User:Thijshijsijsjss/Gossamery/The New Media Reader/Nonlinearity and Literary Theory

• Read on: July 2024
• Read it physically in the studio, or on the bootleg library (TODO), or with my annotations (TODO)

This 1994 essay by Espen J. Aarseth outlines a theory of nonlinear texts and places this in the discourse of contemporary literary theory. I stumbled upon it in The New Media Reader, after reading the preceding chapters 12 and 50. By the merit of its placement in the book, that follows a chronological timeline, the alluring title, and Aarseth's name being connected to ludology, my interest was piqued. It is a dense text. Therefore, this entry will start with an attempt of a (subjective) (digestive) summary, after which more personal reflections are explored.

Follow ups to explore:

• Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature (Espen J. Aarseth) (monoskop link)

Summary of 'Nonlinearity and Literary Theory'

Introduction
A nonlinear text is an object of verbal communication that is not simply one fixed sequence of letters, wors and sentences, but one in which the words or sequence of words maay differ from reading to reading because of the shape, conventions or mechanisms of the text. In particular, this refers to the form of the text, not to any fictional meaning they might hold. For example:  nonlinearity and nonchronologicality are not the same.

I want to bring forward a passage from the next section, as it reflects on this definiction and introduces terms fundamental to this essay. Aarseth notes that his use of the word "text" might clash with some textual theory that regard the text as a semantic network of symbolic relations, loosely attached to the notion of the literary work. He states having no intention to challenge this, but instead wants to shed light on two perspectives on text.  These aspects follow different rules, but are interdependent.
1) Informative: the text as a technical, historical and social object. This brings rise to a fundemental characteristic of a text: in addition to the visible words and spaces (which we might call "script"), a text includes a practise, a structure or ritual of use. We can compare this to the concept of a genre, except that genre is seen prior to the text, contrary to this choreographic practise.
2) Interpretable: the text as is individually received and understood. Here, Aarseth highlights a "flaw" in this definition: it is open to interference from the interpretable level. What if the text insists on its nonlinearity? Or what if it gives instructions and cancels them later on? Or tells you to skip over some instructions, for they might be contaminated by subversive directions? The linear text can flirt with nonlinearity, but the nonlinear text cannot lie and pretend to be linear.

Behind the Lines: What is a Text, Anyway?
We must rethink the concept op textuality to allow for both linear and non-linear texts. "The text" brings about a set of metaphysics, the 3 main ones being:
1) Reading: a text is what you read, the words and phrases you see and the meanings they produce in your head
2) Writing: a text is a message, imbued with the values and intentoins of a specific writer / genre / culture
3) A text is a fixed sequence of constituents that cannot change, although its interpretations might
Aarseth opposes these notions, arguing that nonlinear literature shows us a textuality different from our readings, more fundamental than our messages and, through evolving rituals and technologies or use and distribution, subject to many types of change. The remainder of the section is dedicated to a sequence of questions, examples and ontological edge cases to provoke examination of the question of a text's metaphysics, in an effort to give a concluding definition that allows us to include nonlinear texts.

What elements belong to a text? For example: does our interpretation not start already before the first word of the script, with the author's name? Historically, author's have been aware of this, play with it (perhaps out of necessity), e.g. with pseudonymns. This suggests: the name belongs to the text, the person of the writer does not.

This begs the quesion: in what sense can there exist a script independent of text? Imagine a book from which the middle 10 pages are 'missing'. We are quick to assume the existence of some 'ideal book', deeming it more real than our copy. We do this out of disrespect for he copy, as it seems to misrepresent the 'real' text. Even though we observe a stable version, we prefer the imagined integrity of the metaphysical object. But what if the 'flaws' interfere so deeply with our sense of reception that they 'steal the show'? Aarseth makes an argument here that I do not follow, paradoxically concluding that some texts are metaphysical, some are not. Another option, he states, is to abandon the concept of the transcedental text-behind-the-text altogether.

We are presented another example, one in which acts of a film are, unbeknownst to the audience, shown in an order different from the creators' intentions. Again, we can ask ourself if a new film is created. Aarseth answers: no, because they are both based on the same material potential. In this sense, a text is a limited language in which all the parts are known, but the full potential of their combination is not. There are many scales of change in a text's metamorphosis, some of which we might accept as authentic new works, others not (according to the cultural legitimacy of their method of construction, to new policital symbolism, ...). Textual integrity is a cultural construct. More importantly: so is our notion of what constitutes the text itself. A text contains within it its potential interpretability, too. In fact, a text is not what we may read out of it, nor is it what someone once wrote into it. It is a potential that can be realized only partially and only through its script. Furthermore, texts are like electrons: they can never be experienced directly, only by signs of behavior. They are processes impossible to terminate and reduce. This perspective allows us to include nonlinear texts, that often have no author or reader in the traditional sense.

A Typology of Nonlinear Textuality

The Readerless Text

Hypertext Is Not What You (May) Think

Death and Cybernetics in the Ever-ending Text

"The Lingo of the Cable": Travels in Cybertextuality

The Limits of Fiction

The Rhetoric of Nonlinearity

The corruption of the Critic

Problems of "Textual Anthropology"