Category: Reflections

Because it seems I now have to somehow form thoughts about hypertext fiction/literature that go beyond my usual, terrible wince, I spent some time researching the ethos and history behind it, and I found some things that I suppose might shed some light on the excercise.

I found a moderately enlightening essay (which says it’s "posted by Gary Hink" but I don’t know if that means he’s the author) that characterizes hypertext fiction like this:

"[it] is not text that readers comprehend by traveling within or throughout; rather, it is text with potential narrative that readers actualize through their reading sequence." (para. 9)

Basically – and this seems to be the the operative buzz word – the defining characteristic to latch onto as a reader is the temporal nature of what you’re reading, which means that instead of the printed text, which stresses "where" you are as readers (with regards to plot or physical page number), hypertext stresses "when" you are, which is a fun headache. The essay goes on to cite Sartre’s idea of "existing in the constant present" (para. 22), wherein each timed second is its own, independent of its preceding second as well as the one who follows (each step you take is the first step, etc.), and that since hypertext has a wide array of enterances (links), it puts the reader in a position of the beginning of the story no matter where they first click (same goes with the end, which Hink says happens "when the individual reader stops reading" [para. 37]). The essay cites Hegirascope an awful lot, so if you were confused or frustrated about your expected role as a reader during that whole experience (as I was), this essay should probably throw you a bone as to what Moulthrop and others are trying to accomplish with the form.

In a way, examining hypertext lit triggered for me a slight crossover to Jameson’s comparison of the Peasant/Diamond Dust Shoes in The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, but this may be a stretch. I’ll give it a shot anyway. Aside from the formal construction of a hypertext, its physical existence may somehow embody the "flatness or depthlessness"(Jameson, 60) Jameson cited regarding the Warhol peice. Conversely, the book, as an object, could be the agent "stressing the raw materials" (58) (with its labor-related attachments of printers, papermakers, booksellers), as in the Van Gough. We’ve re-applied this theory to many things such as TV ads (Nike shoes, etc.) as a way to examine the erasure of the labor history behind the element at its core; since hypertext is essentially something that could easily be a self-published venture, couldn’t this too be viewed in the same light?

Then again, this could be because I used work in publishing. And it could also be because it seems to me that hypertext might just be something primarily created so that cultural critics and armchair smartipants folks could write about it. It may be the only literary form birthed without the sole intention of the non-academic population as its audience. I’ve got nothing to back that up, though, so lets not dwell on it.

Regardless, here are some links:

See you all in class. Adios.

I found that of Moulthrop’s works, I preferred Pax to Hejirascope. I liked the freedom of choice that both offered in terms of the player’s clicks determining the narrative, however I felt that because Hejirascope was all text, it seemed less personal and connected. I liked that there were people in Pax, even if those people were simulations, they were simulations with names and sentiments (even if they are created) so it was easier for me to become more involved in the text. I also liked the fact that Pax had a sense of closure, that the screen began darkening to warn the viewer that the text was changing (like when you know you only have 20 pages left of the book you are reading, so the ending must be coming up soon) and then the screen announced the “end of the world, please insert token to continue.” This pairing of seriousness and playfulness can trigger the player to reflect on the situations he considers to be real but may in fact be simulations.

Moving on to the Poster article, one thing that I found was the discussion of the role of electronic writing. He says “electronic writing also subverts the culture of print.” It is true that electronic writing allows for easier access to the information (who can complain about the ease of accessing scholarly articles online). However, I still find it necessary to print electronic texts so as to have the writing in my hands and be able to mark it so that I know what I deemed to be important. When we were given this reading assignment, for example, the article was available via online sources so we did not even need to go to the library. Yet we were instructed to print out the article so that we can have it in front of us, with our notes and annotations. I wonder if the need for printed material will lessen as new generations become accustomed to electronic texts.

One part of the Baudriallard article that captured my attention was his discussion about work, that people work because they feel that they have to but the “scenario of work is there to conceal the fact that the work-real, the production of work-real, has disappeared.” This makes me think Office Space where the main character has a job in business but ultimately is not producing anything worthwhile, he sits in a cube with other cube-dwellers and doesn’t ponder the implications of it until he is forced to come to terms with that missing part of himself. The main character is happy at the end of the movie as a construction worker, because he is actually producing a tangible good and can immediately see the effects of his efforts. Office Space is popular because it is funny but because it also strikes a nerve and people are aware on some level that their work may not be as “real” as they would like for it to be.

Jarrod – I actually thought your post was insightful, especially when you speak of the "regressiveness" of reading hypertext fiction. If we were fully centered rational individuals produced by the authoratative regime of print in the Enlightenment and Modern eras, we are now decentered skeptical subjects under postmodern computer mediated writings. If hypertext only leads us to the vague suggestion of an argument made by a web photo and an itune, the writing is relying solely on rhetorical strategies, the main feature of Ancient Roman communication represented by the teachings of Quintillian. Thus with computer mediated technologies, we are stepping back millenia. I also like the idea you posed with starring in your own fantasy film (I think this is what Total Recall was about), at least in that I would get that flat screen plasma TV ive been dreaming about. Actually, if a conglomeration of databases tried to write a movie with me as the star, it would basically be me sitting at my desk reading for like 12 hours straight. This movie would probably be rated "G," although i don’t know.

The thing about Baudrillard is that his writing is just simply poetic and amazing. However, his theories just don’t seem applicable to very many things that I can think of. Poster gives the example of TV ads, which by showing a busty blond with pom poms signifies a number of referents – beer, sex, football, etc. This, unfortunately, is not how TV ads work. At least anymore. Companies try to flood images of their products in our media/psychological sphere for exposure only – market penetration. Obviously, considering the recent demise of General Motors, probably the most ubiquitous advertised products on TV, the whole advertising thing just doesn’t work. Sales are most likely tied to "real" factors like the price of gas, cheaper better built foreign cars, etc…

While hejirascope lacked strict boundaries and order, Pax convinced me that it had a beginning and an end, and in some respects it had a plot. THe first half of the game was rising and the secong falling. This correlated to waking and sleeping, light and dark. Like hejirascope, the subliminal words constantly reappearing evoked death, terrorism, ecological danger, and epistemological uncertainty. While it is difficult to reach any broad conclusions about these texts, we can safely say that they are not wholly optimistic texts. 

After working through this week’s readings I shrugged my shoulders then threw up my hands in a gesture of defeat.  I am boggled by some of the work seen this week, and am also excited to explore the implications of my experience because these works, more so than any of the previous course work, seems to align itself with the reader(watcher) response vein of analysis.  I would like to look at the idea of control as Kira brought up in her blog posting.  Giving up control is difficult, having partial control may be even harder to handle.  In relinquishing control, we are led through different modes of awareness.  In working through Hejirascope and Pax, I was struck not so much by the work itself, but instead, how aware it made me of more conventional modes of writing and communication.  I thought about paper and pens and the fact that I couldn’t make notes in the margins of these hypertexts.  I thought about a typewriter and a letterpress and the red pen of an editor.  I thought about the work that went into my copy of The Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara, and the way that I had worn through the pages, flipping from work to work, dog-earing favorites.  Sure, I tried to construct a narrative in the randomness and repetition of Hejirascope and I did try to focus on something other than the blinking eyes of the Pax characters, but was snapped out of the experience by the sheer awkwardness of it all.  My appreciation of these hypertexts and the analysis of their work comes from the experience I had outside of the texts, and the awareness that they elicited in my thoughts about printed work. 

 

I found both Hejirascope and Pax interesting, but in different ways.  Jarrod mentioned how limiting print/book literature is in comparison, and I agree.  These hypertexts sort of made me think of Choose Your Own Adventure books on speed or something!  I initially found the effort to untangle Hejirascope frustrating – I couldn’t figure out what all of the different pieces meant (individually or together), and I couldn’t find a tangible “beginning” to try to create “sense” out of the confusion.  Then, I had a desperate need to follow a specific track, so I could have some semblance of cohesive images because I found the attempt to hold five or six pieces of different stories separate and in tact, waiting for a continuation of one of the five or six, to be mind-boggling. As I followed the different tracks, I ended up trying to link to the next page in the sequence or waiting for the page to automatically advance to the (hopefully) next page in the sequence.  The difficult part for me was accepting that there was not a necessary sequence and that there was not necessarily a beginning or an end to a piece.  I found myself sometimes searching through every link possible to find the next piece of the whole, sometimes to no avail!  One aspect of Hejirascope that I appreciated, though, was my ability to go back to a page if the time lapsed or if the link I selected did not take me to one of the tracks I was trying to pursue.

 

Pax seemed to do the opposite, however, leaving me with a feeling of loss – like I missed out on something irrecoverable if I passed up one of the characters.  One aspect of print material in which I find tremendous value is its tangibility – the fact that I can hold it and keep it and remember it the way it was.  I was distressed by the fact that once the session had used the full cycle of allotted hours and phases and once I left the screen, what I (and the characters) had created would be lost forever in the great void.  What if I found the perfect combination of words, thoughts, and views? (I will add, though, that after discovering that I could copy and paste the sequence into Word, I felt a little better about the “permanence” of the words I had put together – and that, in and of itself, probably goes against the design and purpose of the text!)  I also didn’t like that if what the character added didn’t seem to fit with the poetic quality of how the other characters’ thoughts had been unfolding or if I just didn’t like what they said, I couldn’t erase it from the pattern.  Once the character contributed, it was there for good.

 
One last thought…I liked the description in the “About” section that described the ideas that prompted the creation of Pax.  In it, the author quotes John Cayley’s idea of creating “textual instruments.”  That description gives me a poetic and peaceful image of all of the things technology has to offer.  Often it seems that the feeling and emotion in people decreases with all of the technological advancements we go through (the writing of an email or IM is so much less personal and more anonymous, it seems to me, than a handwritten letter, or an e-text less tangible and malleable than an actual book, etc.), but the idea of technology making an instrument of the text seems to bring back some of the human touch.  When I think of instruments, I think of how any given sequence of notes can be played by an infinite number of people and can express different sounds, tones, or moods with each one.  The same idea then transfers to the idea of the text through the Pax hypertext medium – the same characters with the same thoughts to share convey different sounds, tones, and moods depending on the author/clicker.

I decided to experience Hegirascope and Pax in a very stodgy, un-postmodern way: I read the instructions first.

I read the introduction to Hegirascope. I marked the index page as the text told me to.  Then I clicked "begin". After a few minutes, I gave up trying to come up with some erudite opinions on it, and just noticed how I felt. Sometimes I wanted control, and sometimes I didn’t. At times, I let the model take me where it wanted me to go, and at times, I steered myself. What I realized after I was "finished" was that no two people could really play either of the models the same way. No two people would make the same choices at all times. So, each time a person played, a creation was born. The user changed the game, and the game changed the user. Each time, something unique was created.

I think that Poster touches on this in his article, "The Mode of Information and Postmodernity". In talking about TV ads, he writes: "The viewer is the absent hero or heroine of the ad. The viewer is solicited to displace him or herself into the ad and become one with the meanings associated with the product" (62). It’s not an exact parallel, but it reminded me of playing Hegirascope and Pax – the user adds him/herself, the model adds itself to the user, and somehow something new, something separate, is created.

Although the models are not meant to be narrative (as Stuart Moultroup himself points out in Pax), I did come away with the sense that I went on a "journey", as one might experience when reading a novel. I felt that there was absence as presence – because, when a user begins the models, what we don’t know is bigger than what we do know. The user slowly chips away at the information, making something out of fragments. Perhaps it is a bit like making one’s own "dream-dump", or mash-up, or some such.

Playing the models also made me think about choices. There seemed to be an infinite number of choices in the two models – you could choose to go to another screen in Hegirascope, or choose to interact with another character in Pax. Or you could choose not to choose. I’m not sure what this all has to do with postmodernism, but I think I still like narratives, though. When I read something, or do something, I have decided to give up my control and let the author lead me. Plus, I think I still like reading/experiencing things from beginning to end – I still prefer the journey that way.

The variety of texts this week imply, at least to me, that direct interaction and texts that ‘make sense’ are on their way out. The postmodern world is rather a frenzy of machines, machinema, and hypertexts, in no particular order, that require rapid association, or disassociation, a celebration of disorientation, and complete abandonment of time and contemplation. Apparently, the digital take over of film, industry, and personal existence is inevitable, and if we aren’t lost yet, we will be, that is if we don’t welcome an intellectual divorce from narrative theme, history, and depth.

In the instance of Mouthrop’s Hejirascope, the poems, narratives, letters, and seemingly absurd personal accounts of characters like H. Marshall MuLuhan appear to be incongruous. The "hyper-hypertext" is categorically calculated and fitted to some indiscernable scheme and meaning and there is obviously some method to the madness. The rapid succession of the stories and poems, however, makes it difficult if not impossible to discover the overall text’s meanings. But perhaps I’m missing the point. Perhaps, the discernable meaning is what the witness perceives. Perhaps, like in many postmodern texts, there is no objective reality. "Truth is in the eye of the beholder." Truth is relative, relegated to a nonexistent status(postmodern condition), or maybe it is what one makes it (existentialist).

