The Hermes 3000 is, from what I have read on the web, widely regarded as a very fine machine, often making it high in the ‘top ten’ lists of the best typewriters for actually using (as distinct from collecting). I have just two typewriters, both purchased for use rather than as collectables. The first was an Olivetti Dora, a pretty bog~standard portable from the late 60s, made in their Barcelona factory and to some extent built down to a price — it has a plastic case, and omits common features like a paper stand, tabs, and touch adjustment. Having said that, it also leverages years of development by Olivetti, and it is a pretty solid and useful typing machine. It is currently in the little lean-to (well, hut made from a converted packing case) that we have down the back of the property, where one can go an do some typing without electricity or distraction. The 3000 is a different class of machine; heavier, metal, full-featured, with multiple tab positions, touch control, four position ribbon height and so on. Interestingly, it still does not have a separate key for unity (one) or for exclamation mark, both reuse other keys (the one is an el, l, and the exclamation mark is a single quote above a full stop, 1). The Hermes is nicer to type on. The force needed to get an even imprint is less, the keys feel more solid and yet better conforming under the fingers, and I find the typebars (hammers with letters on) jam less often. Having said that, I doled out the extravagant amount of $50 for the 3000, which is right at the top of what I was prepared to pay; Mine is from the late 60s, and has the second generation shape, squarer than the much-lauded rounder shape of earlier ones. I don’t mind. A typewriter’s curves are not a prime consideration, as far as I am concerned, although it they could be reason not to make the purchase; I doubt I would have bought a third-generation 3000, since they are boxy and plastic (and not made in Switzerland, I believe, whereas mine is a Swiss one).
The attraction of the typewriter is incredibly idiosyncratic. I find that I just want to type. I may not have anything to write, but I want to use the thing.
It sounds great. A pile of sheets of paper accumulating on the desk is a very satisfactory thing, and provides motivation to keep working. I’m not connected to the internet, which adds to my ability to focus. On the downside, it is a little noisy and I feel inhibited from typing in the house at night.
Here, below, Is an example of the text from the 3000. The typeface is smaller than there Dora, although the same machine was available with different typefaces of course.
Some typing on the Hermes 3000, on reused and rather crumpled paper….
Bottom line; speaking as a pretty ignorant typewriter user (I know little abut their history or folklore, I don’t know what brand of machine Hemingway used or anything like that, and I have not sampled a wide variety), the 3000 feels like a quality machine. It goes as fast as I can, and has a nice loud bell and exudes a feeling of solidity and careful design. I can see why they are so highly regarded.
And now I just have to stop myself from turning into a collector.
This post was written on the 3000 and scanned in using this script, then fixed up in LibreOffice.
So this little script just uses scanimage, tesseract and vim to scan and process pages from my typewriter. It tries to produce sensible paragraphs, and outputs the results of multiple pages to a text file which can be read in and formatted using a word processor, such as LibreOffice.
It is an interactive script because I do not have a scanner fitted with a sheet feeder. To make it non-interactive, modify the scanimage line after reading the scanimage man page, and remove the line read Response. Nothing fancy, no error checking, no clean-up afterwards, no niceties. But it works pretty well, so far. If you want to use it, install any packages you need to to get scanimage, tesseract and vim to work, and cut and paste the below into a file in your path, and make the file executable.
cat type_ocr.sh
# /bin/bash
#
# type_ocr.sh v. 1.0
#
# Script to scan, ocr, process and concatenate pages, e.g. from a
# typewriter.
#
# D.J.Goossens, 14 July 2016. darren.goossens@gmail.com
#
# Start at 1001 so we can be (pretty!) sure all filenames have 4 digit
# numbers
#
# Create the output file.
echo This is type_ocr.sh v. 1.0
echo
echo Make sure you give it the output filename as a command line argument.
echo Ctrl-D escapes from the scanning, Ctrl-C quits elsewhere.
echo The resulting images and text files are not deleted.
echo They are of the form outXXXX.pnm and outXXXX.pnm.txt and
echo may be quite big.
echo
echo Hit Ctrl-C to exit now or Enter to continue.
