{"id":147,"date":"2008-05-08T09:47:26","date_gmt":"2008-05-08T16:47:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog2\/?p=147"},"modified":"2008-05-08T09:47:26","modified_gmt":"2008-05-08T16:47:26","slug":"hypertext-reading-sex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog2\/2008\/05\/hypertext-reading-sex\/","title":{"rendered":"HYPERTEXT: Reading & Sex"},"content":{"rendered":"

I<\/span>’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.<\/p>\n

We are in the center of a discussion regarding the Reader and the
\nOther Reader and their eventual intimacy, thus bringing them together
\njust as has the reading of a novel.  Calvino here notes the differences
\nin reading and the act of sex, and yet in the hypertext format, the
\ndifference is nearly eliminated.  In fact, this passage brings to mind
\nShelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

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

In
\nHypertext, there is a ‘whole’ of narrative that is made up of bits of
\ndata or information that may or may not be necessary to the full
\nunderstanding or enjoyment of the story.  Similar to the familiar
\n‘maybe she liked that but I sure as hell don’t’ with learning of what
\nturns a particular person on sexually. A tweak that doesn’t work may be
\na metaphor that grants insight that only few will find meaningful.  <\/p>\n

As an aside, I love the way Calvino uses language that suits what he is saying, i.e., "rhythmic phases."<\/p>\n

I found this particularly interesting: "But is the climax really the end?"<\/p>\n

What better said description of the first reading of a hypertext
\npiece?  I know I always find myself wondering what I’ve missed, what
\nwrong turns I’ve made (we’re talking about hypertext here!) and if I
\nhave come out of the story with the same sense of satisfaction (or
\ndissatisfaction) had I taken an alternate route.  Am I judging what
\nI’ve held as the meaning of the story with knowledge of all data
\nnecessary to come up with an honestly based conclusion?<\/p>\n

The neat part of hypertext then, is that like sex, you want to go back and do it again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I<\/span>’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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hypertext"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}