7-Day Book Cover Challenge (Day 5): “Patchwork Girl”

The fifth piece is Patchwork Girl by Shelley Jackson. This is actually not a book–it’s a “hypertext,” a type of interactive literature that is read on a computer. I encountered this work in a contemporary literature class in college, and continue to be inspired to it today.

Patchwork Girl is about a female version of Frankenstein’s monster, assembled from pieces of multiple corpses. It is very much a feminist piece, focusing on a lesbian figure who takes matter into her own hands. It is worth noting that the original Frankenstein was written by a woman. It is so cool that, while contemporary women writers in the 18th century (who I also love!) wrote about romance and witty conversations over tea, Mary Shelley wrote about human nature and industrialization–and invented the genre of science fiction. Still, the bumbling Frankenstein’s monster who cannot find a mate is very tragic and awkward to read about–and a lot less sexy than other characters of Gothic literature like Dracula, Mr. Rochester, and (while better known for their appearances in films) werewolves. Patchwork Girl empowers this figure, making her a strong and independent woman.

Patchwork Girl is like an allegory, where the various body parts sewn together are parallel to the pieces of text connected through links. In hypertext fiction, instead of pages, passages of text come up on the computer. Links are embedded in the passage, and when the reader clicks on any of them, the next passage appears in a box. But the links aren’t underlined, so it’s never clear where the links are. And unlike on a website, there is no back button or home button. There is no way to skip to the end, so readers are literally lost in the story. Patchwork Girl takes full advantage of this medium. There are scenes where the main character takes a bath with her girlfriend, and the seams come apart–and when she comes out of the bath, it’s not clear whether she’s still herself or has somehow merged with her girlfriend. The main character “dies” (although she is made of dead body parts to begin with) in one passage, but is somehow resurrected in another. These things would not make sense in a linear story–but magically, Jackson makes them work in this nonlinear medium.

Ever since I read this, I’ve wanted to create interactive fiction. To me, they seem more natural than books and parallel to how the mind works, like endlessly clicking from one Wikipedia article to another. But there are some big challenges. The first is storytelling: I’ve found that it’s difficult to add depth to characters–or even have more than a few characters, since the story becomes so confusing. (Indeed, this article, which calls it “the failure of futurism,” says that hypertext fiction didn’t take off because they are too hard to write.) The second challenge is technology. In earlier attempts, I was very frustrated by how inaccessible this genre was–hypertext had to be read and written in a specific medium called Storyspace. I thought about putting it online, but thought the back button made things too easy for readers. Now, things are somewhat easier because of apps and websites like Twine.

Personally, I think a biggest challenge is that they’re often a difficult experience for readers. As a child, I didn’t really enjoy reading “choose-your-own-adventure” books, mostly because the characters seemed flat, and the stories were less exciting than linear books–so much attention was paid to making it interactive, that everything else fell behind. And even the experience of reading Patchwork Girl was an intellectual exercise. It was sometimes scary and frustrating to not know where I was in the story, and constantly making decisions ended up being a bit taxing, because even though I was given control in choosing the next step, I didn’t have enough control to know the outcomes of each step. But after I finished reading it, and explored what Jackson has said about her own work, as well as various research done on non-linear narratives and feminism, including Judith Butler–that’s when everything came together. It really was a piece of art that gradually came into focus, rather than a quick and entertaining read.

I’ve put a pause on trying to write interactive stories, because I’ve realized that I first need much more practice in writing linear stories. Still, I hope I can one day challenge myself to create an interactive piece of fiction that is thought-provoking and satisfying to the reader, lingering in their memories for years, like Patchwork Girl has for me.

*****

5日目は『Patchwork Girl（パッチワーク・ガール）』。本当は本ではなく、ハイパーテキストという名の、コンピューターで読むインタラクティブな作品です。大学の時に現代文学のクラスで出会った、憧れの作品です。

フランケンシュタインの話に基づいて、いろいろな死体から身体のいろいろな部分を縫い合わせて作られた女性が主人公です。『フランケンシュタイン』自体、SFのジャンルを作ったと言われる女性（メアリー・シェリー）が書いたという意味で画期的ですが、そこに出てくるモンスターは物悲しく、精神的に弱い部分があります。『パッチワーク・ガール』では、自分の身体の状況をものともせず、自由に行動するかっこいい女性となっています。

ハイパーテキストでは、画面上にページの代わりに箱が現れ、そこに書かれた文章を読んでから、文章の中に埋まっている複数のリンクのうちの一つを選んで、次に進みます。リンクに下線がないのでどこがリンクか分からないし、ウェブサイトと違って、前のページやホームページに戻ることもできません。そういう場に、『パッチワーク・ガール』はまさに適しており、縫い合わさったバラバラの身体の部位がリンクでつながったバラバラの文章を象徴しています。また、主人公が死んだり（身体は死体から来てますが）生き返ったり、身体の一部がぽろっと落ちたりまた拾われたり、そんな不思議なお話が、本だったらわけがわからない状態なのに、こういったノンリニア（非線形）ナラティブではなぜかとっても納得がいくのです。

これを読んだ時から、私もインタラクティブなお話に強く憧れています。人間の考え方は、無理やり直線的に整理された本よりも、ウィキペディアの記事のリンクを次から次にクリックするような感じで、連想で成り立っているように思います。正直、こういう話はものすごく書きにくいだけでなく（何度か試しましたが、話の流れに気を取られてしまって、登場人物の性格に深みを持たせることができません）、読み手にとっても楽しみにくい（今自分が話のどこにいるのかも出口も見えず、決断ばかり求められることに疲弊する可能性があります）のが大きな障壁です。でも、まずは直線的なストーリーを書いて練習しつつ、いつかは、読み手にとっても思い出に残るようなインタラクティブなお話を書いてみたいと思っています。