read Response
echo 'Text file from type_ocr.sh v. 1.0' > $1
echo Processed `date` to $1 >> $1
echo 'Note: When it says "document 1001", treat it as document (page) 1'
scanimage --batch --batch-prompt --batch-start 1001 -p --mode=Gray --resolution=600
# Outputs are of the form out????.pnm. Loop over them
for f in out????.pnm;
do
tesseract $f $f
# The above produces out????.pnm.txt, which we can process,
# where first we replace double occurrences of newline with a placeholder
# string, then replace single occurrences with a space, then replace the
# placeholder with a return character (it is a trick of regular
# expressions that we search for \n (newline) but write \r (return) when
# we mess with the file).
vim -c "%s/\n\n/pLaCeHoLdErStRiNg/g" -c "wq" $f.txt
vim -c "%s/\n/ /g" -c "wq" $f.txt
vim -c "%s/pLaCeHoLdErStRiNg/\r/g" -c "wq" $f.txt
cat $f.txt >> $1
done
echo Try typing libreoffice $1 to see what you have got.
echo Setting paragraph formatting to indented and one and a
echo half space is a good start.
Your mileage may vary. Buyer beware. You get what you pay for. No guarantees implied or given. No warranty as far as possible. (Add here any other escape clauses you can think of.)
This is just a note to myself so I don’t forget where I bought it, and I don’t have to order online and wait if I want a new one. Look away now if you don’t want to see the final scores.
If you want to find the same product near you, the product code is NUNIBK2S or NSUNIBK2S. A black/red ribbon has BR in place of BK. I can verify it works in my machine.
I have looked at some of the open source options for OCR, with a particular focus on text coming off my typewriter, a 1969 Olivetti Dora (though not with the ‘techno pica’ typeface that some of them have). Here I use the same test image as I used on the open source test — a 600dpi scan of some pretty scrappy typing on some pretty scrappy paper — and check out a couple of options on Windows. This is not even pretending to be exhaustive; I am looking at things that are commonly available (though, unlike the Linux options, not free).
I used a 600dpi version of the image here and extracted text using two methods, Adobe Acrobat Pro XI and Microsoft OneNote 2010, since they are bits of software I have access to. For the Acrobat approach I used CutePDF to print the original TIFF image to a PDF file from Windows default viewing application, Photo Viewer. Whenever I had a ‘resolution’ box to click in, I chose the biggest value available. For the OneNote approach, I opened the TIFF in Windows Paint and saved as PNG.
(5) ‘Select All’, ‘Copy’ and then pasted into this blog, and here it is:
·ha t i s the typeface?
Olivetti Dora~ qwert_yuiop
The- quick brown f ox --_ju... m ped over the l·~:iz.Y dog. i ii ·iii. iv v
. . . . I"
12 34567896 •• • , semi ; full: pound£ Who£? 2/3 4+3~1 6+ 3=2
7-5=2 ~+~ =l ~~ ! ~ ~- ( no) ' yes" 56% d.goo ssens@adfa. edu a,u
$2.34 Underline Days & Nigbt.s 8 or ' eight'. (Parens) .
ABCD~FG1fI J KLMNO P RSTUVWXYZ abcdefg.b,i jkl, mnopqrst, uv xyz
Well, I .think that's all the c hBrac ters . Make an exclamation
- - - mark by holdi!lg down space bar ,and typ 1 .ng aJpostroplie and a s t " p
. - like th.is ! and use lovver case 111' f or un ity. C~olo on to .1:- of
·hyphen give s u s a divide sign. Equa.l and slash /= doe s f. give a
not equals. Can ·slash a zero. ¢ + ~ · x ~ == l · ,ti. j..
. -
It -does have a zero (0) and a capital oh (0) and they are
pretty similar ~- 00 (superimposed 0 -- identical, F'd say.
No greater than/ less than. No caret. 3l x and - gi v e s a . sort
of ~sterisk. No ver tical bar beyond l. Nd hash. No curly brace
. o ~- square bra-cks. · No b a.ckslash.
