Book Review: ‘The Noise of Typewriters: Remembering Journalism’

A beautiful memoir on the 'Golden Age' of journalism

American media mogul Henry Luce, editor-in-chief of Time Inc., with his second wife, playwright and diplomat Clare Booth Luce, in the 1940s. (Archive Photos/Getty Images)

“The Noise of Typewriters” is part memoir of Lance Morrow, quasi-biography of Time magazine co-founder Henry Luce, and semi-eulogy for the journalism industry. It is inundated with nostalgia and emanates a sense of sorrow for what he calls the long past “Golden Age” of journalism and those who made it golden.

Morrow is most known for his stellar work at Time as an essayist, and his time at the magazine is where he spends most of his recollections. The title “The Noise of Typewriters” and subtitle “Remembering Journalism” is indicative of the thematic elements of the book. It is a discussion with the reader of how journalism was once the noble profession (“sacred work” in Morrow’s words) championed by talented writers who sought to write the truth (“the sanctity of facts, justly interpreted”) to a public that would take the time to read it.

Though the author keeps his toe dipped in the 20th century, he hints at the decay (if not demise) in this century of all the aforementioned: the industry, the writers, and the readers.

This hinting makes it seem as though the memoir is a tour of unfortunate sequences that have led to the current state of journalism, but in fact it is not. It is a lovely work, artful in its form, occasionally humorous, consistently intriguing, and honest in its assessment of past writers and editors, and himself. It is a tour of important events covered by tireless writers who possessed great character, even if that character consumed excessive amounts of alcohol. Ernest Hemingway, who is mentioned often in the book, stated: “Write drunk. Edit sober.” Interestingly, Luce had no problem with that order.

A Literary Approach to Journalism

Morrow’s memoir is, as mentioned above, a multifaceted approach to one idea: journalism. He elevates journalism as a means of historicism, though denying the idea that journalism is the “first draft of history.” It is simultaneously an intellectual investigation into the meaning and purpose of journalism, as well as the reasons why writers choose journalism in spite of the poor pay and, at times, undermining editors.

“The Noise of Typewriters” is a constant contrast between the fiction of journalism found in movies (“It Happened One Night” and “Citizen Kane”) and books (“A Farewell to Arms”) and the reality of journalism. This doesn’t mean the two―the fictional and nonfictional versions―don’t intermingle. They do, as expressed by the author, sometimes in tragic form―tragic for writers, like the oft-mentioned Otto Friedrich who “descended from literature to sports journalism.” I was reminded of a line from Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” where he writes: “I am a journalist. But like all journalists I wish to write literature.”

Morrow notes that “some journalism earned promotion to the status of literature and, as such, survived.” It is, it seems, that aspiration or “promotion” which drives many of Morrow’s colleagues to write feverishly, authentically, and beautifully. And it is the typewriter, or the comfort of its noise and rhythm, that keeps the golden boys and girls working.

Journalism and Truth

Morrow’s colleagues, as presented in the book, wished to present the truth about a subject. Norman Mailer, John Hersey, Walter Isaacson, Joan Didion, along with Morrow himself and a collection of others presented a version of truth that the book’s author separates into two categories, or rather, two Russian definitions: “pravda” (man’s truth) and “istina” (God’s truth). The 20th-century journalist was pulled in both directions, attempting to present the “hard, quotidian, worldly facts” (pravda) and the “essential truth of things, the inner truth, the poetic truth” (istina).  That is a hard and controversial line to walk.

Morrow notes how truthful journalistic efforts kept the journalist in control and the novelist at bay by intertwining the pravda and the istina without confusing the two. The temptation for journalists, which he admits has been since Time magazine was founded, is to sink into a descriptive first-person retelling that he finds hollow and pretentious, as if the reader needs to know what type of breakfast the journalist’s subject was eating. It gives journalists the power of istina by virtue of their presence (even if they aren’t present), and by that virtue, it creates a voice for the writer and a false sense of the truth for the reader. Morrow identifies this form of journalism as writing with “enthusiasm”―a temptation for editors to demand and for writers to create. He notes that this “densely overstimulated vividness” is a “sin.”

Politically Balanced Journalism

“The Noise of Typewriters” is a clarion call to revert to a more honest, less sinister version of journalism, one where writers from across the political aisles work to bear the truth. It was time when the newspaper room was more balanced ideologically, with liberal writers and conservative editors. Time magazine under Luce was like that. The magazine founder, who is discussed as much (if not more than Morrow himself), was a Republican who, as the author states, “admired underlings who did not obey him―and he admired himself still more for having hired them.” This “forbearance” that Luce showed his employees most likely stemmed from the fact that he “was probably a better reporter than anyone who worked for him” and that “his greatness as a journalist had nothing to do with his politics or ideology.”

The impression that Luce made on Morrow’s career was as indelible as the impression made on American society. His founding of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated magazines is enough to inform the reader of his societal impact. Equally so was his impact on the industry of journalism. Luce, Morrow wrote, is “the key to understanding journalism in the twentieth century.”

Memoir as Metaphor

“The Noise of Typewriters” is also key to understanding journalism in the 20th century. It traverses intimately the best days of the industry and contrasts the decline of modern journalism with the decline of journalistic integrity at Time magazine. But Morrow references that, according to the ancient Greek historian and general Thucydides, “everything vanishes into the country of myth,” and how “Time magazine hastened the process.”

The entire book is metaphorical in the sense that all things fade into the past, are forgotten, summoned back, and presented as a memorial of what they once were, perhaps even better than they once were. Old films, dead writers, antiquated technology, the “Golden Age” of journalism―all myths, yet worth remembering.

‘The Noise of Typewriters: Remembering Journalism’ By Lance Morrow Encounter Books, Feb. 28, 2023 Hardcover: 200 pages