Mechanic Muse

One of America's most celebrated critics here brings his customary wit anderudition to bear on a particularly provocative theme: the response of literaryModernism to a changing environment wrought by technology. In the early decadesof the twentieth century, Hugh Kenner, observes, technology "tended to engulfpeople gradually, coercing behavior they were not aware of." The Modernistwriters were sensitive to technological change, however, and throughout theirworks are reflections of this fact. Kenner shows, for example, how Eliot'slines "One thinks of all the hands/That are raising dingy shades/In a thousandfurnished rooms" suggest the advent of the alarm clock and, beyond that, whatthe clocks enabled: "the new world of the commuter, in which a principal eventwas waking up in the morning under the obligation to get yourself somewhereelse, and arrive there on time.In fascinating examinations of Pound, Joyce, and Beckett, in addition toEliot, Kenner looks at how inventions as various as the linotype, thetypewriter, the subway, and the computer altered the way the world was viewedand depicted. Whether discussing Joyce's acute awareness of the nuances oftypesetting or Beckett's experiments with a "proto-computer-language," Kennerconsistently illuminates in fresh new ways the works of these authors andoffers, almost incidentally, a wealth of anecdotes and asides that will delightthe general reader and the literary specialist alike.Kenner, Hugh is the author of 'Mechanic Muse', published 1986 under ISBN 9780195041422 and ISBN 0195041429.