Aarseth, Cybertext
Baker, The Mezzanine
Calvino, If on a winter's night a traveler . . .
Fleming, Twilley
Gibson, Neuromancer
Manguel, A History of Reading

The great twentieth-century author Somerset Maugham wrote, "In the perusal of books men are able to lead artificial lives which are often truer than those circumstances have forced upon them." Sven Birkerts has written about what he calls "the fate of reading in an electronic age." Another critic of technology, Askold Melnyczuk has written, "I've passed thousands of hours, maybe hundreds of days, in darkness drawn by those intricate shadow plays known as movies. I love films. Technology is addicting: the habit is hard to break. Like heroin, it feeds on our wish to escape the limits of time and space; and it consumes us."

If we follow the tail end of Melnyczuk's remark, reading too is "like heroin" in that it feeds on our imaginations and our wishes to escape "reality" (whatever that might be). With that in mind . . .

You have been assigned one of the books listed above. This assignment, which is due as essay #3 on Friday, April 17, is to read the book and write an essay (either traditional or hypertext on your web page) that reviews and discusses the book's contents. This is not a "book report"; plot summary is unnecessary insofar as it exists solely as plot summary. In other words, give plot or content when necessary to illustrate a point or further an argument. Your essay should be from 5 to 7 pages in length (or comparable length on the web).

If you have been assigned a non-fiction title, your essay should comment in some way on the influence or lack of influence of technology on the book's content. What is the author telling us about reading and how or if it has changed over the past century (or longer)? Consider some of the statements made by Birkerts in his book.

If you have been assigned a fiction title, your essay should address the ways in which the novel operates or might operate as a hypertext. In what ways might that influence your reading of the novel? Does the question of authorship and authorial intent come into play? Consider the remarks made throughout Landow's book.

I encourage you to use the online discussion list to hash out ideas and discuss issues related to your book. I also encourage you to come in and see me, so we can talk about it along the way.