essay



In his seminal essay *S/Z, Roland Barthes wrote that reading must be plural, without order of entrance (15). This prescient idea of multiple entry points into a narrative is borne out in contemporary times by hypertext and digital literature. Interactive and non-linear, the hypertext medium encompasses for writers the possibility of subverting the structures and syntax of patriarchal language. Barthes also extols the practice of re-reading: "It draws the text out of its internal chronology; it contests the claim which would have us believe that the first reading is primary" (16). Through re-reading the text is rendered plural, changeable. This is the essence of hypertext literature, the possibility to approach it from various positions in time and space. Its plurality in form and content allows it to be re-read over and over again in new combinations and in a new synthesis of meaning. When I first read Caitlin Fisher's hypertext* novella These Waves of Girls, I was immediately taken with the non-linear structure, a tool often used by women writers to disrupt the hierarchical paradigm of patriarchal writing and language. Also provoking was the level of interactivity achieved with the reader: the novella incorporates links, flash animation, and sound clips to convey to the reader a non-linear atmosphere of female adolescence. Fisher's work is not rendered in a traditional narrative, but linked through emotion-based keywords and personal references. The reader can journey through the web of experiences at their own pace, in an order they determine. I saw it as a singular example of a lesbian, if not overtly feminist style of choose-your-own adventure. Fisher is part of an ever widening matrix of online literature, poetry and art aimed at subverting the conventions of the printed page, and its metonymic potency that symbolizes the reader-writer relationship, phallogocentric language and structure.

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		m. thom lovegrove

	March 2004

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