The Great Automatic Grmmatizator: ISC Prism Long Answers Part 2
Question 4 : Give a summary of the conversation that takes place between Knipe and Bohlen when Knipe explains the way the machine will function.
Answer: Knipe, being so excited about his idea of developing a machine to produce literature, reaches the office of Mr. Bohlen. Mr. Bohlen is happy to see him so enthusiastic. Then Knipe “pours out” his story. He opens the folders and pushes the plans in front of the astonished little man. He talks for over an hour explaining and waiting for the verdict.
Mr. Bohlen could not believe the ides and thinks that Knipe has become “nuts”.
But Knipe is adamant about his plan that “It’ll work !”
Mr. Bohlen admits that Knipe’s idea is “ingenious” and “brilliant” and it proves the boy’s ability but he is suspicious about its usefulness, practically and profitability. He asks Knipe “what possible use can it be to us ? Who on earth wants a machine for writing stories ? And where’s the money in it, anyway ?”
Knipe feeling increasingly disliking towards Mr. Bohlen, requests permission to sit down and proceeds to explain how he came up with the idea. Then Knipe confesses that all his life he was “wanted to be a writer” and hehas written hundreds of stories in his “spare time” in last ten years. But all of them were rejected by publishers. Bohlen feels relieved that Knipe is not a good writer. Knipe asserts that his stories are better than the “sloppy boring stuff” published in the journals which have rejected Knipe’s stories.
Then Knipe says that he has made a study of magazines and each magazine tends to have its own particular type of story and the “successful writers” know this and they write accordingly.
Knipe says with enthusiasm that in his machine, by having an adjustable co – ordinator between the “plot – memory” section and “word memory” section he is able to produce any type of story be desire simply by pressing the required buttons.
Question 5 : How does Knipe explain his project as a profit earning venture to Bohlen ?
Answer: Knipe tells Mr. Bohlen that his project of developing a machine to produce literature will be a profit earning venture. According to Knipe, the machine can produce a five – thousand word story, “all typed” and “ready for despatch” in just thirty seconds. It is also capable to produce literature on a large sscale.
The magazines generally pay the writers a thousand dollar for each story. The big magazines are carrying approximately three fiction stories in each issue and most of them come out every week. If the fifteen most important magazines are taken, then around forty big stories being bought each week. That’s they will be able to make forty thousand dollars per week. This way they can “collar” nearly the whole of the literary “market”.
The machine Knipe has planned to develop will be able to produce the desired kind of stories and articles. They will have to press the required button and the story of their choice will be ready.
Then Adolph Knipe noticed a slight change in Mr. Bohlen expression, an extra- brightness in the eyes, the nostrils distending, the whole face bwcoming still, almost rigid. He continued that “handmade articles hasn’t a hope” as they can not possibly compete with the mass – production of machine. Carpets, chairs, shoes, bricks, crockery or anything one can think, they’re all machine made now a day. The “quality may be inferior” but that “doesn’t matter”. Similarly stories are also another product no one cares how they are produced as long as they are delivered on time as required. He further adds that they will sell them wholesale and undercut every writer in the country.
Knipe plans that they will then setup their own literary agency and they will invent all the names they want for the writers, to sell mass produced literature. He plans to ask different authors to sell their products to Knipe’s literary agency and pay them low price and then publish their stories in different journals getting a much higher price.
Therefore the machine will certainly be a profitable venture for them.
Question 6 : Describe the way Kniope started using the machine for sending stories. How far did he succeed ? How did Bohlen react to this ?
Answer: Knipe started using the machine for producing stories and articles. The machine produced a large number of stories in a short period of time. Mr. Bohlen was so “mollified” with the success of the machine. He agreed to set up a literary agency. In a couple of weeks it was accomplished. Knipe then mailed some stories to different magazines. He put his own name to four of them, Mr. Bohlen’s to one and for the others he simply invented names.
Five of these stories were acceptwd, except one that carried Bohlen’s name as the author. A new story then sent with Bohlen’s name on it and it gets selected.
Knipe’s success was significant and money started “pouring in”. Knipe slowly and carefully stepped up the output and in six month’s time he was delivering thirty stories a week and selling about half.
Knipe began to “make a name” for himself in literary circle as a “prolific and successful writer”. So did Mr. Bohlen, but not quite such a good name. Knipe built up a dozen or more “fictitious persons” as promising young authors, which helped him to sell more stories. Everything was going fine and Knipe’s success continued to grow.
However, Mr. Bohlen was not entirely pleased with Knipe’s success. Although he acknowledged that machine was a brilliant invention, but he felt that Knipe was taking all the credit for it. He felt that Knipe was “trying to make a monkey out of him” and keeping all the best stories for himself. Mr. Bohlen, was thirsting now for greater honours in the literary world so he wanted to “do a novel” as he believed that a novel was the only thing that counted in the literary world.
At this point, Mr. Bohlen insisted that Knipe adapt machine for writing stories as well as novels. Knipe agreed to work on this “prodigious task” but he cautioned Mr. Bohlen to be patient, as it was complicated adjustment he had to make.
Within another couple of months, the genius of Adolph Knipe had adapted the machine for novel writing.