerous
monkeys, poets, and even a couple of vampires. He gathers
into his narrative typewriter-related rumors and anecdotes
(Henry James became so accustomed to dictating his novels to
a typist that he required the sound of a randomly operated
typewriter even to begin to compose). And by broadening his
focus to look at typewriting as a social system as well as
the typewriter as a technological form, he examines the
fascinating way that the tool has actually shaped the
creative process. With engaging subject matter that ranges over two hundred
years of literature and culture in English, The Iron Whim
builds on recent interest in books about familiar objects
and taps into our nostalgia for a method of communication
and composition that has all but vanished.
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
| 
© 2003-2024 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy