Final Project
Amy Shivers
Professor Meehan
English 101
December 2, 2009
The success/failure of Patchwork Girl as a novel
Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl provided a new and unique experience for me. I am quite divided on whether or not this story succeeded or failed as a novel. To me a novel should keep the reader interested and engaged. It should also challenge the reader. I also feel that one should be able to get lost in the story. They shouldn’t want to put the book down. Novels should also last forever. Although Patchwork Girl is challenging and keeps the reader interested, I feel the complexity of the layout does not allow the reader to get lost in the story like they should and the fact that Patchwork Girl will not last forever means Patchwork Girl fails as a novel.
Patchwork Girl’s layout is quite interesting. One could spend hours clicking through the story. With a book the reader has no choice but to read from cover to cover. With hypertext, the reader is able to choose where they want to go. They get to participate more in the story. This can be very engaging. It reminds me very much of those choose your own adventure books that I read as a child. At the bottom of the page it would give you a choice of what you wanted to happen next. Once you chose, it would direct you to another page. I used to love these books. They would keep me entertained for hours. That was what happened when I looked at Patchwork Girl for the first time. I started off by clicking on graveyard. I followed this path until I hit a wall at resurrection. I went back to the title page and this time decided to read journal. I spent at least two hours in this section. I would click on the link that would bring me to the next page and that was fine for a while. But then I discovered that there was sometimes more than one link on each page. I went back and clicked on every word until I found it. It was like an adventure.
I thought the same thing about the choose your own adventure books. They were entertaining but at the same time I always found myself getting frustrated. If I chose one thing, what would happen if I chose the other? I would go back and try to follow a different path this time. It was fun but at the same time I hated knowing that there was a chance that I missed something. That is exactly how I feel with this novel. I don’t like that I feel like I am missing parts of the story by skipping over some of the links.
Because Patchwork Girl is so disconnected, it is also very hard to get lost in the story. Whenever I read a good novel I always have a hard time putting the book down. I just get lost in the story. I always become very emotionally attached to the characters. I often find myself crying as Birkerts does: “…I cried scalding tears, unable to believe the whole world did not grind to a sorrowful halt”(page 37). I also find myself feeling happy when something good happened in the book. It got to the point that what happened in the story the night before would determine how my day would go. If something good happened, I would be in a good mood all day but if something bad happened, I would have a terrible day. That is how reading should always make you feel. Although you can get caught up in trying to find the next link, it is not the same as completely disappearing into the story. “I tipped up and back in my chair, clicked and clicked again, waiting patiently for the empowering rush that ought to come when worlds open upon other worlds and old limits collapse” (Birkerts 151). This is exactly how someone should feel while reading a story. Like they are in another world. Like anything is possible. There is no flow in Patchwork Girl making it very hard to feel this way.
“R. sat me down in a chair in front of a terminal, booted up, and off we went. Or did we? In fact it was not one of those off-you-go kinds of things at all. What we ahs in front of us was a spatialized table of contents in the form of a map form of a map of an elaborate garden. There were mazelike paths and benches and nooks, each representing some element, or strand, of the novel. This was an option board. The reader was invited to proceed by inclination, choosing a character, focusing on a relationship, engaging (or not) a relevant subplot, and deciding whether to snap backward or forward in time” (Birkerts 151).
Although this excerpt is not describing Patchwork Girl it may as well be. It is almost exactly the same experience. As soon as you open the program you are overwhelmed by options. All the choices keep the reader from being absorbed into the story.
I also feel that a novel should be something that lasts forever. Books are reliable. You don’t have to worry about the technology being out of date. All you have to do is pick it up, open it and star reading. It will always be there. Technology, on the other hand, is quite different. Technology is constantly advancing. With all this change, one has to worry about the software becoming out of date. That is the problem with Patchwork Girl. It is not compatible with all of the new technology. I was unable to download the program onto my computer. Luckily some computers are able to use this program but I feel that soon Patchwork Girl’s technology will be completely obsolete. No one will be able to use it and the novel will therefore be gone forever.
Ultimately, it is difficult to determine whether Patchwork Girl fails or succeeds as a novel. The layout is very complex and keeps the reader interested. But this same complexity sacrifices the flow of the story. When the story doesn’t flow, it is harder for the reader to get lost in it. Also, the technology used to create Patchwork Girl is very outdated. Soon people will no longer be able to use it. When this happens, Patchwork Girl will be gone forever, forgotten. Although all these factors are pretty important in determining the success or failure of a novel, I feel that the fact that the reader is unable to be absorbed into the story and the fact that Patchwork Girl may soon be obsolete are the most imperative to this decision. Therefore, I believe Patchwork Girl is unsuccessful as a novel.
