Blog appeal?

I just finished checking out Mark Amerika’s…websites, I guess.  I can’t say it was an enjoyable experience.  But I’m not sure how we’re supposed to react to it.  In Murray’s article “Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace,” she states: “Immersion can entail a mere flooding of the mind with sensation, the overflow of sensory stimulation” (99).  Well I definitely didn’t experience that with the Amerika sites.  She is referring, though, to the type of VR we have been discussing; one in which you enter another world/environment and have some sort of control of what happens within the VR space.  The Amerika sites were not necessarily intended for that. 

In her article, “Hot Spots, Avatars, and Narrative Fields Forever.  Bunel’s Legacy for New Digital Media and Interactive Database Narrative,” Kinder discusses ”interactivity” and states: “While all narratives are in some sense interactive in that their meanings always grow out of a collaboration between the idiosyncratic subjectives of authors and audiences and the reading conventions of the respective cultures they inhabit and languages they speak, all interactivity is also an illusion because the rules established by the designers of the text necessarily limit the user’s options” (4).  We discussed this in class last week and saw how readers are indeed limited.  Julie brought up the adventure books in which you can choose different endings.  Clearly, though, we can only choose from the endings that the author offers us, and we cannot create out own.  In Amerika’s Grammatron, there was a narrative but it was nearly impossible to follow.  While trying to read one paragraph, there were at least four or five links that you needed to click on to get to the rest, but when you clicked on a link, it presented you with even more links.  I was able to choose which links I wanted to click on, but I didn’t know which ones were essential.  Also, in my choosing different links, it was impossible to know what I had alreay read or where I had left off.  It was infuriating and I felt like I lost completel control of it.  I didn’t feel as though I was interacting with it at all.  I felt like it wanted to keep me from interaction.  

In Amerika’s Filmtext I had a similar, but not as bad, experience.  Although I didn’t feel there was a narrative I should follow, I felt extremely disconnected from it.  Even though, on one page, the text asked a series of questions that were addressed to “you” (me), I didn’t really feel involved.  Maybe that’s the point.  I have no idea.

I know experience is learning, but I think almost everything Kinder had to say was lost in the way it was presented.  Unfortunately, I’ve come away from it not really knowing what the point was, or what he was trying to do.  Maybe that’s my fault.  Or maybe it’s an indication that “traditional” books and writing are still the most effective/sucessful way of learning, as Stephenson seems to think. 

I guess I’m still thinking about the question Kim asked at the end of class last night; what is Stephenson saying about “the book?”  Although the Primer was not what we think of as a traditional book, I still think he was using it as representative of books and literature.  I think he is trying to show the importance of teaching literature, even in a future world comletely based on technology. 

I think Beth made an important observation when she pointed out that the Primer was not just a book; meaning it was not limited to just being read.  It could be listened to and watched.  This may show how books and literature have to adapt, as Fitzpatrick discussed in her article.  Books have already been altered in these way; there are books on tape and many books are turned into movies.  What is important, though, is that people still read the book.  Take Harry Potter for example.  Although there are many people who have seen the movies but not read the books, there are MANY more people who have read the books, and probably saw the movies as well. 

I think what is most important is the experience of reading.  Even in “normal” books, we can interatct with them and they spark our imagination, although not to the extent the Primer did.  I liked Kim’s suggestion that the Primer suggests there are untapped potentials for the book.  Maybe in the future books really will be like the Primer. 

If Stevenson is suggesting the importance of literature and reading, though, I’m left with the same question I had in class.  Will reading/literature only truly be beneficial to some of us, like Nell?  Are we all either Elizabeth, Fiona, or Nell?  Is the ability to truly understand literature and apply what it teaches us to real life?  Or is that a lesson we must also learn from becoming immersed in it?  Is it our resonsibility to become intelligent based on what we learn from books, or is it the responsibility of books to teach us how to be intelligent? 

I think Stevenson is definitely trying to say that it is important, if not crucial, to continue using books to teach children, but is he content with the books of today or does he too imagine the Primer as the ideal?  The Primer differed the most from regular books because of the human (Miranda) on the other end.  Human contact/emotion is not something we cannot get from our books but it was this that was also part of what made the Primer so successful with Nell.  So will books have to change in that sense to be successful in the future?  I don’t know…this post has been mostly questions but I guess that just  shows I’m still left with many questions about The Diamond Age.

