ELC blog response

I have to admit, the idea of electronic literature is not one that I accept easily. Being a classic book-geek, there are a host of reasons, both emotional and logical, that make me highly skeptical regarding the validity of the online medium as an effective conduit for All Things Literary (yes, I capitalized that phrase on purpose.)

I work on the computer; I play on the computer. I don't use the computer, often, as a vehicle for exploring literature. I have to admit that a lot of that is grounded in the physical, tactile, and emotional connections that sitting down with a thick, old, hard copy of a book and a cup of tea give me. While I recognize that this alone should not be enough to turn away from exploring hypertexts, or online literary collections, it *is* a stumbling block, and one that I have to consciously force myself past.

That should help explain the mindset with which I approached exploring the Electronic Literature Collection.

And it might also make my apparent surprise at the rich, complex depth of this site even more interesting.

After exploring the ELC, I had to admit a few things to myself. Among them was the fact that as regards interactivity, the online medium has one up on the print medium. Reading a book is a somewhat passive act, engaging only the mind and the imagination. Many of the texts presented on the ELC, however, engaged not only the imagination, but also presented visual and auditory elements that added an additional layer of complexity and engagement to the reader (or should I say the watcher? Do we need a new term to encompass both the passive act of reading, and the active act of watching or listening, that these texts present?)

If the saying goes that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, I think it's no stretch to suggest that you shouldn't judge an electronic story by its representative graphic. I really had no concept of what I was getting myself into while clicking madly on various diferent bits of medium and was pleasantly surprised at what I ended up with.

I settled down with a piece called "I, You, We" by ...... I suppose I expected to find a poem, a story, some sort of rather traditional form or style hidden behind a graphic comprised of overlapping words; the usual, the typical, transferred to a new medium. What I got was something entirely different.

"I, You, We" is akin to magnetic poetry. Perhaps one of the most interactive pieces on the ELC, I enjoyed the constant, shifting sentences, the simple, brief poetry the lines suggested as they intersected one another. I felt more as if I was creating this poem myself, engaged and interested in the process of linking together words with the express purpose of instigating emotion or realization. The process was strangely mesmerizing; when I left the screen alone for a few moments and it began to move on its own, I found myself tracing the path familiar words made as they slid across the screen. This was an experience entirely different from the print experience, and one that would in fact not be possible from my beloved, solid books.

I think my problem revolves around the concept of comparing reading print material to interacting with online materials. They are not the same; I'm not even sure they're similar enough to really compare effectively. These are two different modes of imparting information, and while I think I'll still be more inclined to pick up a book, I'm no longer prepared to write off the online medium as an effective conduit for spreading not only new ideas, but new forms. The literary elitist inside me was confronted with the idea that the boundaries I've set for myself are perhaps not as rigid and smugly righteous as I thought they were-- and that can't be a bad thing.