Daniel's Week 3: Pomo to e-lit

    I find Scott Rettberg's dive into hypertext fiction to be a truly fascinating read. In my eyes, hypertext works function like a choose your own adventure book. You start with a certain chosen point, and are then given options as to how you would like to continue. I think that Rettberg does well to impress the reader with the significance and importance of hypertext fiction in the landscape of digital literature. It is one of the earlier genres of electronic literature, and while Rettberg makes clear that it was not the first, he makes sure to state its overwhelming importance. I also enjoy how he discusses one theory that suggest hypertext fiction was a negative force, "restricting a reader's choices rather than enabling free configuration of the text," (Rettberg 55). Overall, his analysis of hypertext fiction is fascinating, although I still am quite confused on postmodernism as a whole. That was a concept I had trouble working with, as the idea itself and its links to hypertext and electronic literature are simply confusing to my brain at this time. I will need to read this chapter more to fully understand it. 

    I think that "The Garden of Forking Paths" is a wonderful example of postmodern print literature with the same concepts as hypertext fiction. It is a beautiful piece of literature, showing how different choice can lead to a seemingly infinite number of outcomes. In a world before hypertext and the internet, stories such as this were among the cutting edge of literature. I think that this is a fantastic example of the style that hypertext looks to emulate on a computer. I would love to read the entire story some day, as I am fond of choose your own adventure styles. It feels as though the reader has more agency, as if their decisions matter, which is exactly what hypertext fiction is in the modern age.