In class last week I remember Kim telling us that some critics say the first part of The Diamond Age seems like it’s just the set-up for the second part.  After completing the novel, it does definitely feel that way.  I was really excited when I started the second part because I thought it was much easier to follow and more interesting than the first part.  BUT…then the second part seemed to just spin completely out of control.  I got a little lost at times and had to go back and reread.  It just seemed like too much was happening too fast.  For some reason, the ending seemed kind of forced.  Maybe because of the speed at which everything happened…I don’t know.  Even though the ending was untraditional content-wise, I thought it was a little corny. 

I think the ending, though, is what saved the book for me, too.  Since the book was untraditional in its story and in format, the ending still “played be the rules.”  Mostly everything seemed to tie together and be wrapped-up, to a certain extent.  The blurring of reality and non-reality became almost indistinguishable in the end, but that didn’t really to matter that much.  Since everything else fell into place and all the characters tied together, that seemed to be what we, as readers, wanted most. 

I’m left wondering what the Primer was representative of.  In class last week Allison pointed out how an ideal education consisted of the Primer as well as a formal education.  I was hoping that Nell would be able to prove that wrong; that the Primer would some how turn out to teach her everything and that she did not need school.  I don’t know why I hoped that- I guess probably because I didn’t think she would have the opportunity to go to school.  But, alas, she did go.  It seems, though, that most of the stuff she needed to know later in life, she did learn from the Primer.  What, then, is Stephenson implying about the education system?  Does it not offer enough “real life” education that people need in their everday lives?  Does it not offer enough creative freedom or room for the imagination?  Or maybe he’s just advocating for the importance of teaching literature?  Reading even just a “regular” book (meaning, not the Primer) allows kids to exercise their imaginations.  Nell does not physically write in the Primer, but she does come up with ideas and tells the Primer what to do.  Thus, writing and storytelling is an important aspect of education too.  Or maybe this is just a fellow book-nerd’s wishful thinking…. 

In the chapter “Virtual Reality as Dream and as Technology,” Marie-Laure Ryan discusses the expectations of virtual reality (VR) and the differrent types/forms of VR.  The term virtual reality was coined by Jaron Lanier (musician, visual artist, developer) in the 1990s.  Lanier anticipated VR becoming a huge part of people’s lives and being “real rather than virtual” (49).  Although VR has not become this dominant in our lives, it has made much progress.  Ryan goes on to discuss VR from the viewpoints of dreamers, developers, and philosophers.

Dreams of VR, and Some Realities

Ryan claims that the ultimate form of VR was seen in the Holodeck from Star Trek.  The Holodeck is appealing because of how realistic it is.  When entering the Holodeck, it is just like entering another reality, rather than a non-reality.  In the Holodeck, there is an environment complete with ”humanoids” which you can interact with.  When VR did not offer opportunities such as the Holodeck in real life, people were disappointed.  Lanier explains: “I always talked about virtual reality in its ultimate implementation and when that didn’t happen, interest declined.  Because everyone wanted the Holodeck…virtual reality couldn’t fulfill its promises so quickly” (51).  Ryan describes the Holodeck (and VR in general) in eight stages:

1. You enter.  (Active embodiment- this requires the participation of the body.  You are contolling the movements within the VR space with your actual body, even if it is only through data gloves of wired bodysuit.  An example of this is nintendo Wii.  Rather than just sitting in front of the TV and playing regular nintendo with a controller, Wii requires the player to stand up and use their body to physically play the games.)

2. into a picture (Spatiality of the display-this means that the space you enter fully surrounds you.  It has to have a 360-degree panoramic view point and is three-dimensional.  Wii does not fulfill these requirements.  The space the player is in is still confined in the television set.  If the player turns their head away from the TV, they are immediately taken out of the VR space and put back into their real surroundings.) 

3. that represents a complete environment. (Sensory diversity-VR has limited ability to appeal to all senses, especially touch.  One example of this (hopefully!) is in the movie Demolition Man when they do not physically have sex, but, instead, have virtual sex.

http://www.youtube.com/v/BD3ulOglkcI&hl=en

4. Though the world of the picture is the product of a digital code, you cannot see the computer. (Transparency of the medium- This means the erasure of the medium.  Ryan discusses this mostly in terms of the computer.  To relate this to The Diamond Age, Nell becomes absorbed in the story of Princess Nell in the Primer but she cannot become fully immersed because the medium (the Primer/book) does not become invisible.)

