Jeffrey Loew, e-mail response for 5/15/97 class:
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From: Jeffrey Loew
Subject: Vicki's Hypertext
All right, I'm on what appears to be a title page, but with no information
but the title, the author, and three links with unilluminating titles.
Guess I'll try one: Elaine 1999 (it's first).
First page: definitely Joycean (Michael, that is): 1st person, an ambiguous
sense of mystery, little revealing of plot. One piece of succinct info: 5
years in the same house. Why did the boy run to a tree? Would he really
have something to sell right off the schoolbus?
(My) second page, continuing with Elaine 1999:
Nice jolt: here's his mother, there's his body. The kind of leap that
Hypertext seems to invite. My first thought was the boy, only because of the
convention by which a masculine pronoun generally is matched to the last
male we read about. We seem to be offered in this passage a kind of
exposition by association, again a model to which hypertext is well-suited
since nonlinear.
On to 'Who is Elaine?':
Good to meet Aaron. His name seemed to leak out prematurely on the last
page, leaving me wondering if we'd be bombarded with faceless names,
distracting null signifiers.
Continuing 'Who is Elaine' had brought us to 'Who is Michael?' Either a tad
inelegant or a statement about identity -- Does Elaine view herself as the
sum of her men? Reading on: Difficult to maintain the de riguer ironic tone
while waxing lovingly over Michael's gaze; Again, perhaps the form reveals
the function, but I'm not as convinced by this passage -- I preferred the
spare language of the previous pages.
I now have only the option of 'More Dreams,' although I have not yet visited
'Dreams.' Something to think about in hypertext design: the adjective
'more' implies an order, and even perhaps a kind of valuation, between
links. Reading on: Hmmm... the dreams are enigmatic, but I'm not sure that
I want to know more. The table scene is the only one that resonates,
although it might be too large a chunk of narrative to maintain the tone of
the rest.
The links that remain are titles of those I have visited already. My first
thought is that I will have seen those pages, but I'll check anyway, just in
case the links can change. I still haven't visited the link called
'Dreams,' and it may be reachable from there.
'Who is Elaine?': The same, as I figured. But here is a link to 'Dreams.'
This is a more effective encounter with Michael -- again we have the
postmodern voice of the 'objective' first-person observer, reporting the
material facts of her life as though they have no underlying soul or
foundation. I like this tone, and it seems suited to the medium, although
this is at least in part because this is the tone most hypertexts seem to
adopt; but also, perhaps, because the medium celebrates surface and
fragmentation; attempts at depth and cohesion return the reader to the
handholding stage, where an author informs us that "this means this," at
times with the assumed familiarity of "you know what I mean?" Perhaps we
don't, or don't care to. The postmodern subject does not even know what she
herself means, or if she means at all.
In order to return to the home page I have to jump over to 'More Dreams.' I
notice at the top the phrase, 'Dreams Two': again this seems to advocate a
particular order that the author prefers, a 'correct' order.
Here at the home page I find a link I forgot: 'Names.' All right, a title
that by convention suggests a cast of characters is instead a mystery; a
"question," as Michael says. Not a bad place to begin a hypertext reading.
Or to end one.
Overall, Vicki, I think this is a good start. I want to read more, anyway.
You seem to allow the form of the hypertext to add layers of meaning to your
story, so I think that your project may provide an argument in favor of
hypertext as something new, something that can help us to think about the
separation of the world from our ability to perceive and express it. such
speculation will also lead us to revisit how print culture does this
already, and how it might do it differently. I look forward to seeing this
at the end of the quarter. (I was going to say, "When it's done," but of
course it need not ever be brought to a finished state.)