Despite the disillusionment of Moulthrop’s website, there were some notably clever insights on the matter of the postmodern technology, which is supposedly replacing the physical reality that is not cyberspace according. "The internet is the reversal of the bomb," insofar as it propagates a multiplicity of alternative universes, however shallow, miguided, and factually incorrect some of these alternative realities may be. The cyrogenically preserved H. Marshall MuLuhan, a benefactor of innovative technologies, in relation to the subcategory, "Irrelevant," claims that we’re all foreigners in America and the world of globalization. Since America was built on the backs and by the hands of "others," or laborers, the issue of the preservation of a national/cultural identity is irrelevant. We were all immigrants once, a beacon of truth despite the absurd context in which MuLuhan says it. Though the overall objective to the website may be a representation of one’s struggle for meaning amid utter chaos, the momentary insights and outwardly absurd humor are creative. However, they are rapidly replaced with new, seemingly disconnected images or poetic fragments, and establishes a reality in which one can hardly process the moment and the epiphanies and significance that accompany it. The profundity of such momentary insight with regards to art and philosophy is sidestepped by an entirely new set of images that overtake the last as if it never existed.

Hejirascope, Pax, the state of the art of machinema for the masses, and the internet are living organisms. They are the creators and simultaneously the posterity of a new human existence, one which transcends traditional limits and boundaries pertaining to how one defines himself within a culture, within a nation, within the world. It seems that globalization and technology define the postmodern era so much that are relationship to the state as "subjects," to our communities, to our friends (internet and "real"), and to our core self-image is no longer definable by the simplicity of a master narrative or a unitary dialectic of signification. We are all living hypertexts that create and recreate ourselves in the comtemporary technological organisms of cyberspace that inevitably, and frighteningly, will eliminate our roots in history and direct interaction.

Mark Poster’s article The Mode of Information and Postmodernity left me with many questions and a good deal of paranoia.  On p. 64, he writes, “Computerized databases are another form of electronically mediated communication . . . [and] liberal writers have rightly been concerned that the vast data accumulated in this form and its relative ease of transfer pose a threat to the privacy of the individual” (64).  He goes on to mention how agencies gather information about individuals and let it flow across various systems without any control on behalf of the individual.  Poster lays out a fine example in the case of the electronic trails we leave using credit cards and cell phones, which allows corporations and other institutions to make pie charts of our day to day habits and plan for how to further target us as consumers.  I never realized what magnificent quantity of stuff my bank knew about me until they mailed me my year-end statement and Starbucks had its own category on my account.  While amusing, it’s a bit troubling to think that our lives, which seem more in-transit than for past generations, are so familiar to code reading machines.  On p. 66, he writes: “Databases constitute additional identities for individuals, identities which . . . take the place of those individuals” (66).  The shiftiness of my identity, according to the bank or any other credit company, is strongly influenced by how well I open credit card accounts, keep debt, and make payments.  So, I can’t just walk into a bank and buy a home—it doesn’t matter what your character is, what experience you have—it all boils down to how well you fit a healthy consumer profile.

Going back to my original statement, the article left me wondering more often than I normally would, who’s out to get me?  At the other end of the spectrum, electronic media provides me, as a reader and a reading consumer, with a bit more control over what decisions I make; in his discussion of hypertext and digital spaces, Poster points out that hypertext “encourages the reader to treat the text as a field or network of signs in which to create his or her own linkages, linkages which may become part of the text and which other readers may follow or change at their will” (70).  Using something like Wikipedia turns the tables on writer and reader so that now we’re merging and shifting toward and away from each other depending on where we are at a given moment.  In a Zen kind of way, it seems there’s both good and bad to come from electronic media; yes, Internet users and builders need to sort things out with privacy and censorship (I’m alluding to the AOL case and how AOL has done away with censoring its chat rooms because they were sued), and yet, digital and electronic media allows for readers and viewers to take control of how they learn (though that raises questions about whether or not viewers and readers are choosing their paths responsibly; of course, who’s to say viewers and readers shouldn’t have the choice to learn in a reckless, multi-path way?).

Given the diverse subjects addressed in this week’s readings, I really don’t know where to begin. Yet, given the nature of the hypertextual fictions that we encountered, not knowing where to begin seems strangely appropriate.

I was most interested in the ramifications, or at least the ones I noticed, of cyber-texts on literature. If anything, engaging in Pax and Hegirascope demonstrates that the book itself is a technology with limitations and advantages of its own. In fact, hypertextual literature, in many ways, seems to be as large of a regression as a technological advance. The audience interaction, lack of a clear ending or beginning, and the constant digressive nature of the narrative structure are closer to an oral tradition than one of print. In fact, everything that makes hypertextual literature different than print seems to stem from story telling before the advent of the printing press. This begs the question, what advantage, or new dimensions, does computer technology bring to story telling. Don’t we miss narratives? I can see the benefits in terms of information dissemination (i.e. hypertextual links in an encyclopedic definition) but does it add anything to a piece of fiction beyond gimmicks?

