english 651: writing hypertext
elizabeth
cooper's journal for english 651
I have started reading Michael Joyce's Afternoon, a story a number of times, and each time it has been a different experience for me in terms of my process and the "reading" I've been able to contruct. I've read more and more each time I've tried, but I'm not sure "how far" I've gotten in the novel or if I will ever know whether or not I have finished. One useful discovery I made on this last readings was that I had not been paying much attention to the titles of the lexias or the names of the paths between them, but I've decided that it was a poor strategy in reading hyperfiction not to read the titles in association with the lexias. Duh! I'm also still such a conventional reader that I would be happy to hit the return key and default my way through the text, but at some point, Joyce won't let you do that any more and you have to choose. That's why it's good to know the names of the lexias you've already visited; otherwise you can get in some of the same loops that don't seem to give significantly different readings the next time through.
For those of you who might like to see what others say about Afternoon, I've collected a few sites below.
From a College Prep Course from the website at Georgetown University, a unit on reading hypertext and using Storyspace suggests activities to use with students in getting them to think about their reading of Afternoon. <http://georgetown.edu/bassr/511/projects/ceruzzi/final/story1.htm>
An interesting hypertext article by Christopher Keep, Tim McLaughlin, et al, that offers "Afternoon: Another Reading." <http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/elab/hfl0180.html>
An interesting critique of Afternoon, a story by a student at Caltech who wanted to do something interesting instead of a paper. <http://www.blarg.com/~krevis/past/lit180/>