Kind of Seductive

I've just delved into Scott Rettberg's Kind of Blue, and so far I'm impressed. It's the first hypertext we've looked at in which I really feel like the form is elevating the content. Kind of Blue could not function nearly as well in book form. It's the kind of story that needs to be a hypertext, and, as such, it doesn't feel forced--like the author is shaping the story to fit the form or vice-versa.

The device of emails from many senders allows the author to naturally assume many voices, and makes for the kind of story that I at least was seduced into trying to figure out. It's a simple concept: going through someone else's inbox and one common enough that it doesn't feel gimmicky. The multiple perspectives also give Rettberg tremendous freedom in his writing. You can tell he's having fun, throwing in cryptic snippets of poetry, lists, and the butchered spelling of children at different stages of keyboard adeptness.

I was really struck by how fun writing hypertexts could be. They allow for so much tangential experimentation. When writing a book or a paper one has to remain focused. Pare away all the words that don't matter to the story or argument. But with hierarchy of information and reader mobility of hypertexts the author can really throw whatever he wants in as a link or seemingly random email and the reader has the choice of whether or not to read it/take it seriously. Authors of traditional texts do this somewhat with footnotes and appendices, but it is much more natural (and less pretentious) in a hypertext. Looked at in this light, a lot of contemporary fiction (Infinite Jest, House of Leaves, etc) seems to already be edging off the page toward the computer screen, or at least setting the table for a vibrant hypertext tradition.