The Taming of Matter: Jalmari Finne and the Typewriter

Veijo Pulkkinen
2020 Textual Cultures  
This article examines the role of the typewriter in the genetic process of the novel Vuosisatain vaatimus (1918) by the Finnish novelist Jalmari Finne (1874–1939). Finne is a rare example of an early twentieth-century author who mastered touch typing and composed directly on a typewriter. He claimed that he used the typewriter because it enabled him to keep up with his thinking, a claim that challenges Friedrich Kittler's (1990, 193) thesis that the most remarkable feature of the typewriter is
more » ... ot its speed but its "spatially and discrete signs". A genetic examination of Finne's typescripts suggests that he had developed generative typing into a kind of "blind revision" in that he did not read and correct previous drafts but rather inserted a blank paper in the machine and typed an altogether new version of the text without copying the previous version.
doi:10.14434/textual.v13i2.31601 fatcat:jy43vccbevgf5abkptdotaowka