Hayles Frustrating Reading
As we get deeper into the Hayles’ book, I find myself longing for the convoluted wording of Birkens’ deep musings and reflections; for, though I often found the tone of his writing lofty and pretentious, at least I could understand the vocabulary and meaning of his writing. With Hayles, however, I find myself deeply confused by all the strange new vocabulary she keeps throwing in, as well as the technological aspect that her writing is exploring.
I am having difficulty making it through this book. To me, Hayles reads more like a science textbook, and closely reminds me of my basic computing textbook. It does not even feel like I am reading an essay, but rather a lab report. When Hayles uses phrases such as “I propose material metaphor, a term that foregrounds the traffic between words and physical artifacts” (22) her scientific background is clear, but in a negative way.
I am especially irritated by the vocabulary she employs. I am computer illiterate to begin with, so when she uses terms such as “multiple reading paths,” “chunked text,” and “linking mechanism” (26) I am completely lost. Hayles buries her writing in so much technical jargon that I have no idea what the meaning is; furthermore, the format in which she places her book, with bolded words and passages under a microscope, annoys me, as it also detracts from the already obscured meaning.
Additionally, I simply do not understand how this digital literature is supposed to work. Kaye tells of trying to ready one, and how there was “at least twenty different pathways on every screen and which, with two or three clicks, could be used to access any of the work’s 800 screens” (41) To me, that is not literature; that is a webpage, and can never be categorized with books, simply because you read it differently. Such an organization takes away from the tenets of the foundation of literature, such as plot. How can anything unfold with so many different screens and options? What really got me was when she said “By focusing on the words alone, she had missed the point” (41) The words are the essence of literature. An audience does not need flashy pictures and cheap visuals to grasp the deeper meaner presented simply by words. The most powerful speeches and ideas in human history have been communicated by the written word for generations, and none of their meaning has ever been lost.
I found some her claims a little pretentious and a bit too authoritative, as well, such as when she declares “how significantly literature might change if the literary body was not a book, but a computer” (38) Who is she to tell the fate of generations of literature? I agree with one of her peers on this point, who made clear his wariness towards this shift towards digital print be saying “he feared that voice was being overwhelmed by the very developments that seemed so exciting to Kaye” (44). Indeed, I also fear the consequences of this electronic revolution, and think that the voice of literature on a computer screen would seem like the cold, monotonous one of a robot.
