This week’s reading or better still browsing is so different from any other reading assignment i’ve ever done before. The question whether this writer is a poet or a novelist is not an easy one as this writer’s pieces are hard to classify. At one point I did not even feel that those pieces belonged to what we typically call literature. At some points, especially when she was talking about whistling, vibes and sound transmitting processes, I felt like that was more of a scientific interview rather that a piece of literature. yet at the end of it, I felt like it was more of an integration of all types of literatures in one. It, like anything else in our electronically oriented lives, integrates different parts that often overlaps to create a brand new whole.
The second reading, i.e. And by Islands, gave me a totally new experience. This time the stories got more literate and felt belonging to the literature I sort of recognize. Yet the way the words kept changing somehow caused me a headache. The instance i touched on a pic it navigated; giving me a new story with new different details.
Generally speaking, Electronic Literature is interestingly different !
Sometimes folks will say this literature is frustrating or inaccessible. However, I think that this difficult is partly in us as readers. I don’t mean that we are not smart enough! But, rather, it is like a person trying to pound a nail with a golf club. The task and the tool only roughly align. You can do it, if you need to. but it’s better to find a hammer for the nail (if that’s what you really want to do) or reconsider what you do with the golf club! I think we are handed a golf club. It is a tool. We can swing it, hit things, etc. but we might want to practice not pounding nails! Then we can ask, what else would be interesrting to do with it.