The Royal 10 typewriter was introduced in 1914 and was one of the last real advances in typewriter design. It had side panels of bevelled glass because the levers, gears, couplings, and pins which converted the downward thrust of your finger to the tight thwap of letter on paper were intricate and fascinating enough to warrant display. One could imagine sitting sideways to the Royal 10, typing out nonsense, satisfied with simply watching it work. It wouldnβt really matter if the letters were forming words, the words sentences, the sentences a cohesive paragraph contributing rhetorically to the sense of the whole. It wouldnβt matter a whit, because the graceful movements of the steel and gun oil were more than just a technological wonder. Watching the Royal 10 was like watching a ballet. The Royal 10 reminds me of Alice Munro.
It doesnβt matter what Alice Munro is writing aboutβitβs fun just to watch her work. Munro writes with an ineffable magnetism. Itβs as if her words on the page have what one would call βstar qualityβ on the stage or screen. Her settings float around in your memory while the book is closed, and reading feels like a late summer nap in a canoe on a calm pond. Frankly, itβs bizarre.
I do not use the word βineffableβ lightly. One searches in vain for the crucial clue to Munroβs talent. It lies not in specific examplesβthere are no flashy metaphors, no diamonds to mineβbut in her constant
