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argue that the book as a three-dimensional object actually has a larger physical presence
than the two-dimensional representation of a hypertext on the screen, I would like to
suggest that hypertext networks, with the possibility ofmultiple and flexible links, have
an edge over the fixed order of print text in representing the complex, internal
relationships of the deep structure of narratives. This is not to say that this complexity
does not exist in "linear" print text, since it is perfectly possible to express a non-linear
narrative in a linear text and is in fact frequently done but that it is only the
representation ofthe narrative complexity that may be facilitated in hypertext. But are
these texts more successful? Does the contradiction and tension between the linear
nature ofspeaking, writing and reading and the non-linear complexity ofnarratives limit
or does it, as hyperfiction theorists argue, enhance the expressive possibilities? To
attempt an answer I will analyse and compare the strategies employed by writers ofprint
fiction and hypertext fiction in their work, as well as readers' reactions to it, using text of
both kinds that are either related explicitly (e.g. electronic re-workings ofprint texts such
as Stuart Moulthrop's Forking Paths, based on a short story by Borges, or the CD-ROM
of Andreas Okopenko's Lexikon Roman) or that implicitly concern themselves with
similar topics, structures or problems.
In her doctoral thesis"; which researches readers' responses to hypertext fiction against
the background of reader-response theory and empirical studies of her own along with
her students' reading experiences, Jane Yellowlees Douglas identifies two main
categories of non-linear narratives: the first she calls MOSAIC narratives. These are
narratives that are presented in a fragmented format, both on a level of physical
presentation and consequently of narrative (organised at random or according to some
ruling principle), and in which the reader willin the act ofreading attempt to establish a
coherent version of the story, based on notions such as causality and temporality. The
second she describes as "narratives of MULTIPLICITY", whose key-interest lies in a)
either to express simultaneity of different narrative strands or different version of the
same events or b) mutually exclusive, parallel developments.
10 Jane Yellowlees Douglas,Print Pathways and Interactive Labyrintbs: How Hypertext Narratives Affect
theActofReading, Doctoral dissertation (New York: New York University, 1992) , p.65· Chapter 2 - page 21