| Author |
Title |
Publisher: |
Date |
Format |
| Stuart Moulthrop |
Victory Garden |
Eastgate |
1995 |
Hypertext Fiction |
| Suggested
By: Jennifer Jones |
Added:
10/9/2000 |
| Last Modified:
10/9/2000 |
Comments:
Mini-Review by Jennifer Jones
Moments of Victory Garden, a by now canonical work in the context of hypertext fiction, can be disturbingly probing of its reader. "How did it make you feel—scared, depressed, elated, unreal? When History unfolded around you, did you see it as a poison flower (fucked, like the man say, down to its eternal root), or did it seem to you a fantastic firework, some gorgeous portent of the skies?" And yet, the proscribed choices that this passage offers as possible modes of response to the event around which Victory Garden unfolds, the Gulf War, are also indicative of the way in which the story self-consciously mobilizes this aggressive mode of addressing its reader as a means of bringing to the fore the restrictions for emotive response that were so present in the media coverage—and presumably many of our experiences—of the Gulf. As one character exclaims, "This isn't going to be any television war, sister. It's not what you see that matters, but what you won't see." This mode of aggressively probing the reader and its resulting 'choices' for response ironically generate a realm for contemplating, and to a degree experiencing, a genuine emotional response to the Gulf War. As we navigate through Victory Garden, which is in some ways a much more familiar mode of reading than hypertext can be in other contexts, given that there is a map of the story as well as a recognizable ending (although one can get to this end via
many different paths and it is not clear, without multiple
readings, whether one has 'mastered' the story or not), we
become immersed in the life of Emily Runbird, a graduate student
who had financed her education through government military
service, and was called into active duty when the War erupted. Emily serves as our interface to both 'sides' of the War, which are comprised on the one hand by those who found themselves in the middle of a desert in nuclear combat gear with Emily, and on the other by those who remained behind, living with her absence, and continuing to pursue their lives (in this context, as students or professors). This gap, which cannot be bridged, and yet, as the story makes clear, must be pushed beyond a tacit acceptance of the distance, is indicative of other gaps that are powerfully explored in Victory Garden as well—desire, passion, and not least, love.
To read reviews of other hypertext fiction, please see the Transcriptions Hypertext Literature Annotated Bibliography.
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