To answer my own question, I found the unique use of the word/text combo in Pax to be especially interesting. I don’t know that I cared for that particular piece, but the idea of interactive moving images seems to be a promising avenue. Perhaps a hypertextual version of "The Sims," where many characters are participating in a single story that display multiple, yet unique, perspectives with the click of a mouse. To combine this discussion with the topics addressed by Poster, the coupling of fiction with databases filled with personal information may very well be the future of storytelling. A simple glance at the cache of any person’s computer should reveal, not only topic preferences, but spending habits, favorites sport teams, and even sexual preferences. Imagine personalized fictions that could pander to the reader’s desires, interrupted by commercials for their favorite products. Perhaps this could be taken to the next level. They are adding microchips into the tags of clothing to track consumer habits. Couldn’t this be linked to a fiction, one starring the reader, set in the stores that the reader visited that very day? The possibilities are endless.

This has to be my single most incoherent and ridiculous post I have written to date. I didn’t even mention Baudrillard. Perhaps if I added a hypertextual link, it wouldn’t seem so idiotic.

Our discussion on Dream Jungle ranged far and wide (which is not unusual, I know), and it might be instructive to offer up a brief synthesis of some of the major ideas we talked about, which are still sticking to me a few days later.

Beginning with the end of class, I want to highlight the point Sigfrid made about Zamora’s bookend voice. He seems to have the last word (which is his "right" as the conquistador and discoverer), and that idea seems obvious enough. Hagedorn’s twist is to have everyone (but us) ignore Zamora’s final words, rendering them powerless. Hagedorn seems to be suggesting that there is an end in sight of (post)colonization; the conquistadors won’t be around forever, even if they like to think so.

Next, I want to emphasize that there is indeed a network of hidden connections between the novel’s two main threads: the discovery of the lost tribe and the filming of the Vietnam War movie. Both are distractions (for the characters, for the governments, for the press, but hopefully not for the reader) from more pressing, more real world issues. Both involve the commercialization and commodification of social problems that trivialize "authentic" experience. And both occupy the space of fantasy, for both are projections of a colonizer onto an alien Other. Regardless of whether or not they are a hoax, the Taobo bear the burden of Zamora’s — and later, the world’s –dream of the "noble savage." Likewise, the setting of and extras from Napalm Sunset are recast by the dreamer Tony Pierce as a simulated version of Vietnam (and, as we saw in the documentary Hearts of Darkness, Hagedorn’s version of events mirrors and critiques this process).

Also, on the subject of dreams, remember that I mentioned Day of the Locust, Nathanael West’s 1939 incendiary satire of Hollywood. A crucial moment in the novel occurs when the protagonist, Tod Hackett, stumbles upon a heaping pile of discarded studio props and set pieces on a studio backlot. Amidst the sound stages of a dozen in-progress film productions — littered with cellophane waterfalls, celluloid swans, fake adobe forts, mock Dutch windmills, and a hundred other pieces of simulacra — Hackett witnesses a ten-ton truck dumping another load onto the pile, and he marvels that "the dump grew continually, for there wasn’t a dream afloat somewhere which wouldn’t sooner or later turn up on it, having first been made photographic by plaster, canvas, lath, and paint" (132). Hackett later calls this ten-acre field of Hollywood trash a "dream dump."

I want to propose that Hagedorn (who is most certainly aware of West’s novel) is playing with this idea of a "dream dump" in the "dream jungle." For Tony Pierce and the Americans, the jungle becomes a gigantic dumping ground for their own fantasies — either to act out on a grand scale, as with the epic film, or on a smaller, personal scale, as with Vince Moody falling "in love" with his exotic Asian girl. 

A final point: you may have noticed that several times I asked us to think through the cultural significance of certain things — the image of a helicopter, for example, or the idea of a tiger, both in and outside of the novel. This is frequently one of my interpretive strategies: picking up on a key material object in the text and reflecting on the cultural value of that object in the real world, then exploring how the author plays with or critiques that dominant imagery. This approach doesn’t work for every writer or every text (The Lathe of Heaven, for instance, doesn’t yield many suggestive objects). In a few weeks we’ll see that DeLillo focuses much of his attention on things — daily life objects that we usually take for granted, but which are imbued with hidden cultural values and assumptions. Hagedorn works in the same mode. Helicopters and tigers, granted, are not objects we encounter every day, but they are common enough images that they don’t stand out. They become part of our background noise. And writers like Hagedorn and DeLillo often masterfully foreground these objects and call attention to the values and purposes behind these objects.