5. you can manipulate the objects of the virtual world and interact with its inhabitants just as you would in the real world (dream of a natural language)

6. You become a character in the virtual world (alternative embodiment and role-playing-This is seen most obviously in Nell acting as Princess Nell in the Primer.  When Princess Nell faces dilemmas, Nell has to try out different solutions to solve the problem.)

7. Out of your interaction with the virtual world arises a story (simulation as narrative-This, again, is seen in the story of Princess Nell.  However, Ryan states that VR is “not supposed to re-present what is but to explore what could be” (63).  This is not necessarily true of the Primer.  Even though the story of Princess Nell is a fantasy, it still directly relates to Nell’s life.)

8. Enacting this plot is a relaxing and pleasurable activity (VR as a form of art-By being able to immerse in VR, this gives an outlet for creative self-expression combined with computers.  As discussed earlier, Nell is able to decide the outcome of Princess Nell’s story, to a certain extent.) 

 PRESENCE, IMMERSION, AND INTERACTIVITY

In this section, Ryan describes the importance of presence and immersion in the VR world.  She also insists that the two terms have similar descriptions: ”immersion insists on being inside a mass substance, presense on being in front of a well-delineated entity.  Immersion thus describes the world as a living space and sustaining environment for the embodied subject while presence confronts the perceiving subject with individual objects.  But we could not feel immersed ina world without a sense of the presence of the objects that furnish it, and the objects could not be present to us if they weren’t part of the same space as our bodies” (68).

 THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL DIMENSION OF THE VR EXPERIENCE

Ryan discusses how VR world’s are more real when you have control of what happens in the VR world.  “In the virtual envorinment…the body stands at the center of the world, and the world irradiates from it” (72).  This also gives the experience a sense of continuity.  The VR environment responds to the body and can be controlled by what it receives from the participant.

I really don’t have any idea what I want to write my final paper on.  I guess since the beginning of the semester, I’ve been concerned with on-line writing (I know that’s broad, bear with me).  What concerns me the most is how unreliable on line writing seems.  Now when I say on line writing, I’m not exactly sure what I’m specifically referring to.  I guess when it comes to on line magazines, books, etc., it seems like it is so easy for them to be altered/edited.  If this is the  case, how will we know what the author really wrote?  I guess I’m also conflicted on how I feel about the freedom of publication on line.  With on line writing, anybody and everybody can write something and “publish” it on line.  How, then, do we distinguish the good from the bad?  I know it can easily be argued that we have to do that even with “real” tangible books, but that seems easier.  I think maybe all of this leads back to our original discussion about what will happen to “real” books when they have to compete with on line writing; and that’s a question I don’t know if I want to try to tackle.

Even though we haven’t talked about this too much in class, I’m also interested in the fact that students are using IMing or texting abbreviations/language in their school papers.  It’s as though they do not realize that this is not the correct way to write.  The tech. language becomes “real” for them, while traditional/proper English seems like it’s becoming obsolete.  We see this a little bit in The Diamond Age when they say how letters are used in place of words, like the MC.  As cell phones and computers continue to take over the world, I can only see this problem getting worse.  Will it get to the point where everyone will have to be fluent in text message language because it will become so dominant?  Ok, that’s probably extreme…but who knows.

What surprises me most so far in The Diamond Age is how the charactes turn their bodies into objects of technology.  Bud is the most obvious example of this.  He has a skull gun implanted in his forehead and has ’sites running through his muscles.  He is not naturally working his muscles and exercising his body; he is allowing the sites to make his muscles bigger.  “‘Hut,’ he said.  He said it under his breath, through unmoving lips, but the gun heard it; he felt a slight recoil tapping his head back, and a startling POP sounded from the mannikin, accompanied by a flahs of light on the wall up above its head.  Bud’s headace deepened, but he didn’t care” (6).  Having the skull gun in his forehead makes his body a weapon in itself; he is never unarmed.  It does not require and physical effort, either.  All he has to do is whisper what he wants the gun to do, and it does it.  It acts as another body part that follows his commands and he has complete control over. 

In Marie-Laure Ryan’s article, “The Two (and Thousand) Faces of the Virtual,” she claims there is “a cultural fascination with the hyperreal, a copy more real than the real that destroys the desire for the original” (32).  Although she is discussing the idea of virtual reality, I think this can be applied to Bud, too.  Bud seems to be the hyperreal.  What he has done to his body is so far from reality, but in the text is has become the reality.  Since nobody in the novel questions the transformations characters make to their bodies, they become the real or the norm.  They become “more real than the real.”  Also, they do destroy the desire for the original because the original is no longer good enough.  If Bud has the power to protect himself and to take advantage of other people because of his skull gun, then why wouldn’t everyone want a skull gun?  

