I was excited about this reading because last semester I became quite fascinated with the idea of Hypertext and Interactive narratives. This came about through a tantalising mix of my obsession with George R.R. Martin’s ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ books (AND the tv show but I read the books first like all smug intellectuals) and this chapter I read in Yellowless’ 1999 book ‘The end of books or books without end?: reading interactive narratives’. I was sick of peeps proclaiming the Game of Thrones books as over rated sex and slaughter. Though George R.R. Martin is amongst the cruelest authors in the world save for the creators of the hit Channel 10 tv show Offspring in terms of killing off dearly loved characters…..

…. he is an amazing writer and his narratives are ridiculously well crafted.

I started thinking about how G-Mart’s books could fall into the realm of hypertext narratives and here is what I came up with:

In this genre, authors understand that ‘the text of the novel lays down certain limits, but within these limits are gaps which the reader feels impelled to fill and interpret’ (Yellowlees 1999, p. 27) the process of reading being what Sartre called ‘directed creation’ (p. 30). As a result, texts produced are littered with ambiguous statements and narrative possibilities, akin to a ‘choose your own adventure’ book a child might read on a long car trip. Our ‘understanding of a particular message will determine the choices made for moving on with the narrative’ as we are drawn in and ‘coaxed’ by the author into colouring moments ‘with the hues of our own memories’ (Yellowlees 1999, p.30)- our own experiences, or reception contexts. In their most extreme incarnation, the ‘Hypertext’, such novels are made up of hundreds of cards which the reader arranges into their own narratives.

A more mainstream version exists as George R.R. Martin’s ‘A Song Of Ice And Fire’ series.

In the novels the writer intentionally laces narratives with ambiguity. This is not used as a narrative device to create suspense for the next book, rather to impel the reader into colouring his words with their own interpretations. The reader is not told what to think, but what to think about- forcibly partaking in a complex process of interpretation since Martin rarely gifts answers or resolutions to readers. This could be seen in Book 3, ‘A Feast for Crows’ as Brienne is being put to death by the Brotherhood Without Banners, a renegade group who believes she was responsible for the deaths of their kin. Her fate seems final, but in the last seconds before she is to be hung she screams “a word” (p. 727). She appears alive in the next book, but Martin never states what she actually said to save her life.

In another example, Martin sometimes pays close attention to focusing the reader upon seemingly trivial and mundane elements of scenes, again forcing the reader to make sense of the information independently. In Book 5, ‘A Dance of Dragons’ Martin pays close attention to describing a Lord serving a pie to guests at a wedding feast with relish. The guests at the feast are responsible for his son’s murder, and fans suspect that the pie is gruesomely made of their own missing sons. It is never apparent whether this is true, however Martin’s focus on this detail spurns such elaborate interpretations.

I’m excited about Hypertext’s ability to empower readers into forming their own unique interpretations of texts, especially interpretations Yellowless described as being ‘coloured’ by our own thoughts and memories. Reading is an intensely speculative and personal experience for anyone and Hypertext takes these two things and makes them better and even more exciting!

Referring closer to the actual reading, how cool is this 80s prediction of pure design fiction brilliance:

Forty years from now, if the human species survives, there will be hundreds of thousands of file servers- machines storing and dishing out materials. And there will be hundreds and thousands of simultaneous users, able to read from billions of stored documents, with trillions of links amongst them…. many readers will choke and fling down the book, only to have the thought gnaw gradually until they see its inevitability

 

Hypertext was the way of the future for the Xanadu crew, and they were pretty spot on with their predictions. I hope Hypertext in fiction is the way of the future too!