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Just as her scars define the identity of the monster, its links are what define the hypertext, they are the visible gaps, they are for Shelley Jackson the scars of the text, moments ofhesitation about which readers stumble, but also bridges across to otherwise separated parts. They are the moments of interaction, in which readers step out of the smooth illusion of the perfect narrative, or the perfect body, and notice its construction and imperfections. But, and here is where the parallel between Patchwork Girl the monster and Patchwork Girl the text stops functioning and the text undermines its own theory, unlike the complete monster's body or the quilt with which Jackson compares the text or the collage, the hypertext can .not be taken in as "a complete whole" from an outside/distance perspective - it is not possible to step out ofthe hypertext, it is only ever accessible from within its parts. Assembling these patched words in an electronic space, I feel half-blind, as if the entire text is within reach, but because of some myopic condition I am only familiar with from dreams, I can see only that part most immediately before me, and have no sense of how that fart relates to the rest. When I open a book I know where I am, which is restful [... But where am I now? I am in a here and a present moment that has no history and no expectations for the futureIthis writing) This point is one ofthe most problematic aspects of hypertext fiction, the inability to step so-to-say outside the text and get a sense of a macrostructure in relation to which readers can place and understand its individual parts and get a more complete sense ofa "body of text". Jackson talks about scars and parallels them with the links of the hypertext. The links, however, do not really achieve this bringing together of different parts. They are, despite their names, more like gaps that keep the distance open. This text is more a heap ofdiscrete patches than a complete patchwork quilt. The second keyword which needs to be examined here is that of the quilt, which is the term Jackson herself uses to describe her text, she also says that she '
have not one creator but many with equal input, and they are made up ofrecycled scraps of already existing material. Both aspects lead us straight to one aspect of literary theory very prominent in Patchwork Girl: that ofIntertextuality. Jackson acknowledges the intertextual qualities ofher work on more than one level right from the beginning. She makes the connection to Mary Shelley and a whole tradition of Frankenstein re-works, but also to Frank L.Baum'sPatchwork Girl in the LandofOz which are evident on the cover page. She lists all her sources scrupulously (in"sources" - literary, philosophical and scientific titles) and especially the quilt part is an intertextual collage/quilt to the extreme as it is made up solely ofsnippets ofotherworks put together into a new context. She uses the available technology with ingenuity, by presenting the text first in a unified typeface and only on the second click indicates and identifies the sources through a change in typeface. What Jackson does by meticulously referencing of all her sources show, however, a limited and very literal understanding of Intertextuality. Understood in a much wider sense (as meant by Kristeva) it is not about identifying one's sources to prevent being accused of plagiarism, not about by identifying the borrowed parts and thereby establishing the rest as one's own work and as genuine and original, and not about confirming authority and copyright, Intertextuality is about undermining these notions, it wants to describe the inevitable saturation of any writing and reading with strata ofother texts and refute ideas oforiginality rather than confirm it. And it is here, in its round-the corner confirmation of authority and originality, where current hypertext experiments, under the striking surface ofnewness and innovation ofthe medium, can in fact be read as deeply conservative. The tension between the newness of the medium and the rather "conservative / old fashioned" values that one can find on closer inspection, the discrepancy between the theoretical claims (of intertextuality, reader-interactivity etc) and their limited implementation in practice, is a very interesting, but also not widely acknowledged aspect ofcurrent hypertext fiction. Chapter 2 - page80
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University of Warwick institutional
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Contents Chapter 1: Introduction 1.
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Chapter 5: Computer-Generated Liter
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Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1: Introd
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though distinctly different from ea
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In the above example of a HyperCard
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This is the background against whic
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chapter 2 and 3 to discuss some oft
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and phrase-order) from the "deep st
Page 38 and 39: But how do readers engage with the
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Page 46: establish new connections - to "fil
Page 51: organisation by personal associatio
Page 59: know how far away the end is. In th
Page 65: The tables are organised on an imag
Page 72: For the textual collage / mosaic, b
Page 78 and 79: of their combination), says Okopenk
Page 81 and 82: narrative construction, and is not
Page 83: encyclopedia format of the printed
Page 89 and 90: This shift, not a "death of the aut
Page 91: uniqueness, they all have in common
Page 95: and entertainment use but as a site
Page 103 and 104: This element of improvisation, ofev
Page 110 and 111: which visual seemingly three-dimens
Page 112: After an initial description of the
Page 122: exploration (in his own categories
Page 126: different opinions when it comes to
Page 129 and 130: meaning at all (to be "texte sur ri
Page 133 and 134: Poemes. At first glance this text s
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developing body ofknowledge.' The f
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and the series; factors which under
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have shadows added. These possibili
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Electronic text processing and dist
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405. 1: Linear Collaboration on the
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In the Business District of Downtow
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5,2,2:QuestiQn fQr literary studi,.
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why the initial reading material ca
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Joseph Stalin robbed Mother Theresa
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MacProse Output Wouldn't some suspi
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imitation, but even more importantl
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as well as my examinations, tries t
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from the medium it was conceived in
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for textual information? Already a
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Mallarme's Un Coup de Dis, Apollina
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Suter, Beat (ed.) "WWW Hyperfiction
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