It’s a narrative move I call breaking the spell of the ordinary, alienating the most quotidian of events, situations, and things from their accepted contexts. Keep this in mind as we read the final texts of the semester — you’re sure to see it at work.

There are so many postmodern concepts in Dream Jungle already mentioned, I am left to ponder the unanswerable or, at least, the elements of the novel that puzzled me. The time shifts involved in the story of Zamora’s life and the Tabao and the many angles Hagadorn employed to fill in the gaps of first hand experience at ‘The White House’ leaves one with more questions rather than less. For instance, the time frame spanning from Paz’s second attempt to interview Zamora at his delapidated mansion and his death is not documented, and the reader is left to wonder what exactly ‘killed’ Zamora. Was his demise and death a self-fullfilling prophesy since he was no longer a benevolent celebrity venerated for his stone age discovery of the Tabao, but rather, known as an ignoble scam artist, as Paz’s father believes?

 The constant infiltration of "Antonio Pigafetta’s account of Magellan’s expedition" coupled with recurrent Conradian illusions that bind Zamora, Tony Pierce, Moody, and absurdly, Sabastian Claiborne seem to answer the question of Zamora’s death. "Zamora held out his arms, ready to give as well as to receive. He was a long-lost king, a glorious saint, a triumphant savior. Our hero, our savior." This man, Zamora, is Conrad’s Kurtz reinvented. Zamora’s home, whether imagined or real, whether among an authentic Tabao people or a constructed or "fake" tribe, is "the darkness." The stark comparison between Kurtz and Zamora leads me to believe that Zamora, while literally self-isolated in the darkness of his vacant house, is consumed by the darkness, or the chaotic void of a universe in which humankind is persistently trying to impose social order. Zamora’s construct of order, again whether imagined or real, was the adoration "of his devoted supplicants," the Tabao and the fame, the parties, and the glory that the alleged "the ethnological find of the century" brought him. Zamora, like Kurtz, and Magellan before them, are at home among strangers, among the suppliant, the colonized "other," people that are transfixed with the godlike appearence of a distanced fatherly benevolence.

None of the characters, however, are ‘at home’ with their families, the traditional unit one should be closest to according to premodern/modern standards. Kurtz abandon’s Europe and ‘his beloved,’ Magellan was a notorious conquistador, not a family man, and Zamora is so isolated from his wife Isle and his daughter Dulce, he no longer exists to them at his death and posthumously. "My daughter’s happy now, lost int he warmth and glow of my rum and her mother’s radiant smile…The girls are having fun. And not once does my name come up. Not once." Is this Hagedorn’s assessment of the postmodern condition of family? Is family more fragmented, detached, and without connection in contemporary, globalized societies?

Paz’s alienation from her bible thumping sadist of a brother Ricky and her break from her family when she moved to the U.S., Lina’s flight from her mother and her home with Zamora at Casa Blanca and her relationship to her sexually and physically abusive father, Janet’s distanced relationship to Pierce (a strictly professional relationship in film and a biological partnership to propagate the species), and Moody’s escape from his girlfriend and son, Alex, are all instances of the postmodern disconnection of family. The unit no longer represents unconditional solidarity or loyalty, but is something that can physically dissolve and break down at the drop of a pin. However, Lina, Paz, Janet, Moody, and Zamora are all characters that Hagedorn depicts with the substantial conscience to yearn for their family connections to be reconstructed and made whole again, even if only in remembrance. In Zamora’s case, even in death as his spirit is peering out from the urn, "the source of his agony," the "failed love" of Isle is what his restless spirit realizes was most important. 

As I write this post on the tail-end of your ideas, I find myself encountering many of the same problems, the greatest of which is translation. I don’t know that I agree with John when he argues that the Tagalog was used to simulate "a mesh of Spanish, English and native dialects." I’m pretty sure it is an Austronesian language that is the base of Filipino (the language, not the nation). Perhaps you were thinking of the "Pigeon English" that is sometimes spoken, not only in the Philippines, but many other Asian countries (especially China). Furthermore, the un-translated text also includes Latin, French, Spanish, and probably a few others I did not recognize. For me, the lack of translation speaks to a greater problem, one that has supposedly existed since the Tower of Babel. Texts are inherently untranslatable. To translate is to conquer. To change a language into English is to divorce the original language from its context and rob it of its inherent connotations. However, this begs the question: what about the texts she did translate? Are there in-jokes I would get if I read these languages? Is there a subtle context within the translation? I believe that this question balloons out to encompass the entire text. I am only vaguely familiar with the history of the Philippines, the filming of Apocalypse Now, and the paintings of Goya. What intertextual references am I missing with my Eurocentric understanding of our world’s history? If anything, this text plays off of our lack of knowledge and in doing so is able to rewrite history. What part of this text is real? Was there a former child actor in Apocalypse Now? This of course speaks to the fictional (or at least narrative) nature of history that many of you have already mentioned. Hagerdorn’s text is asserting a different voice in the narrative of the history of a notion. Though fictive, I am no position to see to what extent it is so.

