The Enchanted Typewriter — Story, Setting & Ideas

A Narrator Who Monkeys with Language

The narrator’s diction is deliberately informal, even apologetic. He uses the verb “monkey” to describe his tinkering and then defends it as “exactly descriptive,” coining the term “English slanguage” to distinguish it from the “Andrew Language.” This self-conscious wordplay signals that the book’s humor depends on the narrator’s willingness to break rules. He also describes himself as a “mediocre magazinist” when Boswell suggests he write poster copy for a circus. Such lines reveal a persona who is both the butt of jokes and the orchestrator of them.

The prose is peppered with asides and parenthetical remarks that mimic spoken digression. The narrator’s voice is not that of an omniscient author but of a character caught in his own story, unsure how to account for the typewriter’s activity. He claims “it is a strange fact, for which I do not expect ever satisfactorily to account,” and this admission of bafflement becomes a running motif.

Boswell’s Hades: Tourism and Commerce

James Boswell, the historical biographer, appears as a denizen of Hades who runs an entertainment bureau. He proposes trolley parties, vaudeville evenings, and “A Tandem Scorch: A Century Run on a Bicycle Built for Two Hundred!” The narrator responds with mock enthusiasm, suggesting a tour called “To Bargaindale and Back: The Great Marked-down Tour” for able-bodied women only. This exchange is less about plot than about satirizing the emerging tourist industry and the commodification of leisure.

Bangs uses Boswell to channel a modern entrepreneurial spirit into the classical underworld. The dialogue is brisk and competitive; Boswell calls the narrator a “genius” at poster writing, then immediately undercuts the compliment. The humor arises from the collision of ancient setting with contemporary fads—bicycles, department stores, and Sunday supplements.

The Woman Question in the Underworld

A recurring concern in the excerpts is how to entertain the female residents of Hades. Boswell worries that “Hades hath no fury like a woman scorned” and wants to put Henry VIII’s wives in charge of ladies’ tours. The narrator demurs, claiming that “all men are alike, and man’s pleasures in all times have been generally the same, but every woman is unique.” This generalization is delivered with comic gravity, and the narrator’s only suggestions are a Monday sale at a department store and a millinery exhibition at the opera matinee.

The passage reveals Bangs’s reliance on period stereotypes about women’s interests, but it also shows the narrator’s awareness of his own inadequacy. He refuses to take responsibility for designing tours, saying “I’d rather you left me out of your ladies’ tours altogether.” The effect is a self-deprecating humor that acknowledges the limits of the narrator’s imagination.

Unseen Hands and Unreliable Transmission

The typewriter is manipulated by “unseen hands,” and the narrator can only report what appears on the paper. He has no control over the content; when Boswell neglects him for a week, he goes to his desk daily hoping for something interesting, but “naught” comes. This passivity makes the narrator a witness rather than an agent, and the book’s structure depends on his willingness to transcribe.

The framing device also allows Bangs to blend genres: the opening reads like a supernatural anecdote, but the dialogues that follow are closer to philosophical comedy. The narrator’s repeated claims of veracity—“I am not given to romancing”—are undercut by the absurdity of the events. The reader is left to decide how much of the tale is invention and how much is a joke at the narrator’s expense.

Readers should approach The Enchanted Typewriter as a series of conversational sketches rather than a continuous narrative. The pleasure lies in the interplay between the narrator’s self-conscious voice and the fantastical reports from Hades. Bangs’s humor depends on anachronism and understatement; the underworld is not a place of torment but a bureaucracy of tourism. Pay attention to the narrator’s asides and the way he frames his own incredulity—they are the true subject of the book.

That haunted typewriter in Bangs’s tale feels like a quiet room where the dead speak frankly, shedding their grand reputations. I often think of that gentle honesty when I revisit The Little Lame Prince — Reading Notes. Both whisper that our deepest companions needn’t travel far—only to the next page over, listening patiently.