. Spinning .

Involvement to the point of foreseeing.  To the point of the joy of comprehension.  That see, I told ya! moment that is the rare delight.

A few hours ago I posted on the way that hypertext allows the future to be remembered.  Now you’re going to have to trust me on this one (though I have the history box to prove my path if not the time I traveled through this particular cube of space) but I just read this:

(Ben on the past)

"But I feel that for you remembering is not just about the past, the things left behind, the things lost. Remembering is the future. Think about it. You have empty ground in front of you."

So then the story is the hypertext form, the hypertext form the story. It all ties in so nicely.  With a string.

Beyond story and beyond the provocation of ideas, there is the thought of the author’s choice of the medium of hypertext to present this novel.  I can say that it suits the story theme perfectly, as there are layers and backstory and a randomness of psychological realism that builds the character of Ham Sandoval wonderfully well.  But is hypertext the best way to go?

I’ve come to a point in the story where there are many directions (intersects) via links and while I’m sure I’ve followed my own tendencies to investigate and return (and this habit is really the choice that hypertext offers, rather than making a decision on going a particular way into a story, since that cannot be known until the link is indeed used and the connection is made), there are times when I believe I’ve circled the wagons around an idea and then end off in a new direction.

I’m curious as to how this would set up in a text book format.  There is backstory of course, flashbacks, character thoughts, use of dialogue to reveal or to foresee and build tension.  But with the first person pov that is used in this story it is all dependent upon Ham’s experience to bring us reliably into his head. 

There are many places–and I’m hitting them more and more as I move inward–that I recognize as being from Ham’s childhood. Often these come up seemingly out of the blue although they are cleverly tied to the state of mind of Ham or event that he is experiencing in the prior thread. It’s a nice way of reinforcement and insight, and it’s a very natural manner of thinking when you consider the way a mind works.  It’s that oh, yeah, that reminds me type of normal progression of thought.

There are also a load of text spaces that are Ham’s thoughts on very scientifically based theories of how the world works.  I don’t pretend to understand them but know that reading each carefully may bring me that much further into Ham’s head, with a bonus of having learned a bit more of what may be worth learning. 

I can see how hypertext works, where it works well, and where it may be one of the only methods to bring a story to its fullest and most complete telling.  As a wannabe writer, I’m fascinated by its opportunities as much as I am terrified of its power.

Once again I ran instead of walking through this field of story.  Even as I follow a linear path, the sideroads lure me outward and away.  Two things have me convinced that even with my rather timid profile and a deeply set-in sensitivity to getting lost, I am often out of control and still can romp merrily ahead.  First, the backspace key.  Second, the author’s mapping of the narrative structure that was painfully considered and constructed to bring the reader around and loop if necessary to a plausible flow of story line.  And third, a history tool that may not be available in the final version, but for now can show me every step I’ve taken thus allowing me to retrace my steps or go back to the point at which I veered to follow this illusion or that one.

At one point, I’d hit the wrong button and cleared the history.  Ack!  Then I remembered a trick this same author had taught me about dealing in the game format when I could not escape the inevitable during a certain sequence in the gameplay:  Exit the program and do NOT save. All the bad things you’ve done will be forgotten.

So now my winding trail of history has been recovered and in going down the list I am in awe that hypertext reveals not just a page 1 –> page 2–> page 3–> etcetera reading but rather an almost "memory tank" of names and places specific to a story point that I can easily relate and recall.

Neat. Now I’ll go back and see what sent me crashing like a waterfall down the edge of cliffs and write up a proper post about it.

There’s some beautiful writing here and I’m been waiting for a particularly dramatic section that didn’t reveal too much of plot.

(Ham on movement)

I made my move without regret.  I drifted the outskirts and made my way to the side of the house where I had followed the girl the night before and went around back. I expected a dog, something wet-mouthed and starved crazy for living flesh to flash out and grab me in the guts with hot teeth.  I thought my heart might stop at the thought and I breathed through my mouth.

