Shifting Gears

December 1, 1987
In this lengthy study, Boston Univ. English professor Tichi (author of New World, New Earth examines technology's impact on language, art and popular culture from the 1890s to the 1920s. During this period the professional engineer became a national role model, idealized in now-forgotten best sellers by Rex Beach, Harold Bell Wright and John Fox. But more fundamentally, Tichi contends, American literature was transformed when new technological values represented by the efficiency movement of Frederick Taylor and the "aesthetic of the rapid-transit experience'' were adopted in various ways by American writers such as Hemingway, Dos Passos and William Carlos Williams. (Indeed, the book concludes with an analysis of Williams's ``poetics of kinetics and efficiency'' and his belief that a poem is a ``machine made of words.'') The 119 illustrations include advertisements, photos, paintings, diagrams, postcards and sculpture and are closely linked with the author's illuminating text.

March 1, 1987
Arguing that the "gear-and-girder" technology that captured American industry between 1880 and 1920 also permeated popular culture and created the heroic figure of the engineer-designer, Tichi tries to demonstrate a similar influence on literatureespecially in the work of Dos Passos, Hemingway, and William Carlos Williams. Despite a tendency toward repetition and belaboring the obvious, the argument is interesting, but it falls short of persuasion. The analyses of literary structure focus on design efficiency without suggesting what function a literary "machine" is meant to possess. Still, the book is wonderfully illustrated and organizes a wealth of useful materials from usually unrelated areas. Earl Rovit, English Dept., City Coll., CUNY

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