Books without Pages – Novels without Endings

“What if you had a book that changed every time you read it?”   Michael Joyce

Although the idea of hypertext seems complex and it involves lots of twists, turns and different settings, it is quite simple. In this weeks reading, Douglas discusses, explains and gives the readers examples of what hypertext is and the questions that surround it.

– When do you decide that you are at the end?

– Does the reader become the author?

– Once you’re finished, what happens if you pick up the book again and are in a different mood? Won’t that change the ending you have created?

The idea that the ending of the book could change depending on the readers mood, is very interesting. One aspect of reading books that I love is the sharing that comes after. Hearing everyones thoughts and ideas about the story, their questions, their interpretations of the characters and meaning is wonderful. It brings people together. But is this possible if everyones stories takes multiple directions and has a different ending?

The reading also offers the idea that we are becoming more and more dependent on the internet, and hypertext is the type of technology that we are leaning towards. Print literacy and network literacy are both still in use, but it seems that choosing our own paths in stories is what we want, and hypertext can give us that.