No extra words, no fancy words, but the drama is exhibited by language that gets right into the middle of the scene and sets it with minute details: "wet-mouthed and starved crazy" makes me see, feel, hear, and fear this dog though the dog does not even exist except as Ham’s imagined expectation.

At this point in the story I’m hitting links I’ve followed before, because of my method of reading crablike, checking out links and following them out before backtracking and taking the main trail I’ve chosen.  Some links produce new data, but even the ones that I’ve seen before serve as reinforcement, may mean something in retrospect that they hadn’t before.  It’s like flipping back to a page you recall with a question brought up by the page that you’re on.

Noticing that my response to this novel has been very positive, I feel it necessary to make clear that the author, Steve Ersinghaus, is one whom I consider a friend, and this reading and commentary is on a download that is not considered the final edited product. 

Having made that admittance, I will also admit that I spent a bit of time reorienting myself to the hypertext environment (which I’ve never been fond of for reading purposes–though I am intrigued and convinced of its possibilities for creative presentation) and scanned bits of the story.  Had I hated it, I would never have offered to read nor to make public my thoughts.  Steve would’ve gotten a polite and supportive "yay-rah-rah-check-it-out" post and that would have been it.

Obviously, I didn’t and instead I am writing an honest running commentary just as I do with any of the other books I’ve been reading.  I’m enjoying it immensely and though it could fall flat for me yet, I doubt that it will and strongly recommend this to anyone who enjoys a good story, a thought-provoking multi-layered narrative and the involvement of a hypertext read.

Ersinghaus has given us Ham’s opinion of what is both metaphor and theme of his story:

(Ham on relations)

How do I know that the pool is bottomless and why would I choose a pool of water other than for the fact that water follows me or signifies emptiness and confusion but also peace.  I can weave my life on storybeads by following water as a mental metaphor because roads are like water and roads and water are my common themes.

Which makes me immediately discount it and seek different meaning, Roland at my elbow hissing me on.

The roads are important; from the very moment that Ham Sandoval is let off on the side of the road and on his own, his journey starts with the carving out of his own path (why didn’t he follow the safety and sureness of the road? Why did he hyperlink to the left down into the woods instead?)

Ah, the woods.  With the undeniable knowledge that this novel is written in hypertext, the reader cannot help but be aware of that likeness of journey and choice that the medium offers.  The woods are a new place, sheltering yet confusing (much as Ham’s mother).  I see the woods as one of the transition points in his life, and as he leaves them, spit out of their darkness just as he was made to leave his mother’s car (world), into the world of a new Ham and life with the Butlers.

The pattern of trees is subtle throughout.  They make up the forest.  In New York City they are a protective band of trees and Ham once again needs to leave.

Trees branch out, which limb shall he climb? There is an image that Ersinghaus provides within the text of an old barren tree against a blue sky.  With roots in the earth that likewise grasp onto the memory of earth:

But what are the memory trees?  They aren’t the physical specimens. They are tree ghosts.

Trees are history and history is a problem. There is the intermingling question of time and what is real in what blip of space.  That fourth dimension of time is what changes the content of the cube.  In a symbiotic relationship of story and hypertext, space may be considered then a container of time, much as a Storyspace textbox holds within it a reality that has become a memory.  When first read, it may be original or real; the next time, a memory. 

Or does it become memory when written?  And whose? As narrator, it originates from Ham.  But then when I stumbled upon a path that was not in line with the characters and setting it was a place that now, having read further, I now recognize the relationship and yet see it still in the future of this place where Ham is now.  Future, and yet familiar to me now; a memory not yet experienced.  And later, a path of past is offered, placing Ham back in the car with his mother and I have a choice: end the story, keep him safe. But I don’t.

I’ve been taken up by story, medium, and intricacy of ideas, but I’ve always reviewed books from a writing perspective, and not really as reviews, but as ahah! notes or sometimes, a notable disappointment in plot or style.

