The Reader's Thread
``You know what this reminds me of,'' says Jill. ``I reminds me of hypertext, or hyperfiction, also sometimes called e-fiction or iFiction. The way this author, Donavan Hall, has distributed his text across this city in our network of underground libraries and the clues that he's left to connect each part of the narrative with another reminds me of those early experiments with interactive fiction that appeared on the web in the latter half of the 90s. I remember there was this group of writers--they were all at Louisiana State University, I think, called themselves the Subterraneans--they wrote highly complex structured works that were intended to be read online.''
``I've seen a few of those kind of stories,'' says Lee. ``Didn't like them very much. I don't like reading fiction on the screen.''
Derrick cuts in with a more pertinent question: ``How does this collection of loose signatures remind you of hypertext?''
Jill points to the table where the signatures are now arranged in neat piles all associated by common subject and common characters. ``From what I can tell so far, it appears that this text can be read in any order. You can enter into it at any point and start wandering around, following one reference to another. Eventually, if we follow all the interconnections internal to the text we will have navigated the entire body of the work. I think hypertext because I'm thinking that reading this novel (or whatever it is) is like wandering in a labyrinth and the labyrinth is one of the central metaphors to describe hypertext.''
``Why not the modern novel?'' you ask. ``James Joyce should probably be credited with the metaphor of the text as labyrinth. Joyce even named himself Daedalus in his own works. He saw himself as the builder/designer of a huge labyrinthian work in which the reader could wander for a life time. I would say that hypertext is just the technological solution for how to navigate such works. The technology didn't create the art; art demanded the technology.''
``I think you are probably right,'' says Jill.
``So you think this Donavan Hall (whoever he is) thinks he's some postmodern Joyce building his own labyrinthian text?'' asks Lee.
``We have plenty of clues to suggest that this is the case,'' says Jill. ``For example, Hall casts the reader as the hero of the story. If the author is Daedalus, then the reader is Theseus.''
``How is the reader the hero of the story?'' you ask. ``The story I want to read is about a guy named Travis Doyle.''
``Yes,'' says Jill. ``That's true, but the linking narrative is written in the second person, as if the reader were the one making the choices.''
``But the reader doesn't make any choices,'' you say. ``The action is all predetermined, laid down in advance; its set down on paper by the author. The device of writing these linking narratives from the perspective of the reader is just a literary trick, a illusion.''
``You do get to decide what order to read the text,'' says Derrick.
Then Lee says, ``If this story is a labyrinth of text, then what we need is a map--some kind of plan of the work that we can look at that would help us which path to take. I bet there is a signature that serves as the map. A textual labyrinth would have a textual map. If we could find or identify the map-text, then we could possibly find our way to the center of this labyrinth, kill the Minotaur, and get back out again.''
``I see where this is going,'' says Derrick. ``The true story is the solution to the labyrinth. Once the reader has found the true story then they will have solved the puzzle.''
``It might not be a puzzle,'' says Jill. ``You recall that the Fortune Teller emphasized the distinction between a labyrinth and a maze. Perhaps the author wants to tell us that his story is not a maze, that there is no single solution. In short, there is no puzzle to be solved. My theory is that what we have here are multiple interlocking stories that can be wandered through in a labyrinthian fashion. We can lay down our Ariadne's thread if we like, but we may not need it.''
``Then what's the point to all this?'' you ask. ``Doesn't this story or collection of stories have a point?''
``Why does it need a point?'' says Jill (probably rhetorically).
Lee answers, ``Wouldn't the point of the story be to find the Minotaur and slay it? Assuming that this collection of labyrinthian texts really does draw on the classical narrative structure that Jill suggests?''
``So what is the Minotaur in this story? How does Theseus, the reader, kill it?'' asks Derrick.
``Maybe there is no Minotaur,'' says Jill. ``Didn't the Fortune Teller say something about a golden flower at the center of the labyrinth?''
``So the Minotaur is a golden flower?'' asks Lee.
``I don't think its a simple as that. We aren't going to `solve' this text by mapping it on to a classical narrative,'' says Jill. ``You can't throw away Ulysses once you realize that Joyce has mapped his tale onto The Odyssey. I suspect that the author of this text anticipated that the reader would not be satisfied with a simple retelling of the story of Theseus and the Minotaur. My point about this text being a labyrinth was not to suggest that the narrative itself is just a retelling of this myth. I don't think that there is any key or solution to this labyrinth. There is no Minotaur, and we certainly can't make the Minotaur into a golden flower. Forcing a one-to-one correspondence between elements of this story and classical myths will not allow us to dispose of the text.''
