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« HOLIDAY GIVEAWAY: THE INTERROGATIVE MOOD | Main | A YEAR IN READING »

December 01, 2009

END OF THE ROAD

Cormac McCarthy's trusty Olivetti typewriter - which looks awfully familiar - has given up the ghost.

 Lately this dependable machine has been showing irrevocable signs of age. So after his friend and colleague John Miller offered to buy him another, Mr. McCarthy agreed to auction off his Olivetti Lettera 32 and donate the proceeds to the Santa Fe Institute, a nonprofit interdisciplinary scientific research organization with which both men are affiliated.

Posted by at 09:18 AM in Litlinks |

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Comments

Niall

I'm disappointed. I thought McCarthy wrote his novels using the blood of cannibalized yuppies and the point of his last bullet.

What a sell-out.

Posted by: Niall | December 01, 2009 at 12:31 PM

EG

You often hear this sort of nostalgic attitude toward typewriters, but it rarely seems to apply to computer. You don't often hear writers waxing nostalgic for a desktop or laptop, or hear about computers being donated to libraries. Perhaps it's a matter of time. Still, there does seem to be a fundamentally different attitude toward computers. Is it because writers change computers so often. The only 'legendary' computer I can think of is Stephen King's. I think he wrote a bunch of his classics on one 80's style computer. But King uses a Mac now. Any other 'legendary' computers about there?

Posted by: EG | December 01, 2009 at 03:43 PM

TEV

I actually wrote briefly about my first word processor:

http://marksarvas.blogs.com/elegvar/2008/08/portable-our-as.html

Posted by: TEV | December 01, 2009 at 04:09 PM

Niall

EG -

You don't hang out enough with computer geeks. There is a significant number of them (us) who collect old computers and restore them - ditto for the old software they ran on. As the computer becomes less central to our digital experience (replaced by phones and music players), expect this movement to grow.

Posted by: Niall | December 01, 2009 at 04:56 PM

Drew

Thanks Mark for the link, I wouldn't have seen it otherwise. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of it is are the three unpublished novels mentioned in the piece. Glad to hear we will have lots of McCarthy to read in the future!

Posted by: Drew | December 01, 2009 at 05:31 PM

tod goldberg

Somehow "I will be auctioning off my KayPro II, with all of the original CPM disks and copies of Wordstar I can find," just doesn't sound as cool as selling off an old Olivetti.

Posted by: tod goldberg | December 02, 2009 at 12:32 PM

Niall

But Ted, there are lots of people who think there's nothing cool at all about old Olivettis, myself included.

Chacun a son gout.

Posted by: Niall | December 02, 2009 at 02:05 PM

EG

I am not really talking about a 'cool factor' of the technology - but the attribution of historical (literary) significance. It's seems typewriters are seen as more historically significant (in terms of literature) than computers. Typewriters today are like the writer's desks of 19th century authors. Will we ever see David Foster Wallace's laptop displayed in a museum or library?

Posted by: EG | December 04, 2009 at 10:07 AM

Niall

We absolutely will, EG. Obsolete tools only become the object of nostalgia when they've been superseded by something else. When typewriters were in ascendancy, no one thought of them as anything other than an office tool. Just like PC's now. I guarantee you 30 years from now there will be people collecting old MacBooks, and fetishizing them as somehow more innately connected to artistic production than whatever replaces them.

Posted by: Niall | December 04, 2009 at 10:50 AM

F.H.

Christie's estimated the typewriter would sell for $15,000 - $20,000; it sold for $254,000.

Jesus.

Posted by: F.H. | December 04, 2009 at 08:13 PM

Niall

I think the charity aspect drove the price up.

Posted by: Niall | December 05, 2009 at 09:01 AM

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