'1• ·, ... _.
l :· .bi.t s ticky. What's t .he right oil ? f r£9uihjghbnvhgg·fcvcbf grt :it
... ,..;. .. · .. ~-
7 · ((;;7 ;.:1 T f.1 v o 1 J m v m 1 j -;.n ·m v 1 J l J i J 1 J 1] 1 ] l 11 J 1 J 1 l 1 J 1 J 1 J 1 J 1 J i J i J 1 J 1 l 1 J 1 J i ) 1 ] 1 J i J 1 J 1 J i J i 11 J i J l ] 1 J 1 J i J i ] , ) 1l1L1
(6) Unimpressed. Then rather than cut and paste I saved the PDF as an RTF file and opened the RTF in Word. Here is a screen grab:
Out of Acrobat and into Word via RTF.
(7) It does not come close to what tesseract could do, and tesseract did it with a one-line command line command, making it highly scriptable and flexible.
(B) OneNote 2010
(1) Pretty simple. Dragged and dropped the PNG version of the scanned image image onto OneNote.
(2) Right clicked on the image and selected ‘Copy Text from Picture’ from the popup menu.
(3) Went to Micro$oft word an hit ‘Paste’
(4) Was impressed. Here is the screen grab, again from Word:
Out of OneNote and into Word via right click and ‘Copy Text from Picture’.
For what it is worth, here is the OneNote screen, after right-clicking on the image:
OCR in OneNote.
Conclusion
OneNote and tesseract made similar, and small, numbers of errors, and both resulted in a extracted text which was quite usable. None of the other options considered here produced results that I would consider usable.
Caveats: I made no effort to optimise the scanned image, or to use particularly clean copy on pristine paper with a dark ribbon — intentionally, since I want an option that is robust. I know there are many more software packages out there I could have tried. I did not take the time to fiddle with any parameters in the OCR programs I did use. I did not explore dedicated OCR options on Windows.
For me, since it it free, scriptable and open source, tesseract wins.
Typewriters are cool and functional. Well, so I’ve read. Decided quite a while ago to see for myself, and had been keeping an eye out for a practical machine at a low price in decent nick. Finally purchased one on the 25th of June 2016. Bought an Olivetti Dora from 1969 at the St Vincent de Paul ‘opp’ (thrift) store in Goulburn for $10. Came with a vinyl case — a bit perished — both spool nuts, and a ribbon with a single spool. I found a teflon tape reel from some plumbing work I had done and wound some ribbon onto it. With a few bits from the shed I was able to kludge a spool that works, though does not hold the full 10 yards, so I can use the device until a new ribbon is obtained.
The torn carry case.
I have given it a quick clean, not a thorough one, and it seems to work pretty well. I find the bell a bit quiet. As a portable, it has no ‘one’ key (use little el instead), and an exclamation mark is made from a dagger (single quote) plus a stop.
So it is pretty basic.
Top view.
I have ordered a new ribbon from http://charliefoxtrot.com.au/; was very reasonably priced at $10 including delivery. Cost as much as the machine, but I suspect that is common with typewriters.
Will I use it much?
I do not know. I learned to type on a mechanical portable, and I have been pleasantly surprised at how quickly the technique has come back to me, though I was never a genuine touch typist and I still glance at the the keys more often than I suppose I should.
With the cover off, showing the bodged-together left reel, (trimmed champagne cork stuffed into a teflon tape reel). Works a treat!
I am not a typewriter expert. This one seems all right. The ribbon reversing mechanism might need some attention, but that is about it for problems. From the little reading I have done since I bought it, the Dora seems to be considered a reasonable, cheap machine and no more; and I would agree.
The acquiring of it was motivated by, really, little more than nostalgia, I must admit. When I was fairly young — early high school, I would guess — I spent quite a lot of time messing around on my Dad’s portable machine. I don’t know what make or model. I wrote stories that went on and on and were either abandoned or ended in a cliché. But it was how I learned to type (insofar as I can), and was when I began writing the odd story, a habit which has not yet left me.
General view of my bog-standard Olivetti Dora. I rather like the squared-off lines.
(As a result of learning to type on a mechanical portable, I tend to hit the keys pretty hard. I broke the ‘Enter’ key of a Mac (not that they are famous for being robust), and my preferred computer keyboard is an IBM M, a pretty heavy-duty piece of kit. I am told my typing, even on computer, is highly audible from a distance…)
I find kids are often quite fascinated by the machine. The hammers flicking out, the ribbon jumping up each time; I think they find the openness of it fascinating — they can see it working in a way that does not hold for a computer.
