The Enchanted Typewriter

Hades #3

by John Kendrick Bangs

John Kendrick Bangs was an American author and satirist whose most famous works were mysteries. In particular, his series about the gentleman thief Raffles remain popular today.

Genres: Fantasy, Humor, Audiobook, Fiction, Ebooks, Speculative Fiction, Classics

56 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1899

About the author

John Kendrick Bangs was an American author and satirist, and the creator of modern Bangsian fantasy, the school of fantasy writing that sets the plot wholly or partially in the afterlife.

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

The review from afar – No. 7

Revised forward to these overseas reviews:
Since I am cycling back-and-forth from the US to Asia like a piece of string in search of a yo-yo, I have forgone the usual joy of slugging 8-12 paperbacks along with me and taken a previously unused Kindle 3G along instead. It is to the fine folks at Project Gutenberg that I tip my hat: virtually every title I have or will be reading comes from their worthwhile endeavors (or endeavours, when in a former British colony.)


The Enchanted Type-Writer is a series of tales (short stories really) that use the same framing mechanism: the current owner of an enchanted typewriter can communicate with the spirits of the dead. Well, it’s a little more colorful than that. The shades are from Hades and they can hear the owner speaking so they can reply – but only by typing out messages on the self-same machine.
Hades as revealed to us is a very busy place with a ruler, governmental and civic goings-on, and a lot of dead who are in need of “harmless diversion”. The person who first comes to use the typewriter and does so most commonly is James Boswell who has become an editor at a hellacious newspaper. He relates several tales about the troubles in Hades and together with the owner concocts activities to occupy the dead and earn a little copra.
The author, John Kendrick Bangs wrote these tales after the two house-boat novels, but continues in his use of famous dead people (real and fictional) to populate his story. The typewriter’s owner is an exception, since he is still in the land of the living he is a character created by Bangs (as are his neighbors, friends, and associates.)
While not as action-oriented as The Pursuit of the House-Boat, this is another imaginative collection of characters and stories. (I don’t really need to point out that all of the Hades-related material is Bang’s own creation, do I? He’s not really communing with the dead.) It seems that he was able to make a decent career out of employing the dead. A Solid Three (3.0) Stars.

You can get this book for free from Project Gutenberg.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Because of the vagueries of Interlibrary Loan, I've now read the third book in Bangs' Hades series (the first being A Houseboat on the Styx: Being Some Account of the Diverse Doings of the Associated Shades) before the second. But that's not really of any matter, since this is also one of Bangs' metafictional novels, and as such is a delight. In this tale, Bangs refurbishes an old type-writer from the 1870s that he finds in his attic and soon discovers that it's being used by the dead Jim Boswell to write out his Sunday magazine. There are many delightful jabs at human nature and Bangs' own writing, and the entire book is every bit as quotable as anything by Mark Twain - a line about Bangs making a spectacle of himself only to be told he's barely made a monocle of himself had me cackling for at least fifteen minutes.

This isn't as good as A Rebellious Heroine, but still a whole lot of fun - and it has a Holmesian parody in it to boot.

[Dovile · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of writers, copyright and a special typewriter. Told by a mortal friend of Jim Boswell.

Includes the latest news on the political situation in Hades; a preview of Mr. Munchausen's Further Recollections; an scary chat with the oldest New Woman and the consequences of letting her at publishing a newspaper; the newest fads of the shades - earthly Boswell tours and golf; a review of the latest hand-book to Hades; the lawsuit over a hell dog (or three); and two post-mortem cases of Sherlock Holmes (who at the time of the original publication of this collection had last been seen thrown off to death of a waterfall by a fed-up author).

Readers be warned: it is entirely possible that the entire Associated Shades series are just Holmes' drug-induced dreams.

[K.J. Joyner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been reading the Associated Shades series in linear order, and so far this was the funniest one. I won't ruin the book or go through a rundown when that's not necessary. Let me just say that a haunted typewriter - haunted because a ghost has need of it to run his newspaper - at the time was a novel (pardon the pun) concept. From there, snippets of life in Hades just gets sillier from dog taxes to trolley parties - which I imagine were the Victorian/Georgian era equivalent of our limousine parties today. I am left wanting to hold a trolley party.

