Technology and Culture

In his latest work of media archaeology, Matthew Kirschenbaum charts the techno-cultural ripples (1964–84) caused by the word processor entering the professional literary pool. From Amy Tan's Silicon Valley computer club, to John Updike's ode to software failure "INVALID.KEYSTROKE," to sci-fi author Jerry Pournelle's hand-built computer that calculated the physics of his fantastic worlds—Kirschenbaum harnesses interviews and archival research to survey popular authors as they build, embrace, and struggle against their machines.

The most intriguing chapters of Track Changesare those in which Kirschenbaum argues for a word processor-centric criticism. In chapter 2, [End Page 340]for example, he probes how the devices' functionality (deleting, copying, pasting), output (immaculate pages), and even names (e.g., Word Perfect) fortify a logic of clean, efficient language. Where some authors like King and Clancy embrace this power, leading to massive yields, others guard the messy craft of typewriters and hand editing; still others, like novelist Russell Banks, see creativity and efficiency working hand-in-hand: "I find that I can noodle and doodle and be much more spontaneous … the faster I can write, the more likely I'll get to something worth saving" (p. 46). Of course, Kirschenbaum quickly points out the determinism of such claims. Rather, what really matters is how word processors mediatize writing. That is, when the featured authors of Track Changesreflect on their machines, they often reflect on what writing means as well. Yet, for readers who want deeper analysis along these lines or wider engagements with the historical context (e.g., class and race) that influenced the rise of the processor, that's not this book's interest. Track Changesis largely descriptive. Deeply interesting, yes, but focused on collecting authors' stories rather than interrogating them.

There are, however, some shining points of cultural critique. Chapter 7, "Unseen Hands," and chapter 8, "Think Tape," trace the politics of women and word processors. What does it mean that the first word-processed novel, Len Deighton's Bomber, was actually processed by his assistant Ellenor Handley? Or that for so long word processing, which involved thorny programming, was considered women's work? Word processors were a paradox. In offices, the efficiency of the machines was applied to the women operating them through systems of surveillance. Word processors (the people) were increasingly segregated in hot, windowless centers away from the "distracting" social life of the office. Yet word processors (the machines) were also marketed in feminist magazines like Ms. as a route to killing the monotonous tasks that kept women from advancement.

Other points of intrigue stem from Kirschenbaum's deftness at media archeology, which uncovers lost pasts and futures that might have been. I'd forgotten, for instance, the sheer amount of programming knowledge early processors involved and the insanity of authors editing without being able to see text on screen. How might contemporary literature transform if authors still labeled and layered their stories with computer code? What if authors followed Jerry Pournelle in combining word processing and computer simulation to build their plots? It's on such a note that Kirschenbaum concludes with a sigh. Word processing's history is one of exotic variety—dozens of competing programs and machines with idiosyncratic features customized and coded by writers themselves. The defaults of Microsoft Word are bland by comparison.

Ultimately, Track Changesis a compass that points to a new instantiation of techno-textual criticism, one where literary critics, historians, and librarians pay close attention not just to dead media but to wider periods of technological flux when it's easier to see networks of technical influence [End Page 341]at work on authors. Indeed, word processors themselves—not quite fancy typewriter, not quite full computer—are the perfect mascot of the hybrids and struggles that always mark such transitions, that get forgotten when newer, faster, better things come along, but that indelibly shape what the future can be...