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establish new connections - to "fill the gaps left by the text itself"."
Hypertexts, where the links between text nodes become literal gaps, seem to be an ideal
medium to encourage reader activity. There is, however, a thin line between surprise and
frustration that the incoherence and unpredictability ofa text can result in, defined by
B.Ritchyand quoted by Iser as follows:
Roughly, the distinction can be made in terms of the effects which the two kinds of
experiences then have upon us. Frustration blocks or checks activity. Itnecessitates
new orientation for our activity, ifwe are to escape the cul de sac. Consequently, we
abandon the frustrating object and return to blind impulse activity. On the other
hand, surprise merely causes a temporary cessation of the exploratory phase of the
experience and a recourse to intense contemplation and scrutiny.4°
The opposite ofpredictability is not a totalunpredictability (which may lead to frustration
and cause the reader to give up), but a text that, though it disappoints prediction, is still
related to what it precedes and consequently draws the readers) attention even closer to
the text. And it is the unpredictability (of shifts in temporal and thematic focus) that
Douglas' students complained about most; not the fragmentation of the narrative or the
shifts themselves (which are a familiar feature of contemporary literature and their own
experience of late zoth century life), but the inability to fit them into a larger scheme, to
perceive the overall 'plan' that would enable them to distinguish between deliberate and
random incoherence.
2.2.3 Coherence
Even though the inconsistencies and surprises are a vital element of the fictional text,
the reader will "strive, even if unconsciously, to fit everything together in a coherent
pattern'v, and reading is ultimately a search for a consistent interpretation.
Readings can be anywhere on a scale from absolute consistency to extremely interrupted
and defying consistency. Two extremes that Jay David Bolter and others refer to as
transparency and opacity, on one hand looking through the text to the world it
represents; on the other hand looking ar it, an emphasis of the physical and technical
39 ibid. P.55.
40 B.Ritchy "The Formal Structure of the Aesthetic Object" quoted on in Iser, "The Reading
Process, p.6I.
41 Iser, "The Reading Process", P.58.
Chapter 2 - page39