----- Original Message -----
From: "neville attkins" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 02 January 2001 17:29
Subject: finnegans wake. jewish interpretation and Cage its all here
Neville,
| I think that what we might be comming to here is that
| hypertext allows the reader to choose how to manage
| the text, bringing elements together lopping others
| off. In this sense then FW ain't like
That, in my faltering way, was what I was trying to say. I think! Maybe you
led me there.
Design of the hypertext can be quite a strong source of control. I
experimented a while back with a text where there is an imbalance in the
distribution of links... I didn't want everything linked to everything... I
didn't want it
too busy... some pages were much more likely to be reached than others...
and from some it was quite difficult even for me to find my way around in my
own text!
In that way one can give the reader great control, as you say, yet not give
them full control - as a comparison there, I might offer, for example, some
parts of Cardew's _Great Learning_. I had the real pleasure of participating
in performances of that last year so it's on my mind - you could decide how
you would proceed, but there were rules you had to follow and you were
constrained by what others did
that 'cepting
| that I have to do that as I can never manage reading
| very much FW at anyone sitting.
I found that first time round. I set myself a page minimum limit and read
that number of pages each day till I got to the end. Once I had done that,
fairly moronically, as a task, I found I was happy to engage with it
repeatedly. It grew on me as I read it the first time; and by the end I was
really enjoying it - though I claim no expert knowledge of the text. That
first reading was *years ago but my liking for the text has remained
| Are there any hypertext that have the quality of
| reverlation that is the goal here? or is it just
| random and free-play etc etc which personally I find a
| bit drab?
I'll leave others to speak of revelations and numerology.
I'll just say that what's thought to be random usually turns out to be much
less so
L
|