Tools o' the Trade

The Guardian Unlimited has an ongoing section called Writers' Rooms which features photographs of various writers' workspaces. Will Self, AS Byatt, Sarah Waters, and a dozen or so others have been showcased so far. There is something strangely fascinating about an artist's studio - the environment in which a work is given life. Matter of fact I generally would rather see a photo of an artist's workspace than of the artist himself.

There was a collection of photography that came out in the eighties called The Faces of Science Fiction which depicted numerous notable SF writers, often at their desks. Flipping through the pages, I found it was always the arrangement of desk, chair, window with view, cluttered bookshelves, wall hangings, etc, that caught my eye, much more so than the likeness of the author. And I would then entertain thoughts of what I would rearrange were it my own space. I suppose a portion of the fantasy of becoming a writer is having some territory of your own in which to do your scribbling - the romance of Raskolnikov's dusty attic garret and all that. Possibly a version of the same drive for identity that makes high school kids decorate their lockers or draw heavy metal band logos inside their algebra textbooks.

JG Ballard's workspace features an old desk containing a portable manual typewriter. In the accompanying blurb he mentions that he writes mostly in longhand. He then goes on to make a rather idiotic assertion: "I have resisted getting a computer because I distrust the whole PC thing. I don't think a great book has yet been written on computer."

The reason this makes me flinch is because it attributes the value of art to its tools. A writer captures the ideas pouring out of the brain. What difference does it make whether those ideas are recorded with computer, typewriter, fountain pen, dictation, quill, bloody finger, or chisel and clay tablet? If Ballard finds writing by pen the most effective for his craft, more power to him. But to suggest others must follow suit is a little too Stalinist for comfort. Might as well claim no good poetry can be written lefthanded.

I'll wager that following the invention of the typewriter, a few squinty crustaceans grumbled that no great book could be written on one of those either.