``What's the point of our being here then?'' asks Lee. ``Isn't it our job to figure out the author's puzzle and solve it.''
``If there is a puzzle,'' says Jill. ``I don't think there's a puzzle to solve.''
``But there is a labyrinth,'' says Derrick. ``That much we can agree upon. And to get through the labyrinth we need to find the map-text.''
Lee says, ``I thought we were trying to find out who arrested the author and where they are keeping him so we could help him get free.''
``It must have been the Novel Police,'' says Jill.
``Yes, but why would the Novel Police arrest this author and confiscate all the published versions of his novel?'' asks Lee. ``I haven't seen anything yet that would upset anyone. This text is sprawling, self-referential, and multiply connected, but that's not unusual; that alone would not attract the attention of the Novel Police.''
There's a momentary silence, as if everyone is thinking.
At last you say, ``My only interest is to get my copy or a copy of the novel I was reading. I'm not particularly interested in finding the author. To tell you the truth I don't really care about the author. I just want to read the story.''
``There you go,'' says Derrick sweeping an expansive hand over the table of stacked signatures. ``It's in there somewhere. Just get reading if you want to read.''
You sigh. ``In principle, I agree with you, but my calculations show that we've collected at least five thousand pages of text at this point. I'm not sure I want to commit to reading five thousand pages of text. I want to read the version of the story I started this morning. There's a lot of books I want to read. Life's short, and I'm not prepared to spend the rest of my life wandering in this particular labyrinth.''
``What's wrong with this labyrinth?'' asks Jill.
``It's not that there's anything wrong with it,'' you say. ``Like I said, there's a lot of books I want to read. This one, or the copy I bought at the bookstore, looked interesting. I am willing to commit to a couple of hundred pages, but more than that is just too much.''
``Maybe Derrick is right,'' says Jill. ``Maybe you should just start reading if that what you want to do. Just read until you've had enough and then stop. That's the real novel.''
``But I want to read the novel that the author wrote,'' you say.
``He wrote all this too,'' says Derrick indicating the boxes of papers on the table.
``It's too much,'' you say.
``My point is that you don't have to read all of it,'' says Jill.
``Okay, let's assume I read a part of it. How do I decide where to start and where to stop?''
``Does it matter?'' asks Derrick.
``It matters to me,'' you say.
``Maybe the author needs some help,'' says Jill.
``What do you mean?'' you ask.
``Maybe we are supposed to lay down our own thread as we read. The resulting path through this collection of text would represent the preferred readerly path through the text. If we arrange the text as we read, then when we reach the end of the story, we will have helped the author come up with his novel.''
``But I had a version that the author prepared for publication. He'd already done this work. The writerly path has been established. Why would the author need our help at this point?''
``He needs our help, because the Novel Police have got him,'' says Derrick. ``And if you are so interested in reading his published version then we'll need to find him.''
``Couldn't we just post his bail, bring him back here and ask him what's up?'' says Lee.
``If we could find him,'' says Derrick.
``Where's the Novel Police HQ?'' asks Lee.
``It's all covert, special operations,'' says Derrick. ``Their HQ is secret. It's not like they cruise around the city in uniforms. The office is run like a detective's bureau.''
``I don't think that's necessary,'' says Jill. ``There's nothing special about the text that the author prepared for publication. We have something better. We have the complete text.''
``You might be right,'' you say. ``When I talked to the author in the caféthis morning, he did say something about finding a better way to tell the story. Maybe this is the better way. If he left good enough directions, then in principle we should be able to find our way through the labyrinth.''
``So we don't need to find Novel Police HQ and post the author's bail?'' asks Lee.
``Whatever scrape the author has got himself into is not my problem,'' you say.
``You're going to read through this pile of text then?'' asks Derrick.
``What the hell,'' you say looking at your wrist watch, an enamel-faced dial with Roman numerals around the rim. You notice that the hands are missing. ``Apparently, I've got the time.''
So you decided to...
- pick up a set of pages from the top of the pile and start reading.