So before I started reading Michael Joyce’s hypertext, afternoon, a story, I did some research to try and figure out what the story was about. I read that it’s supposedly about a man, Peter, who thinks he’s witnessed the death of his ex-wife and his son. “Intriguing” was the first thought that came through my mind. I popped the CD in and went on the hypertext journey. At first, I wasn’t sure who was speaking, as certain pages would refer to Peter in the third person, while other pages kept using “I”. I’m still not clear on who exactly is speaking. When the story says “I” does it want us to connect and relate to the story?
The page I ended up on, although still unsure what I clicked to get there, has one sentence, “I want to say I have seen my son die this morning.” After clicking on all the words, I found out that the word “die” brought me to a description of what he (Peter?) saw. As he described the accident’s scene, where his ex-wife and son would travel on if she were taking him to school, I couldn’t help but get pulled more into the story. I visualized the scene, with the body on the lawn and the “smaller body beyond”. I finally started to follow the story and wanted to find out more. I clicked Y hoping it would give me more information about the plot, or at least onto a page that will keep the story going; but I was disappointed to be directed to a page about him not being able to dream and the discovery of Wert being allergic to walnut pollen.
As I clicked around, I just got more and more frustrated because the pages didn’t make sense, nor did they even connect with the previous pages. The pages of the story seem to have two different stories going on at the same time. I’m not sure whether or not that was Joyce’s intention, but for me it just makes it hard to follow. It makes even more complicated that the story doesn’t really have a closure. With the randomness of the hypertext, it forces us, the reader, to interpret the story whichever way we want, or whatever way would make the most sense to us. Maybe that was Joyce’s true intentions?