Ersinghaus’ writing is so well tuned, perhaps by his background as a Professor of English and knowledge of writing, but I think that’s just the controlling factor.  The voice usually reveals the natural talent and in this novel, it goes from lofty to lovely, but all earthy and real:

(Ham on ones)

Yes, if the universe were uniform, centerless, and symmetrical, then, yes, indeed, we’d all be blind or eyeless, but the expectation of uniformity or the redefinition of uniformity is the key to our survival, the key to distinguishing love from hate, life from death, and other discontinuities, other idioms of boundary. Not all the light of stars travels earthward from a uniform distance; neither is the earth infinitely fleshed and boned.

This is a sample of the random yet orderly thoughts of the main character and it would seem that the author has likely found a channeler in Ham. There indeed is always a part of author in his/her characters, and what freedom to allow these more philosophically scientific ideas to be put out there without interruption!  But the choice of words is what makes up a voice, the poet found in the imagery, the musical tone of a sentence well-wrought:

"You see love, or charms, or magic, or God, or simple beauty: that’s how far you can see into the dark sky at night." The air began to grow sweetsmelling in the heat and I felt salt water crawl down my face like the tips of hot wet fingers. But then, how does one resolve cruelty, and is death statuesque?

"Salt water crawl down my face like the tips of hot wet fingers."  That’s McCarthyesque for sweat.

Hypertext notwithstanding, there are more layers of story here that are open to readers beyond my own level of scientific knowledge, or in fact, beyond my level of experience in any of the areas upon which the novel touches.

That Ham has chosen the scientific field of physics in which to proceed is very telling of his character and as I’ve mentioned previously, may in fact be Ham’s own way of bringing a sense of logic to his own rather illogical world that is not grounded in stats and data.  But his dedication to string theory applies to other areas of his life, and the reader who would be somewhat knowledgeable will have a better, or maybe merely different, understanding of the story.  My own very limited comprehension of string theory and the like will certainly be one of ignorance tempered by imagination to bring up images of bodies merging, distancing and reapproaching, and that’s my own connections made of what I’d call the surface story: that of Ham and his movements through time and space and in particular, his reaching out for family both to his mother and to Pen.

Both of these women, it would seem to me, are from different galaxies.

Strictly following story line, there is plenty of action and drama to hold even the romanticist.

And if there be a sensitive among the scientists, the relationship between reality and the unknown is fine enough to invite the mind seeking possibilities.

(Ham on trees)

Remembering the trees can be said when one recalls trees "seen" or otherwise experienced (after observation, unless one can remember an event that has yet to happen, which may or may not be quantum memory) or in another context, removed from the proximity of the trees, yet one can tell someone else, "Remember those trees?"

But what are the memory trees?  They aren’t the physical specimens. They are tree ghosts.  Incomplete, shapeless, massless. They are nothing. Are they nothing? How do they occupy?

I’ve no idea how far I have invaded into this world the author has created. There is no book to hold open at reading point to tell me that I’ve traveled only quarter-way into it.  There is nothing to let me know how much reading space of pages equal to time the hero has to get his shit together.  To find his father-mother-brother-lover-self.  Or if he will.  Or, for that matter, if he will have any Eureka! moment that will make his life fit back together in a solid whole.

For the first time I’ve come across a link that seems to have brought me into a different story altogether.  As Ham and Pen drive cross country, there is a bridge to Ham’s past relevant to their conversation.  But from there I seem to have entered a time in Ham’s life somewhere in the future with a cast of characters I do not know. 

Thankfully I’ve learned to save, go back, jot down questionable intersections where I feel I want to wander, to know more.

This has always been  one of my main concerns with hypertext, how important is choice when choice is only to go this way or that, not what I want to find out next since that is something the reader does not know.  This must also be a challenge in writing story in this form.  There are pros and cons to every medium; books, it has been proven, cannot be read in the dark.

So with a murmured excuse me, I back out, back out and return to a place that looks familiar.