Miranda transforms herself because she wants to be a ractive.  So far, she seems to enjoy her new job as  a ractive.  If it is this easy to become when, then, again, what’s stopping everyone from becoming a ractive?  It seems like the farther one becomes from reality, the more real they become. 

People today are already pushing the limits with changing their bodes (piercings, tattooes, etc.)  I may be incorrect here, but wasn’t there a time when they were discussing making  those tracking chips that they put in dogs into children?  Even though that does not seem as extreme as what Bud and the other characters are undergoing, it still seems dangerously close to combining humanity and technology too much.  What should be more powerful; people or technology?  What is more powerful now?  Are we already ruled by technology?

So I haven’t finished Galatea 2.2 yet, but so far I’m interested in Richard’s relationship, and its transformation, with English and writing.  He begins the novel as a writer who has had a few books published.  But as the novel progresses, his passion changes.  On page 76, he says: “Sustaining so much as a paragraph became impossible.  I’d juggle the first verb in my head, overwhelmed by my own weighted backlist, I thought of the four books I’d written between leaving U. and returning.  The round trip seemed too immense.  I no longer had the heart to extend it.  I’d missed my connection.  Stranded at the terminal.  I didn’t want to write anymore.  I was sick of speculation and empathy and revision.  All I wanted was to read word frequency lists to Implementation A.”  My analysis of this may be wrong because I’m not sure I understand one hundred percent what Implementation A is.  But, it seems that the more invested he becomes in the science and technology of Implementation A, the less interested and attached he becomes to writing and literature.  He is willing to devote his year at U. to working on the project, rather than writing his novel.  The work for Implementation A becomes his obsession, deterring him from writing.  He becomes unable to write. 

I think this reflects what we have been discussing this semester and some people’s fear of what is going to happen to the book.  As technology and new forms of communication are emerging, will we lose our ability, as a culture, to write novels?  What does it mean when Howard says he was sick of “speculation and empathy and revision.”  If there is no empathy with Implementation A, then how does one connect to it?  What forms do we empathize with?  Even though Richard claims to be sick of revision, clearly Implementation A needs reivsion and continuous work. 

I’m also wondering about the overabundance of technological/computer language in the book.  Is this intended to purposely alienate the reader?  Or is this aimed at an audience who is fluent in the language?  I find myself getting lost and distracted with the language.  I wonder if this is to illustrate a meshing of literature and science?  Since these are seemingly opposites, it is strange to see them combined into one form.  Maybe this is hopeful; showing that it’s possible for the two to coexist.  Or maybe they are not able to, since some of us are not able to follow the technological aspect of the story one hundred percent. 

I’m still thinking about the question we brought up last night: is it better to have your work possibly misread by the masses, or read correctly by a much smaller audience?  This may seem like too easy an answer, but why can’t you have both?  We used Beloved as an example in class, and we agreed that we were unsatisfied with how the public responded to the book after Oprah stamped it.  Although it’s unfortunate that the masses did not get more from reading Beloved, isn’t the fact that they still read it worth something?  Just because the novel has been “released to the masses” now, does not mean academics are going to stop reading it and it will not stop being taught in schools/colleges. 

Even if people who are not “trained readers” do not get everything the author hoped they would out of a text, they still get something.  Sticking with the Beloved example, maybe some people really didn’t know how horrible slavery really was, and now they do since they read the novel.  Yes, that wasn’t just Morrison’s point, but so what?  There are still those of us who will dig deeper and fully appreciate the work.  But, whose to say that scholars and academics are going to read a work “correctly”?  Even within our class people often have different readings of books and different opinions.  Even after discussing Special Topics in Calamity Physics I don’t think we have all completely figured it out yet.   

Speaking of Pessl, I think she’s kind of brave as an author.  As I said in class, I felt like she wasn’t afraid to incorporate the “classics” into her work.  I think it was her way of saying that she’s not afraid of the cannon, or challenging it, and proving that she can be just as “good.”  She experiments with form and even added visuals.  As I mentioned in my last post, after saying that there were no words to describe Hannah, she simply left blank spaces where the adjective should be.  I enjoyed that and it’s something I wish I could do, especially when writing papers for class   Whether or not we really like the book or not, I think Pessl has to be given some credit for her talent and confidence in her own writing.   