I also suspect the reason why Sir Arthur Conan Doyle brought Sherlock Holmes back to life was to save him from John Kendrick Bangs.

[Rauf · Rating 2 out of 5]

A spirit from Hades (not Hell. Hades) possessed our narrator's typewriter and told him how things just basically the same in the afterlife. People still went to work, there was an election and so on and so forth.
My favorite part was when Baron Munchausen told the story that he was Adam, Noah, Jonah and Bill Shakespeare before he was born as Munchausen.

My least favorite part was the Sherlock Holmes story. Dude, everyone knows Holmes never wrote his story down! Watson did that for him (and us).

Overall I thought the book was too scattered. The ending is so abrupt and there's no real conclusion to anything.

[Scott Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like other reviewers, I tend to agree that this book ended abruptly and was scattered but nevertheless I found it clever and fun way to poke fun at such a variety of things. Even the fact that virtually every author, artist and world leader ends up in the torment of Hades - where they essentially get to carry on - is so tongue in cheek it's hard not to laugh. Bangs must have had a load of fun writing this and must have had to end it just to bring what could have been an endless set of stories.

[Living Belowtheclouds · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't like this one very much. I think it should focus on less characters and the plot should be more developed.
The humor is ironic and well executed.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the third book in a trilogy but it is not necessary to have read the first two and I have no plans of doing so. While the first half was genuinely amusing, it started to go downhill with the virulent misogyny directed at Xanthippe and early feminism in Chapters 4-5. I know this was written in the 1890s, but the author avatar protagonist literally makes excuses for Henry VIII murdering his wives while at the same time opposing women's political emancipation. Yeah, I just can't. The story recovers somewhat but then we're subjected to literal Sherlock Holmes fan fiction and a tedious account of a game of golf and it just . . . ends.

[Snail · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book contains funny, often absurd, kind of "short chapter chronicles" following our narrator and his interaction with a departed spirit, Jim Boswell, on an enchanted typewriter. We get a glimpse into the realm of Hades and the madness there is not much different than our world. Offices, bureaucracy, and uprising, as well as the game of golf all exist in this realm. My favorite chapter is VII "An Important Decision" which includes a funny court case concerning Cerberus, one dog or three?

[Claudia Pereira · Rating 3 out of 5]

Serviu para passar o tempo. Embora o tenha lido em muito pouco tempo não consegui entender o objetivo do livro, no entanto a classificação é mesmo porque me entreteve e achei “engraçado” o narrador falar com a máquina de escrever e conseguirem-se entender sem nunca de verem.

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was reading my way through parts of the Library

[Joana Violante · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't like this one very much. I think it should focus on less characters and the plot should be more developed.
The humor is ironic and well executed.

[Mark Rabideau · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a pretty weird book. It reminded me greatly of Trump's dystopian paradise described in analogy as Hades. But then, I'm probably wrong.

[Amle · Rating 1 out of 5]

This didn't appeal to me at all. It managed to get one star for the title, one giggle at a clever pun and for, at a point in the story, using the word mugwump.
If the book had been longer I would have given up on it but seeing as it was less than 100 pages, I endured.
I strongly doubt I will delve any deeper into the writings of Bangs after this.

[Linda Harris · Rating 2 out of 5]

The title "Enchanted Typewriter" intrigued me because the Utopian Shalem Colony in New Mexico was established at the direction of automatic writing. The founder of the colony typed an entire bible Oaspe with an angel directing his fingers to type the book. While this book was somewhat amusing, it really is not my cup of tea. But neither was Oaspe.

[Derek · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wish Bangs wasn't so sexist. It really diminishes his writing. It's not the worst travesty though (I'm looking at you, "Bikey"). At the very least, I'll give this an extra star for the amusing chapter regarding Cerberus.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book three of the Associated Shades series that I discovered last year, I didn't find this as humorous as the first two. I might revisit this assessment after reading the fourth and final volume.

[Chichi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book! It's eccentric humour had me chuckling all through. A good classic.

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute little afternoon read. This was the last of the Shades books for me to read.