Mon, January 19, 2009
Hypothetical Research Dept.—9:48 PM
This probably already exists somewhere but I don't feel like looking it up, and I'm not even entirely sure how I'd go about it if I did. (Someone be a dear.)
I keep thinking about the effects of modern communications technology (Internet, e-mail, cell phones) on narrative forms. For example, in The World According to Garp, there's a rather pivotal scene that simply would not happen in a world where cell phones exist. In this example, Irving could probably rewrite it so the same action happens in a different way, but the point is, when he wrote it, he didn't have to. Double Indemnity had a similar dependence on land line phones, and there's a running gag in Play It Again, Sam that wouldn't work today.
I'm wondering if anyone has written this up. I'm sure there are certain stories that simply cannot work in a world of instant information and communication over any distance. On the other hand, there are stories we can do now that we couldn't before. I've just been thinking about it, especially when I watch old movies. (Intriguingly, last night I watched Wolf, which was right at the cusp, in 1994. Michelle Pfeiffer, playing the rich bitch daughter of Christopher Plummer, had one of those military-grade cell phones, but Jack Nicholson and the other characters had none.)
"Holly" — Thu, 1/22/09 2:06am
Being hard-wired to obey nowadays when someone tells me to do research, I did a quick check on a couple of the major literary analysis article databases. I didn't find anything addressing this question at all. I did, however, find many, many, many scholars writing obnoxious articles about obscure works of online narrative such as "Lexia and Perplexia," which a fellow graduate student was in fact recently extolling although (because?) it is deliberately inaccessible to anyone who hasn't studied literary theory. I asked him in my nicest possible way, as one one does when humoring crazy people, if maybe we – as students of culture – would learn more about said culture if we chose to study works of online narrative such as fan-fiction collections, and he looked at me like I was something slimy and vaguely frightening that he had just crushed under his shoe by accident.
For the record, I can't even make Lexia to Perplexia run on my computer. Or maybe it's running perfectly and I'm just missing the point since my literary theory knowledge is shamefully limited to only a couple graduate seminars' worth. Go to: http://www.uiowa.edu/~iareview/tirweb/hypermedia/talan_memmott/plex/indo.html and test your grasp of theory!
Bee Boy — Thu, 1/22/09 2:22am
I don't know which sounds more preposterously and pompously made-up and silly, so I'm choosing to laugh at all of:
-"Lexia to Perplexia"
-"Hypermediation | Ideoscope"
-"Double-Funnels" and something called "Metastrophe"
-"Talan Memmott"
I used to have to sit straight-faced in meetings with people who uploaded "important" and "enlightening" stuff like this (and, O!, the ironic punctuation – "Sign.mud.Fraud" etc.). Just looking at this caused me flashbacks. I'm surprised it's possible to have a conversation with someone who thinks this is the cutting edge of narrative but fan fiction is somehow ridiculous and distasteful. It seems like you'd be distracted by the sound of all that cognitive dissonance thrashing around in his head.