Caution: You are now entering a new world.

Upon first browsing through the E-literature I felt a strong sense of confusion. What is the purpose of all the extra graphics and the surprising links? Are they there for nothing more than creating Chaos? Once the tornado in my mind settled, I decided to take a closer look at Shelley Jackson’s  “My Body a Wunderkammer.” I was first presented with a graphic, a short passage about the “novel,” if it can even be called that, and a “Begin” button. Clearly, this was the beginning of the story. A story in which Jackson describes her body, the story behind her scars (not just the physical ones,) and her deep emotions towards the human formation.

The beginning was clear, but after that I had no idea where in the story I was. There were several links on each page that would take me somewhere else, but where I was going I could not be sure. Where was the middle, what was the end? Was there even a definite end? Everything about the literature was so ambiguous that it drew my attention away from the words and focused it on everything but. A book is solid, you know when you’re nearing the end and excitement forms in the pit of your stomach. Online literature is like a ghost, how can we know it exists if we can’t see it’s form?  Katherine Hayles claims that,

“The MINDBODY is engaged, not merely mind or body alone…material metaphors, for they control, direct, and amplify this traffic force between the physical actions the work calls for and structures and the imaginative world.” (pg 48)

Hence, she feels that readers are more connected to the story when they are given the chance to interact with it on the screen. Instead of simply reading the story, they are choosing it and playing with it. Readers can better place them selves in the story when not only their mind but their body is involved. I completely disagree with Hayles point of view. I believe that we are less involved in the story when we must deal with the agitation of links and graphics and noise. Like Jackson’s text, many of the E-texts have sound which I found very distracting and almost scary at some points. I expect to read a novel and not be scared half way through a page with various noises attacking me.

“My Body,” by Jackson begins with what looks like a table of contents but then sends readers into a dizzying array of words and pictures. I began by clicking on hands, from hands I went to nose, then to hair, then back to hands. There was no clear order, I was more focused on trying to make sense of the organization than on the actual text itself. The links to go on to the next body part were located in random places within the text. Two sentences through learning about her hands was the link for nose. In cases like this the reader chooses to either keep reading about hands or go on to the next mysterious body part. The confusing set up seems to be symbolic of her view point towards the human body. While some people may enjoy this chaos, I like organization. I want to read with no distraction, why should I have to chose where to go next. It is the authors job to lead, not the readers.

As much as I have disagreed with the opinions of Sven Birkerts in the past, in this case I believe that we have very similar ideas. He also believes that

“Words read from a screen or written onto a scree- words with appear and disappear, even if they can be retrieved- have a different status and affect us differently from words held immobile on the accessible space of a page.” (pg 154)

Words on a screen and words on a page are completely different. While many might argue that words are words and will have the same meaning no matter where they are located, I beg to differ. Words get lost on a screen, in the case of Jackson’s “My body,” it’s impossible to go back to the “page” before. While it may seem like the reader has complete control of the text, maybe it can be argued that they have less control. If the reader can only move forward, do the words before even exist anymore?

I would further like to explore how the use of graphics within hypertext change the overall reading experience.

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