Patchwork Girl is a hypertext, a computer-based combination of text and images. Some more progressive people will say that a hypertext is the new novel, the next step in literary technology. However, can a hypertext be a novel if it does not follow the traditional ideals an actual print novel portrays? A print novel follows a linear style when telling its story; it has an easily followed chronological order. It is also what people are used to, the way reading has been performed for centuries. One usually forgets that they are reading a novel at all; the turning of the pages is basically automatic. With a hypertext, the medium in which it is presented is glaring the reader in face. There is no way to forget that one is reading a hypertext. A hypertext gives the reader a choice in where the story goes. A traditional novel gives the reader no choice except for the choice to read or not read the novel. With a hypertext, the reader has to be especially active, the opposite of passive pleasure reading, though akin to the close reading of novels. Patchwork Girl is not a novel; rather, it is a hypertext which achieves different ideals than a novel.

Patchwork Girl does not follow a linear chronological order. Instead it jumps between the female creature in America to Mary Shelley in London and other parts of the tale. There is a story with a linear line running through it contained within the text of the hypertext. However, it is not easily followed because the links do not follow a linear line themselves. Sven Birkerts, author of The Gutenberg Elegies, describes the need for chronological order in novels as related to history. “History as we all studied it in school depended not just on the idea of chronological sequence, but also on fixed coordinates of space and time,” he says in his epilogue. In a way many novels are to be taken as histories, not of real battles or anything, but of the history of the main character. That involves a chronological sequence, even a need for it one could say. Even with the use of flashbacks or flash forwards, there is still a followable sequence. Even the most flexible books, the Choose Your Own Adventure books, have continuous chronological sequences. The path the reader takes follows a definite timeline whereas the path the reader takes in this hypertext could take them from London to America in a single click. Patchwork Girl has definite coordinates in space and time, but it doesn’t follow a chronological sequence. There are important events that happen at each location or each point in space as well as at certain times. Those events will not change even when the chronological order changes.

Birkerts goes on to define the word duration as, “deep time, time experienced without the awareness of time passing.”  If someone gets into a book, time has no meaning anymore. There is no need for an outside idea of time, only the time frame within the novel matters. With Patchwork Girl, the clock of the computer is right there staring the reader in the face. That makes it hard to forget that any time is passing at all, since the reader cannot ignore the clock. It also is hard to get into, hard to get lost in, because there is no real story to get lost in. The reader can get lost, but gets lost trying to follow the links and find a linear story line. The linear line is there, but the reader has to search for it in order to follow the time sequence. Patchwork Girl works through general underlying themes set apart rather than blending them in with the linear storyline. The way a novel works is the reader is supposed to be able to lose themselves in the story, not in text patched together or links which many people do not understand how to use.

There is an unfamiliarity to the hypertext compared to the traditional novel. A novel is tailored to get an emotional response from the reader; the characters are meant to be relatable. With Jackson’s hypertext, a reader maybe able to relate to the characters housed within the interface. However, the reader may find it hard to generate any sort of response besides confusion to the events that occur to the characters. The reader cannot respond to the situation because it is hard to tell what the situation even is when it comes to the hypertext. The form itself of a hypertext lends itself to unfamiliarity as well. It is stark black text against a glowing screen which if looked at for too long hurts the eyes. The print of a novel is softer, easier to handle. It is also familiar to people which makes it more personal to the people who read it. This unfamiliarity adds to the fact that people cannot lose themselves in the hypertext. People will only lose themselves when they feel safe enough to do so and the familiarity of the print novel promotes this.

The hypertext is promoting process over the product. The interface of the hypertext is unfamiliar and glares at the reader. The reader must know the technology in order to use a hypertext, but with a book all the reader has to be able to do is read and turn a page. The electronic glow/lack of tangible page turning makes it obvious to the reader that they are dealing with something new. It makes it harder to get into the story, which in turn is made even harder because the ’story’ is more subjective/theme orientated. The traditional novel focuses on the text and story held within the text. The hypertext promotes the medium in which the text is written in over the actual text itself. Because of this promotion of the medium, the text falls by the wayside; it is just an addition to help promote the themes rather than the focus where the themes come from. Even though many people can use the advanced technology of today, Patchwork Girl has become outdated, only adding to the unfamiliarity. The reader must spend time figuring out how to get to the text before he or she can even think about losing time in a storyworld. Once he or she gets to the text, it is separated which means there is nothing to get lost in, just themes which one agrees or disagrees with but does not get lost in.

Novels used to be the status symbol among people. The more novels the person had, the more influential they were in their society, the richer they were. Technology is becoming the new status symbol among people. And the reasons it is becoming the status symbol are vastly different than the novels. Novels meant the person was educated which lended itself nicely to an influential post in society. Technology simply means the person has the money to spend on it, nothing more. As technology continues to rise, people may see a change in the definition of the novel.

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