As we are going to study a hypertext
fiction, Damascene, a
tale
for computers and compasses, it seems a good idea to take a
brief look
to hypertext history, so that we can fully understand the deep changes they
introduced in our reading uses. For the last ten years, as the Internet
access
spread throughout the world, the number of hypertext fictions increased as
well, as more and more authors chose a virtual environment to provide their
texts of features which were very difficult to emulate in traditional
fiction.
There had been attempts, such
as Rayuela,
a novel by Julio Cortázar.
In his
book, Cortázar, playing by postmodernist rules,
turned upside down some of the characteristics of traditional fiction
(arbitrary meaning, chapter 68; grammatical correctness, chapter 69; or
readers’ responsibility, among others). But is this last issue the one that
matters us most. For Cortázar, the reader
should be
committed to his reading to the point of choosing even the order in which he
wanted the text to be read. For this reason, he introduced almost a hundred
extra chapters. They are part of the novel, but the reader may read them
in the
order Cortázar recommended, all together at
the end
of the main text, do not read them at all, or even read them in
whichever way
he wants to.
The implied breaking of
traditional
rules comes by the fact that in a traditional novel chapter is linked
only to
two other chapters, the one before it, and the one that follows it. In Rayuela, it is
not so. Each of the main chapters (those in the ‘Del lado de acŕ’ and ‘Del lado
de allŕ’ groups) is potentially linked to each of the
additional chapters (‘De otros lados’).
So this is the power of the
current
hypertexts, to organise the text in a way in which the reader will be
able to
choose his own path throughout the story.
In the specific case of the text
that occupies us, Damascene, a
tale for
computers and compasses, we find a similar text. We are offered
different
ways to read it and choose the one we like the most. In the present
paper, the
reader will find an analysis of this tale written in 1998 by Milorad Pavic, and translated into English language by Sheila
Sofrenovic. This analysis will comprehend formal
aspects of the text, such as writing style, main topics, plot and
characters,
and together with them there is a brief analysis of external and
internal time
on Damascene.
But the key point of the
work, the
one that will have more attention, is the analysis of space. In the
analysis of
external space we will pay special attention to chapter arrangement, web
hosting, availability online and the possibility or not of reading the
text in
a physical medium, such as paper. For the inner space analysis, we will
take a
look on two main issues: on the one hand we there are the references to
where
the story is placed; on the other hand we have some special places where the
story happens, places that function as catalysts of the action (namely the
churches and the palace).
Academic
year 2008/2009
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Gil Fernández, Manuel
magilfer@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de Valčncia Press