I am no literary theorist, but I found several aspects of this book quite useful as we begin to puzzle out the relationships between print and digital influences on our class discussions. To that end, I will focus almost exclusively on its usefulness to that task. I would be interested in perspectives from folks more attuned to current literary theory. Add your comments by joining a NetForum discussion.
First what is ergotic literature/cybertexts, since Aarseth uses them I think interchangably throughout the book? He admits having trouble explaining the terms to current literary folks. In this category he places texts--both codex, hypertext; print or electronic--that have two characteristics:
In his definition section he claims, probably rightly, that until folks actually try to use the I Ching (codex form) or a MOO (electronic form), they will have a hard time understanding what he's talking about. Is that a cop out? Probably not.
My concern with the "nontrivial effort" portion of his definition is important to our class project. ALL or most complex printed material, including novels, require nontrivial learning to navigate. So if you haven't learned to read manuals, long novels, or brochures, the effort to do so is nontrivial. The book as a form is only nontrivial to those in the last 500 years who have become accustomed to using them. We invest a huge amounts of educational energy teaching young people how to make book reading a trivial effort, and some never succeed.
That said, I don't think Aarseth would disagree with the following: The range of 'ergotic' texts therefore will change radically as our literary practices and learning industry change.
Notice also that he does NOT make electronics part of the definition. The scanned chart linked to this review illustrates why. the overlap between printed and electronic cybertexts is so large that there is more variation within genres than between them:
He does indicate that two corners of his typology (textonomy), developed in Chapter 3 are dominated by electronic and print groups. Read Chapter 3 for more on these.
I have some trouble with the way Aarseth sets up his theoretical approach, but those objections have little to do with the value of his work for our project, so I'll skip them here.
Aarseth thinks other theorists (namely Jensen and Eco) spend too much intellectual capital trying to distinguish human communicative and machine communicative actions (via semiotic analysis, p. 26-29). He doesn't believe that they see how very intimately connected human/computer activities (some types of cyborg activities) can be. He gives some very useful description of systems he thinks illustrate this type of activity on page 28: transglobal MOO discussions, electronic stock trading, and self-replicating viruses. These are useful examples of a quality that electronic communication systems seem to be "making obvious" in our culture. The synchronicity of our new systems seems to have broached some threshold of speed about which we should talk more.
Aarseth generates many models and theoretical structures in this book, and Chapter 3's typology of texts is one worth studying further. It would take some work to define his system, so I'll be brief here and point you to the pages that I find most useful. He begins by defining information as a string of signs. But those signs can be "strings as they appear to the readers and strings as they exist in the text, since they may not be the same" (62). The former are scriptons and the latter are textons. I think of scriptons as all the possible combinations (physical readings?) that users can come up with in a textual system (book or electronic). The texton is the limited set of strings that users can combine to make those scriptons. Even in a page-turning novel meant to be read from cover to cover, there is more than one way to physically experience it. We don't all follow the prescribed path of the author/publisher's intent do we (read the cover stuff, look at the end, skip to racy sections, etc.)? So there are more scriptons than textons.
Anyway he goes on to set up a REALLY INTERESTING set of variables to consider as we are classifying 'texts.' (pp. 62-65).
is a text more or less static or dynamic (the more scriptons possible compared to a set number of textons, the more dynamic it is)?
do adjacent scriptons always stay in the same order or can they be rearranged?
if the passing of time by itself causes scriptons to be added or appear, it's transient.
if the user has to take on a role and perform some act that changes the text, then the text is personal. If the reader just reads, it's impersonal. hmmmm?
if all scriptons are readily available to the reader at all times the text is random access, otherwise it is controlled. Hypertexts are more likely to be controlling than random access!! Books are likely to be random access!!!
there are explicit links, conditional links (you have to do this to have the opportunity to link to that), or no links at all.
beyond interpretations of the text, the user may choose paths, choose
configurations, can rearrange or add textons, (somewhat similar to Perspectives.)
Aarseth then does an analysis of these characteristics on a wildly divergent set of texts and comes to this conclusion:
See the chart he has constructed via this link.
Others might find very useful the chapters on aesthetics of hypertexts, the Intrigue and Discourse in the Adventure Game, and his Problems of Automated Poetics. I'll leave those to others more expert than I to judge.
I did find his discussions of the cyborg author (pp. 129-141) interesting because he debunks the notion that electronic texts, in and of themselves, empower readers or writers. His claim, I think correctly, assumes that those decisions are political, ideological in nature.
He also suggests that if we want viable aesthetic cyborg literature, we need to (not automate but) create "simulated worlds with emergent intrigants, interesting enough to make people want ot spend time and creative energy there." Or "ergotic modes--dialogic forms of improvisation and free play between the cyborgs that today's literate computer users (and their programs) have become" (141).
There are other useful discussions in this short text, but I find these most useful for my work and for the class. Feel free to add your own comments via our class NetForum through this link!
