by larry gilman » August 12th, 2004, 6:11 pm
Yes, Lewis seems to have had a personal aversion to machines. In _Surprised by Joy_ he derides zippers (which he calls "slide fasteners") as compared to buttons. In a letter to a child inquirer dated 14 Dec. 1959, he advises: "Don't use a typewriter. The noise will destroy your sense of rhythm, which still needs years of training."
Not sure about Lewis's implicit theory of "rhythm" and its delicacy, here . . . Anhow, I _would_ be surprised if we somehow got Jack back out of the box and he turned out to like computers. I mean, the complexity---the humming---the total daily dependence on Giant Corporation A or Super-duper-giant Corporation M, not to mention the megamechanical power network and its associated coal stacks, nuclear reactor cores, and wilderness-flooding dams---crashed disks---floods of e-mail adding to his hellish burden of correspondence---aieeee!
L