INTRODUCTION

In order to make easier the lecture of the hypertext “Sister Stories”, and to understand well how to read it and know what is it, I introduce the concept of “hypertext” and I talk a little of the story that I have chosen.

What is a hypertext?

This concept of hypertext is not a system but a generic term, coined a quarter of a century ago by a computer populist named Ted Nelson to describe the writing done in the nonlinear space, made possible by the computer. We can say that hypertext is a new form of literary art. A hypertext is a text in the computer, a text as made up of “units”; each unit consists of a paragraph, a page, a word…(the size of a unit is variable and arbitrary). In books or articles each unit is connected to at most two other units: the one that precedes and the one that follows it; a straight line runs through the work from beginning to end: the structure is LINEAR. However, in hypertext, each unit (defined as the computer screen’s contents, including what can be viewed by scrolling) may be connected to many other texts, in such a way that the reader may see any one of many possible successors, either by choosing one, (say by using a mouse to click on a word on the screen), or by having the author make the choice by creating “paths” to be followed which depend on previous choices the reader has made. So, the experience of reading such a text is more like consulting a map, or looking at a painting, than reading a book. Readers can move in many directions, follows the many paths the author has prepared. Then, we can say that the structure of a hypertext is NON-LINEAR, (“hyper-”, nonlinear or nonsequencial space).

Sister Stories

This text is a hypertext of Carolyne Guyer, created with Rosemary Joyce and Michael Joyce. This text is a story of sisters and their brother, but not only that, it’s a story of the Aztec culture. In this hypertext you can learn a lot of a culture of cents of years in the past; there is great information of the Aztecs.

This is a work that weaves Aztec creation stories with postmodern musing and fiction. It is an attempt to explore the human experience of "outsiderness," and in that regard, the displacement of feminine story. As hypertext, it also portrays human narrative as both epochal and ageless.

In “Sister Stories” it is noted that in most cultural traditions women have functioned as the link to other groups, that they are sent out in marriage away from their own family to provide new blood in reproduction. As such, they are always outsiders, whether they are sent away or brought in from elsewhere. Women function as the betweenus.

The tools that the author has utilized to do this hypertext have been principally the huge amount of links in all the pages that compound “Sister Stories”. Reading this story is a bit complicated because sometimes you can felt lost, that is because there are a lot of links that you click by the mouse and they send you to other page with more and more links and pages. At first you can think that it is complicated, but this is the part special that has a hypertext: YOU create YOUR story, you choose the order of the story and you decide what read and what not. Moreover, the language used in this story is near to the poetry, because the author used words very musical when a character spoke. But it is also a worship language, because there are a lot of historic words and the descriptions are very complete. The new words of the names Aztecs and places that you have never heard make you feel like reading other language, but, that invites you to learn more about this culture in order to understand better the hypertext.

The story is situated in a Aztec town in Texcoco, Mexico, but in “Sister Stories” appear other several places, like: Aztlan, Chapultepec, Coatepec, Tenochtitlan... All of them taught you that this culture has existed in several towns and important cities. The rare Aztec names of places that you read, if you find out about them, you can discover that they are real places that you can know and visit.

So, to sum up, “Sister Stories” is a great hypertext that not pretends to amusing you, it is a story of Aztec story, and you can learn lots of things clicking and clicking in all the links that you found in it. Let’s go! Read it!

elmalo@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press

Creada: 05/12/2008 Última Actualización: 09/12/2008