I thought that one of the major encompassing themes in Dream Jungle was the issue of perception in history.  Most history is based on perception, and therefore it’s very difficult to have cold, hard truth when discussing it.  Hagedorn’s story is based on real people and real occurrences, which makes her story a historical account, except through a different perception.  She said that the idea of the novel came from seeing Zamora’s (his real-life alter ego, I forget his name) picture and obituary in the newspaper one day.  The character of Paz portrays Hagedorn’s real-life experience with Zamora, and so she plunges into the novel, re-creating a fictionalized account of actual events and people, thus re-writing history. (Hagedorn and Zamora’s families really did know one another, she really did sit through an awkward interview on his terrace, etc) By using the different character’s voices to narrate the novel, she is pushing the concept of “perception” that much further.  Each character has a different, unique perception to what is occurring and the world around them.  Lina’s perception of Zamora, Fritz’s perception of his father and Zamora, Moody’s perception of the Philippines, etc.  The narration is schizophrenic, but it’s also very intentional and goes along with Hagedorn’s attempt at re-creating the mixed, jumbled feeling of collecting historical accounts in order to form one succinct interpretation – and never coming to a solid truth. This is paired with Pierce’s “perception” of Vietnam, creating a movie to depict the event, but also re-writing history.  He in fact re-writes his version of history over 90+ times.  And really, isn’t all history re-written about a thousand different times.  The movie is virtually the same mode of historical portrayal as the book, because it’s based on a real event, real people, but there still isn’t any truth.  I think I’m confusing myself now.  I was just thinking about how future generations, my generation even, will watch movies like Apocalypse Now and our perception of Vietnam will come from those images.  The first thing I think of when WWI or WWII comes up is Tom Hanks storming Normandy, it’s my version of truth, it’s my perception of history.   Hagedorn re-writing the history of Zamora, the Taobo, the making of Apocalypse Now, although fictionalized, is still her perception of a reality, and she uses the voices of the various characters to emphasize the varying degrees of interpretation an event can have.

Similar to Kira’s idea of escaping family, perhaps in a post-modern world, there is a tremendous need to escape reality.  Granted, throughout the semester, we have been discussing what "reality" is or even if "reality" exists or can be defined (especially given the variety of time and space concepts of Harvey); however, regardless of our meaning of "reality," it seems to me that our characters are continually seeking to escape whatever they envision reality to be.  We had, of course, George Orr who escaped the original reality of the destruction of his world by dreaming a new reality into existence, from which he spends the remainder of the novel dreaming further adaptations to this reality.  He initially was escaping the catastrophic annihilation of the world, but he goes on to try to escape the negative aspects of the reality that remain once he has altered it (for example, the "color"/race problem and the wars that take place throughout the world).  We also have Leonard (and even the other characters of Memento) "dealing with" reality by intentionally changing it or causing it to be remembered differently (by Leonard).  Leonard perhaps has created the entire murder case about his wife in order to escape his reality of not being able to create new memories.  He also tattoos himself in an attempt to preserve "reality" and how far he has gotten in the case.  We do know, however, that he changes reality by purposefully creating a false tattoo to maintain his need to hunt down a killer (and maintain purpose in his reality he must face constantly).  Other characters use Leonard, too, to change the progression of reality or to find a way of dealing with it.  Natalie, in an attempt to escape the reality of her boyfriend’s murder, uses Leonard to get revenge, not altering what happened in the past, but altering the future and finding a way of accepting the loss.

And on to Dream Jungle, the title of which sparked my thoughts along this line.  As I got a little ways into the book, I began searching for the meaning of the title, and I ended up, sort of subconsciously, looking for meanings of "dream" and how dreams factor into the story.  I was thinking of the meanings of "dream" – literally, to have sleeping dreams, but also to have hope-type dreams of what will come of life, and the idea of something being ideal or "a dream."  All of those ideas factor into the escaping reality trend I’ve been on in this post.  Parts of the novel make me think that the real dream-like/ideal place to live and exist might be in the jungle, as the Taobos live.  They seem to be without some of the horrors that wealth, class distinctions, and post-modern ways of life tend to lead society into believing/valuing.  Though "savage," perhaps they have the better life.  Even more pointedly, I see the examples where literal dreams (like with George Orr) help characters escape reality.  Rizalina escapes the sexual abuse of her father by dreaming him dead – in fact, dreaming that she stabbed and gutted him (20).  Then, when her father and brothers really do die, on the way to Zamora’s house, Rizalina fades in and out of sleep/dreaming, and it is unclear if she actually dreams the scene or if her confusion and loss are distorting the reality that she sees (the sights and sounds of which are new and foreign to her anyway) (26).  That, of course, is just the start of the "dream" moments in Dream Jungle, but I find the recurring idea of escaping reality an interesting one for post modern possibilities.

