The Elegant Variation: STYLE OF MANUAL

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September 12, 2009

STYLE OF MANUAL

Loyal TEV reader EG alerts me to this interesting story in my own backyard. Steve Soboroff, a fellow resident of the Palisades, has an interesting collection of manual typewriters. What the collection lacks in size, it more than compensates for in historical interest:

'People collect all kinds of things, but these are really rare,' says Soboroff, whose writing machines include those once owned by Ernest Hemingway, George Bernard Shaw, Tennessee Williams and Jack London. His most recent acquisition came mid-June, when he purchased a typewriter once owned by one of the greatest songwriters who ever lived: the Beatles' John Lennon.

In my day, I was quite the manual typewriter fetishist myself. At peak I probably had a dozen or so of them, but over the years I've gradually shed all but a handful, which I share below for fellow obsessives.

I wish I could remember the story behind the Royal typewriter pictured above but I can't. A garage sale find, most likely but I've kept it all these years because I love the slimness of the thing. It's just small enough that I can imagine a roving correspondent lugging it around the world. (It does work, by the way - all of them do.)

The Olivetti Lettera 22 pictured above is en Ebay purchase, bought in a fit of sentimentality. The Lettera 22 was MOTEV's typewriter when I was growing up, and I typed many a school paper on it (yes, I'm that old) before it was replaced by a brutally efficient if monstrous IBM Selectric.

The Remingon pictured above is probably my favorite remaining typewriter, for a number of reasons. It's a French model (note the keyboard), and the purple-blue ribbon always makes me smile. But I suspect my affection has to do with the circumstances of the purchase. On my first extended trip to Paris, I made a pilgrimage to the Marche aux Puces on bright. early Sunday morning. The market is truly overwhelming, an endless mix of cheap disposable goods and high end antiques. I was browsing in one of the stalls when the typewriter caught my eye. Somehow, with my then less-than-basic French, I managed to haggle the proprietor down a few hundred francs. (At least, I think I did - my French was so poor, for all I know I bid myself in the wrong direction.) But I left the market happily with my typewriter.

Unfortunately, the Metro entrance was completely blocked by hordes of bargain hunters and there was not a taxi to be found. So with my VERY heavy typewriter I began the long walk back to St. Germain. Somehow, two hours later, I trudged up the stairs of my apartment, my enthusiasm undimmed. (I was young then - today I suspect I would have ditched it in a poubelle after five blocks.) Of course, I got to repeat the whole thing lugging it through airport terminals on the way home. But it's remained with me to this day, and if you ever receive a purple-blue typewritten note from me that contains an accent grave, you'll know what it was written on ...

Posting will resume when I return from New York. Until then.

Posted at 12:27 PM in Personal | Permalink

Comments

That picture of the aspiring, perspiring writer lugging his typewriter from the Puces to St Germain ( really? all the way?) is one of those pieces of symbolism that would be too much to take, if presented as fiction.
I think you mean 'hordes' of bargain-hunters, by the way (I know you like to be told these things!).

Posted by: Andrew | September 13, 2009 at 05:24 AM

I cannot claim who has typed on the 19th century typewriters in my collection but I know you will love seeing the remarkable beauty and ingenious designs of the world's first typing machines.

This link will take you directly to the collection at my website -www.antiquetypewriters.com
www.antiquetypewriters.com/collection/index-visual.htm

Have fun, you will be surprised

Regards,
Martin Howard (an antique typewriter collector)

Posted by: Martin Howard | September 14, 2009 at 01:02 PM

I used to have a gold-plated typewriter with kelly green keys. It had been given to my grandmother's best friend in honor of her retirement. The friend was furious and wouldn't bring it home. Imagine, a typewriter as a retirement gift!

Wish I still had it, it worked well and had a consistently smooth strike.

Posted by: Lisa Meeker | September 15, 2009 at 06:02 PM

Thanks for telling us your typewriter stories. I really like the Remington (well, all of them, really),and I am in the market for an Olivetti Lettera 22 myself. It won a major Italian design prize back in the late 50's or early 60's.

Posted by: Bex | September 18, 2009 at 03:20 PM

Thank you for sharing these. I started (seriously) collecting last year and so far I'm the proud mother of a Hermes 2000 portable, a Hermes 3000 in *mint* condition with original brush, literature and case and an Underwood 18 (also with original spare ribbon and in a maroon and cream case which looks just like a small briefcase when being carried around). They are all in working order and I adore writing with them.

The two that aren't working and are more for decoration purposes are a Remington 16 and a Remington Rand from the 1950's (I need to get specifics). I'm in the market for a green Remington Portable No.3 (c.1928), but it's out of my price range right now. One can still dream ...

Posted by: Carly-jay Metcalfe | September 21, 2009 at 12:22 AM

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The Elegant Variation is "Fowler’s (1926, 1965) term for the inept writer’s overstrained efforts at freshness or vividness of expression. Prose guilty of elegant variation calls attention to itself and doesn’t permit its ideas to seem naturally clear. It typically seeks fancy new words for familiar things, and it scrambles for synonyms in order to avoid at all costs repeating a word, even though repetition might be the natural, normal thing to do: The audience had a certain bovine placidity, instead of The audience was as placid as cows. Elegant variation is often the rock, and a stereotype, a cliché, or a tired metaphor the hard place between which inexperienced or foolish writers come to grief. The familiar middle ground in treating these homely topics is almost always the safest. In untrained or unrestrained hands, a thesaurus can be dangerous."

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The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

September 12, 2009

STYLE OF MANUAL

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog. A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog "Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

September 12, 2009

STYLE OF MANUAL

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE: Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism