Hypercompendia

I’m finding much in Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveler that specifically is geared towards the hypertext medium and so certain of the postings from Spinning’s literary commentary will be duplicated here.

We are in the center of a discussion regarding the Reader and the
Other Reader and their eventual intimacy, thus bringing them together
just as has the reading of a novel.  Calvino here notes the differences
in reading and the act of sex, and yet in the hypertext format, the
difference is nearly eliminated.  In fact, this passage brings to mind
Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl.

Lovers’
reading of each other’s bodies (of that concentrate of mind and body
which lovers use to go to bed together) differs from the reading of
written pages in that it is not linear.  It starts at any point, skips,
repeats itself, goes awkward, insists, ramifies in simultaneous
divergent messages, converges again, has moments of irritation, turns
the page, finds its place, gets lost.  A direction can be recognized in
it, a route to an end, since it tends toward a climax, and with this
end in view it arranges rhythmic phases, metrical scnasions, recurrence
of motives.  But is the climax really the end? Or is the race toward
that end opposed by another drive which works in the opposite
direction, swimming against the moments, recovering time?  (p. 156)

In
Hypertext, there is a ‘whole’ of narrative that is made up of bits of
data or information that may or may not be necessary to the full
understanding or enjoyment of the story.  Similar to the familiar
‘maybe she liked that but I sure as hell don’t’ with learning of what
turns a particular person on sexually. A tweak that doesn’t work may be
a metaphor that grants insight that only few will find meaningful. 

As an aside, I love the way Calvino uses language that suits what he is saying, i.e., "rhythmic phases."

I found this particularly interesting: "But is the climax really the end?"

What better said description of the first reading of a hypertext
piece?  I know I always find myself wondering what I’ve missed, what
wrong turns I’ve made (we’re talking about hypertext here!) and if I
have come out of the story with the same sense of satisfaction (or
dissatisfaction) had I taken an alternate route.  Am I judging what
I’ve held as the meaning of the story with knowledge of all data
necessary to come up with an honestly based conclusion?

The neat part of hypertext then, is that like sex, you want to go back and do it again.