So, Michael Joyce’s “Afternoon”. After struggling futilely with one of the lab computers for a while, I decided that I would just take a look at the excerpt. I guess my first thought was “What is this, it makes absolutely no sense.”, my second was “Oh! I totally get this, what a cool idea!” and my third was “Nope, definitely makes no sense.” Since then I’ve been exploring, trying new combinations, and basically just clicking randomly. I’ve also been alternating between ideas number two and three. I guess I’m going to take a moment and try to describe what I think this is, feel free to completely tear it apart, I’m not going to go in a corner and cry or anything. I feel like Joyce’s “Afternoon” is sort of like a creek
(minus fly fisherman of course). It’s like a flowing stream of narrative which branches out and joins back on itself. The stones in the steam are like the hyperlinked words, they break the narrative in two, and carry it off in another direction, but still keep it close by. Regardless it’s really different then I imagined. I thought it would be like a choose your own adventure book, or some story where, when it said “winter”, and then when you clicked it, a poem about Winter came up. It’s a really cool idea, but I feel like some of the transitions aren’t perfect:
“I Liked it when you called me Lover” She said. —–>
“Lolly’s so fucking wholesome it makes me sick.”
I’m not really sure who Lolly is, or even who the “Lover” is. It’s only been a few pages and I’m already hopelessly lost, but I’m also intrigued. I think I’d really like to see some other examples of more accessible literature like this. I feel like this is an art form that will slowly grow, but (especially if printed media is taken over by the kindle and such) one day it will be at least semi-commonplace.