I’m interested in the emotional trajectory the narrative takes – always away from the characters.  Zamora is introduced in the beginning, then drops out until his corpse reminds us he inhabited the story; Lina addresses us directly in a standoff-ish but affecting way, then becomes a ghostly companion to another dissolving character, Vincent Moody.  Each enters the story at perhaps their most intense emotional moment, receding from there.  Rather than building characters and scenes into a grand emotional pinnacle, the narrative diverges, breaking down around a series of disappearances.  This lack of a payoff is exemplified by the fizzle of the tiger on the movie set: “‘Aw, phooey,’ Jesse Pierce said. ‘That was lame’” (270).  The implicit promise of lurid action is not just deferred but is structurally impossible in Hagedorn’s narrative, and this seems to be one thoroughgoing aspect of the postmodern text.  Indeed, there’s almost a distraction of desire, as if no one can see things through.  The metaphor here is the film itself, which takes forever to shoot, gets written and rewritten by director and cast alike, and results in miles of footage without anyone knowing how it fits together into a meaningful whole.  Perhaps this lack of a coherent trajectory is inevitable in a postcolonial tale that gets senselessly hijacked – like the Philippines itself: on a course diverted first by the Spanish and then the Americans, all the while constructing images of its own pre-colonial history in the Taobo.  And, if we accept Kwame Anthony Appiah’s split between postmodernism and (post-)postcolonialism along some aesthetic/political divide, then Dream Jungle is clearly an example of the former, for the novel sacrifices (political) solidity in favor of (aesthetic) dissolution.  But then we’re caught in the same old double bind we always are when discussing the politics of a work of art: Does it subvert or merely reflect what it presents as the status quo?  For Appiah, the sculpture Man with a Bicycle is politically salvageable because it refuses to ‘Otherize’ – or commodify – what it represents.  It moves beyond delegitimization and makes “an appeal to an ethical universe” (353).  But I’m not convinced that Dream Jungle makes the same move.  Instead, it seems to wallow in its representation – not of the commodified Other – but of the hopeless case, the pitied object, the world-weary chronicler, the imaginary past, the speaking corpse.

Zac brings up Lina’s tiger dream.  Hagedorn builds up the whole tiger scene, and it’s completely anticlimactic.  In fact, Pearce’s son says it was lame (270), one of the instances of self-reference in the novel.  However, Lina seems to be looking for some sign that “could help her make her decision.  To stay or to go?  To leave Yeye behind or take her along?…The tiger blinked its amazing eyes and roared.  As if to say, Yes, yes.  It’s about time!…Lina felt great joy” (270).  This incident seems to have guided Lina in her eventual decision to move to the U.S. and leave her daughter behind.  But other than that, I’m not sure of its symbolic significance, even though Hagedorn tells us that the tiger represents the Hindu god of destruction (263).  Also, “Tigre!  Tigre!” (270) is an allusion to the famous William Blake poem, “The Tyger”; however, once again, I’m sure of its significance.

And on the topic of dreams, I’m having trouble making sense of the novel’s title.  On a quick flip-through, I counted 12 separate mentions of dreams or nightmares throughout the book.  It seems to me that the two most important dreams are the one that Zamora describes to Rizalina about being a crucified he-goat (47), and Lina’s recurring dream about the tiger, described in detail on page 270.  However, after looking closely at these two dreams, I can’t see how they relate to the novel’s title exactly.

Ada mentions language and the fact that Hagedorn left many words untranslated.  I think this is important in relation to the Philippines.  From what I understand, Tagalog is sort of a mesh of Spanish, English and native dialects.  So I think it makes sense for Hagedorn to have her characters use a mesh of different languages.

Julie G. brings up the idea of truth or lack thereof.  Something that stood out to me was Moody’s description of the Napalm Sunset script; he sees it as “funny in a fatalistic, ironic, Filipino kind of way.  No clear-cut heroes or villains, no simplistic, black-and-white notions of justice.  Just murk and mud” (175).  I think this is an apt description of the novel itself, which was probably the intention.

OK.  Now someone fill me in on the title.