Reading Network Fiction

Ciccoricco, David

ISBN 10: 0817315896 / ISBN 13: 9780817315894

Published by University of Alabama Press, 2007

About this Item

Ships from the UK. Former library book; may include library markings. Used book that is in excellent condition. May show signs of wear or have minor defects. Seller Inventory # 12369192-20

Bibliographic Details

Title: Reading Network Fiction

Publisher: University of Alabama Press

Publication Date: 2007

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Very Good

Edition: 1st Edition.

About this title

Synopsis:

This is an in-depth history and analysis of hyperlinked fiction. The marriage of narrative and the computer dates back to the 1980s, with the hypertext experiments of luminaries such as Judy Malloy and Michael Joyce. What has been variously called ""hypertext fiction,"" ""literary hypertext,"" and ""hyperfiction"" has surely surrendered any claim to newness in the 21st century. David Ciccoricco establishes the category of ""network fiction"" as distinguishable from other forms of hypertext and cybertext: network fictions are narrative texts in digitally networked environments that make use of hypertext technology in order to create emergent and recombinant narratives. Though they both pre-date and post-date the World Wide Web, they share an aesthetic drive that exploits the networking potential of digital composition and foregrounds notions of narrative recurrence and return. Ciccoricco analyzes innovative developments in network fiction from first-generation writers Michael Joyce (""Twilight, A Symphony"", 1997) and Stuart Moulthrop (""Victory Garden"", 1991) through Judd Morrissey's ""The Jew's Daughter"" (2000), an acclaimed example of digital literature on the Web. Each investigation demonstrates not only what the digital environment might mean for narrative theory but also the ability of network fictions to sustain a mode of reading that might be called ""literary."" The movement in the arts away from representation and toward simulation, away from the dynamics of reading and interpretation and toward the dynamics of interaction and play, has indeed led to exaggerated or alarmist claims of the endangerment of the literary arts. At the same time, some have simply doubted that the conceptual and discursive intricacy of print fiction can migrate to new media. Against these claims, ""Reading Network Fiction"" attests to the verbal complexity and conceptual depth of a body of writing created for the surface of the screen.

Review:

The theoretical chapters are among the best and most illuminating treatments of the nature of hypertext or networked fictions. One can hear, at last, the other shoe drop as Ciccoricco describes the evolution of hypertexts from axial (critical, encyclopedic) to arborescent (multiple path narratives) to the interconnected network. Ciccoricco's topography is also notable for his attention to electronic texts originating from outside North America - so it really is a world literature. Networked fictions have arrived, and Ciccoricco's book is the ideal guide through the labyrinth. - Joseph Conte, author of Design & Debris: A Chaotics of Postmodern American Fiction