From Page to Screen - WRAP: Warwick Research Archive Portal ...

the codex book to a digital textual environment. The success of hypertext fiction lies in
its function and in the way it experiments with (literary) text on screen and the fact that
it forms a part of an exploration of new literary forms which are currently emerging as a
result ofwider transformation ofthe written word.
Hypertext Fiction and the other forms of literary electronic collaboration and computer
generated writing discussed in earlier parts of this study ask a number of important
questions. And even though the answers they suggest are not always convincing and
without flaws, they represent an important part of the debate in the humanities about
digital text. Questions raised concern the forms in which literature could be possible in
the new electronic medium and more importantly the future function ofthe printed text.
What, these projects ask, to employ a rather overused trope, is the "future ofthe book".'
6.1: Evolutionor Revolution?
There can no doubt that hypertext fiction refers back, explicitly as well as implicitly,to a
long tradition of literary experimentation. in which the aim has always been to question,
widen and change the definitions, the underlying expectations of literature and the
dividing line between literature and other artforms and its relation to them, yet always
remaining within the realm of the textual media. One of the valuable contributions of
hypertext fiction is the transferral of this exploration into the electronic medium, using
similar techniques and taking up similar questions, albeit in a new medium.
Remaining true to this tradition is at the same time extremely difficult, and the
overwhelming newness of the medium leads to the permanent internal contradiction
explored in this thesis - the rejection and denial of a tradition of experimental writing
(including a rhetoric ofnewness and binaryopposition) while at the same time taking up
similar questions and being influenced by the underlying theory ofthe rejected tradition.
By bringing in examples from experimental fiction of the zoth century which explore
similar questions, chapter 2 and 3 of this thesis first explored how two theoretical
keyterms - non-linearity and interactivity - were taken up by recent hypertext theory and
appropriated by it as features unique to the electronic text, and then secondly attempted
9 A rather overused trope as for example in: Geoffrey Nunberg (ed), The Future ofthe Book; Philip
Hill (ed), The Future ofthe PrintedWort/, Don Webb, "The Future Book"or Paul Roberts, "The Future of
Writing", Independent onSunday, 29 September 1996.
Chapter 6 - page 209