A sample of text, error and all, banged out on the Olivetti Dora with an ancient ribbon of unknown age, on the back of a used and grubby piece of office paper.
It has often struck me that the digital age is disconnected from the past. If you could send the Dora back in time to, say, Archimedes, he would be able to make a lot of sense of it. An iPad or even an electric typewriter would essentially be a brick. Yes, a mechanical typewriter needs infrastructure around it — paper, ink, ribbon. And the metallurgy in it, and the casting and so on, would be beyond the ancients; but the mechanism would make some sense, and might even provoke some nice ‘diversion’ of history, like a sci fi story.
He’s from Barcelona…
Anyway, now I am just typing to amuse myself, so it is time to take these pages (I am writing this post on the Dora), scan them (as outlined here), then fix all my errors. I can use search-and-replace to put in soft returns to remove the line breaks, and then proofread and spell check. Not terribly efficient, and I am sure the novelty will wear off pretty soon (between you and me, my original copy looks awful).
I am exploring Linux OCR options. The first step was to type up some text on my old Olivetti Dora, using all the available characters plus a few typewriter tricks (exclamation mark as superimposed stop and single quote, for example). Then I had to scan the sheet. I used xsane and output the text into a high resolution (600dpi) greyscale tiff (dora_page.tiff).
Here is an image (downsampled for the web) of the text:
Text from my Olivetti Dora, scanned in greyscale. The image looks blurrier and more uneven in the murky background than the original. Paper was used on one side already and there is some show-through; a pretty tough test!
Then I ran the text through three of the most widely available Linux-based solutions, the open source tesseract and gocr, and Cuneiform, which Debian considers as ‘non-free’.
In all cases but one (the last, below) I let the program use its default behaviour.
(A) Tesseract
Command line:
tesseract dora_page.tiff dora_page.tesseract
Result: Below is the output. Above each line is an evaluation of the OCR, where:
y = correct (‘yes’)
n = wrong (‘no’)
c = close
e = wrong because of typing error (faint or overlapping characters, for example)
I would note that tesseract gave some characters — single quotes (apostrophe) — as a series of values outside the range of ASCII values, rather than an ASCII quote. But they do correspond to quote characters — what it is doing is using context to give a quote character rather than an apostrophe. Note the difference between the characters around ‘eight’ in the text below, and around the lower case ‘l’ a couple of lines further down, which erroneously has a double quote on one side and a dagger on the other. On the same line it has rather mysteriously given ‘3’ for a full stop beneath a dagger, as used to generate an exclamation mark.
yynynyn
+-— + X
yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
What is the typeface?
yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
Olivetti Dora qwertyuiop
yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. i ii iii iv v
yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyynyyyynyyyyyyyyyyyyyycyny
1234567890 ... , semi; full: pound a Who£? 2/3 4+3=7 6+3:2
yyynyynynyyynynynynyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
7-5:2 %+%=l % i % % (no) "yes" 56% d.goossens@adfa.edu.au
yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
$2.34 Underline Days & Nights 8 or ‘eight’. (Parens).
yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijkl, mnopqrst, uvwxyz
yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
Well, I think that's all the characters. Make an exclamation
yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyenyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyey
mark by holding down space bar and typ hg apostrophe and a stpp
yyyyyyyyyynyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyynnnyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
like this 3 and use lower case “l' for unity. Colon on top of
yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyenyyyyynyyyyyyy
hyphen.gives us a divide sign. Equal and slash fi=does £ give a
yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyynnnnnncnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
not equals. Can slash a zero. ¢_: % X % # is M Z A d
yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyynyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
It does have a zero (0) and a capital oh (0) and they are
yyyyyyyyyyyyyyynynynyyyyyyyyyyyyyyynyynyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
pretty similar r-.00 (superimposed C)—~ identical, I'd say.
yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyynyyyyyyynyyyyyyyyyyyyy
No greater than / less than. No caret. X x and ~ gives a sort
yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyynyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
of asterisk. No vertical bar beyond 1. No hash. No curly brace
neyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
03 square bracks. No backslash.
eyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyye
E bit sticky. What's the right oil?frfi9uihjghbnvhggfcvcbfgrt fi
yyeeyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
7 fifl are you my mummy uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
enyeyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyeeyyyyyyyyyyyeyyyy
Jagaggggggdgaggearkgkfimaxnmyamxxyxxxxxxxxxxxamxxxxxxxxxxxmxxxx
Summary: Very good for regular, sensible, context-rich text. Poor for some of the more unusual characters (for example fractions). Poor for exclamation mark. Context causes an isolated ‘l’ and ‘O’ (little el, big oh) to be read as ‘1’ and ‘0’ (one and zero) respectively; not unreasonable. Some issues with apostrophe/single quote mark. On the other hand, very good (using the greyscale image) at working out faded letters. The last few lines were typed by mad children and no wonder they proved difficult. The ’03’ at the beginning of one line is a result of superimposed characters in the second column being read as a 3 instead of an ‘r’, and then context, I suspect, lead the ‘o’ to being classified as zero.
Conclusion: I’m no expert but this looks excellent to me. Some of the problems come from the typeface, which has no specific exclamation mark or digit for unity, and undifferentiated zero and capital oh. Exclamation mark might work better if it had context (i.e., was at the end of a word); can’t expect to test all possible combinations.
Result: Better than gocr, but not up with tesseract.
The QU3.ck brown f ox pumped ovex' tte 1BKy dog i i3. 3.3.1, 3.v v
1234/6 j8$0 ..., semi; full: pound. g Who'~ 2/3 4+3=7 6+3=2
7 -)=2 ~+2 — 1 —; 4, g g (no) ' yes $6$ ci~ goossensOadf B
BDU BU.
$2.gg Underline IIBys 8c Nights 8 or 'eight'. (Paxens).
A3C33ZPt"HIJKIMOPQRHTUVWXYZ abcdefghijkl, mnopcLrst, uvwxyz
Well, I think that'8 all the characters. Make Bn exclamation
mark by hold.ing do@In space bar Bnd typ'ng apostrophe and a stpp
like this ! and use lover case "1' for unity. Coj.on on top of
hyphen g3 Ves .US a 43v3.de 83.gn ~ Equal and slash. $ does g give B
not eqUB18 Can slash. a Kex'o g + p x g = 4 pf
It does have a Kexo (0) and, a capital oh (0) and they Bxe
pretty similar -- GO (superimpose@ 0 -- identical, I: d. say.
No gxeater than / lese than,. No cax'et. x x an6 — gives a sort
of asterisk. No vertical bax beyond 1. No hash. 5o cuxly brace
oxen square bracks. No backslash.
g bit sticky. %)hat 8 the xight oil.f r89uihjghbnvbggfcvcbfgrt ®<p/re>
Ithat is the typeface'2
Ulivetti 3ora qwertyuiop
The QU3.ck brown fox pumped ovex' tte 1BKy dog i ii 3.ii iv v
1234/6 j8$0 ..., semi; full: pound. g Who'~ 2/3 4+3=7 6+3=2
7 -)=2 ~+2 — 1 —; 4, g g (no) ' yes $6$ ci~ goossensOadf B eDU BU.
$2.gg Underline IIays 8c Nights 8 or 'eight'. (Paxens).
A3C33ZPt"HIJKIMOPQRHTUVWXYZ abcdefghijkl, mnopcLrst, uvwxyz
Well, I think that'8 all the characters. Make an exclamation
mark by hold.ing do@In space bar and typ'ng apostrophe and a stpp
like this ! and use lover case "1' for unity. Coj.on on top of
hyphen g3 Ves .US a 43v3.de 83.gn ~ Equal Bnd slash. $ does g give B
not eqUB18 Can slash. a Kex'o g + p x g = 4 pf
It does have a Kexo (0) and, a capital oh (0) and they Bxe
pretty similar -- GO (superimpose@ 0 -- identical, I: d. say.