Fitzpatrick’s article seemed like the most rational disucssion of the fate of the book we have read thus far.  Whereas in other articles we’ve read, the authors have been either unrealistically scared that the book is going to vanish, or others simply dismiss the idea completely.  Fitzpatrick, though, truly delves into what is happening to the novel, and what that means for its future.  I thought one of her particularly important observations was on page 26.  She says: “As I’ve already indicated, the novel is hardly the sole literary form whose death has been critically mourned; one might similarly investigate the ‘ends’ of the epic, the long poem, the sonnet, the drama in verse, the tragedy, poetry and the theatre altogether, the belletristic essay, and the literary letter.  Each of these genres is ‘dead,’ and yet each lives on, albeit in altered forms.  The epic has been reborn in the big novel…the popular poem flourishes in song lyrics and the spirit of the theatre in independent film.  Each form is altered by its historical circumstances of production and reception and by the forms that succeed it; this alteration does not equal death but the recombination of old forms into new.”  I had never really considered the “death” of these other forms before.  As she states, though, literary forms do not “die out,” they are simply altered.  I think this could be true for the novel, too.  As we have seen, authors have already been experimenting with the form of the novel.  In Pessel’s Special Topics in Calamity Physics, Blue says she does not know the words to describe Hannah.  Starting on page 98, there are blank spaces where adjectives describing Hanna should be. 

It seems that the only real thing at stake here is the form of the traditional novel.  As Fitzpatrick claims, “there is no reason to suspect that print generally, or the book in particular, or the novel most specifically, will die” (39).  It is now common to see different forms of literature/art combining to create something new.  For expamle, there is found poetry, which pulls words and phrases from other souces and turns them into poetry.  If you are interested, here is a link where you can read some found poems (and many other poems).  http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5780

Pessl pulled from other authors, to a small extent, by naming her chapters after different literary works.  As some people said in their blogs, this was successful most of the the time when they could make the connections.  I think this also worked to prove the importance/significance of literature.  The works she referenced could each be applied to the what was happening in that chapter.  This could suggest that we all turn to literature because it reflects life and what we all experience.  Or, it offers us experiences we may never have in person, so we get them through books.  Is this her way of proving literature’s, specifically the novel’s, important place in society? 

I’m not finished with Special Topics in Calamity Physics so I don’t yet know my overall feelings about it.  I haven’t read anyone else’s responses yet either because I didn’t want to read any “spoilers.”  So I hope I’m not repeating anything that someone already discussed.  Although I like the book so far, I’m kind of surprised it was a New York Times Bestseller.  The reason I’m surprised is because I would have thought that all the references, and perhaps even the format, would have turned the public off from it.  I hope this doesn’t come out wrong and I don’t sound like a complete snob, because I definitely don’t mean to. 

Even after six years as an English major, there are books listed in the “Required Reading” that I have not read.  So far, the one’s that I have read which have been the headings of chapters, I have been able to make the connection between the content of that chapter and its title.  As for works I haven’t read, I obviously haven’t been able to draw connections.  I think it’s safe to assume that the general public has not read all of these texts either.  I find myself annoyed when the chapter title is a book I haven’t read.  Do other people feel this way? 

I also find myself somwhat annoyed/distracted with all the references throughout the book.  “Jade was the terrifying beauty (see ‘Tawny Eagle,’ Magnificent Birds of Prey, George, 1993)” (88).  I think at least one of these references appears on every page.  It makes me feel like I’m missing out on something if I don’t check the reference, which I’m definitely not going to do.  I’m surprised, then, that these factors did not prevent it from becoming a New York Times Bestseller.  But maybe I’m overthinking these things and the fact that the book is really interesting and good is what really matters.

Also, I may be wrong in assuming that it’s the public or the New York Times editors who decide which books make the bestseller list.  I honestly have no idea who decides.  I read some reviews on amazon.com and they were mostly positive.  Perhaps the fact that I don’t know all the references and haven’t read all of the ”Required Reading” implies that I shouldn’t be in grad school! (just kidding…I hope).  I guess what this really comes back to is the idea of “high literature” which we discusssed in class.  Does this book qualify as high literature?  Should all books be accessible to the general public?  Should writers assume that people will know all their references?  Or are they geared toward a certain group of people?