No gxeater than / lese than,. No cax'et. x x an6 — gives a sort
of asterisk. No vertical bax beyond 1. No hash. 5o cuxly brace
ox' square bracks. No backslash.
g bit sticky. %)hat 8 the xight oil.f r89uihjghbnvbggfcvcbfgrt ®
f ®f !=tx'e )'ou Tj Fu.'::.lzly UuuuuuuUUuuuuuUUuuuuuUuuUuuuuuuUuuuuulgk
,-F,,'"::::::gggggg<gsggs
Conclusion: There are quite a few options to play with, so perhaps it could do better, but it would have to do a lot better to get near tesseract. Options ‘dotmatrix’ and ‘fax’ made no difference.
Overall conclusion:
Olivetti Dora.
Tesseract is very impressive and for now is my preference.
What I have not done is used any of the more Windows-y methods like scanning to PDF and getting some Adobe product to extract the text.
This is a review of Sky Command, a novel of Luftwaffe pilots at the end of World War II, by Anton Richler.
The cover of the Trojan Edition of Sky Command. Year: Unknown. Pages: Unknown. Cover artist: Unknown.
(1) I am not saying Anton Richler is a hack. The presentation of the book, though, makes him look like one. It is a ‘Trojan’ paperback, but the original publisher is (possibly) Badger books, an imprint hardly renowned for quality and carefully considered output… there is minimal publication info (no date of original publication, no date of this issue), no page numbers (!) and no cover art credit. Below is a scan of a random sample to demonstrate the incredible carelessness of the typesetting — notice how the letters ripple up and down. There are more than a few typographical errors, and the paper is only one step above the stuff that wrapped my fish and chips last week.
The first page of Sky Command
(2) This is actually a fascinating story, made doubly so by my recent reading of Cheshire, VC and The Dam Busters, two non-fiction books, written about the victorious British by a couple of victorious Australians. The Cheshire book is worth a review, and such a review may get written one day…
Reading Sky Command (a generic name if ever there was one), there is something poignant that comes through even in the purplest of prose — the men portrayed are just men, fighting hopelessly to defend a country they love that is ruled by a party they do not believe in and that had dragged them into this useless war. The knowledge that their efforts are doomed adds a resonance that an equally pulpy but ultimately triumphal story would not have. The result is that despite some fairly purple prose that smacks of padding
the book is quite compelling reading, with sympathetic protagonists, economically evoked action scenes, and apparently a sound knowledge of the aircraft and the military situation around the time of the Ardennes campaign (the ‘Battle of the Bulge’).
(3) The setting of the book around the time of the Ardennes campaign is a master-stroke, as well; we get the very moment when the last slim hopes of throwing the Allies back into the sea are ended, viewed through the eyes of a small band of exhausted pilots whose job is to support the offensive with air-strikes against enemy convoys. When the remaining pilots are withdrawn to defend Berlin from the advancing Russians, the hopelessness of the German cause becomes clear. The pragmatists hope merely to slow the Russians down, on the principle that the less of Germany under Russian control the better. The fin de siècle atmosphere is apparent. And through it our protagonist fights on, though he wonders why.
(4) In conclusion: This is a book of many weaknesses — several of them the fault of the book production department, not the author — but many compelling strengths. I love that cover with the two guys walking away from the holed plane, one using his hands to illustrate some point of the aerial battle just gone. Richler gives it an air of authenticity and a mood and atmosphere that lends the tale depth. The view from ‘the other side’ is fascinating. The prose and the dialogue are rather blunt instruments at times, and a couple of paragraphs read as if there was a bomb strapped to the typewriter that would go off if the author stopped hitting keys. Yet the tale remains entertaining. Richler knows what makes a story work, knows how to keep you reading, and does not turn anybody into cannon fodder or a faceless scapegoat.
It is that kind of pulpy, hackish fiction that borders on being really very fine. If the author had more time to spend, if the publishers edited it properly, if the author perhaps thought more of his own talents and aimed at All Quiet on the Western Front rather than the newsstand, this could have been a major work.
But, hell, it’s a lot of fun. And if I could write a book like this, if I could be a hack as good as this author, I’d be a happy man.
The attraction of the typewriter is incredibly idiosyncratic. I find that I just want to type. I may not have anything to write, but I want to use the thing.
DSPACE 