In 2006 Margaret Atwood published Moral Disorder and Other Short Stories, a collection of short stories that intertwined to give the book a cohesive essence without conforming to the linearity of the novel form. As novelists can, Atwood organized the stories in a nonlinear fashion, but more than this, she chose to view and label them as short stories, leaving the reader with the freedom to order and reorder as they chose. This is like the format of hypertext that Landow discusses in Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization.
Hypertext, as Landow presents it, is not confined by the linear structure of the print book, Instead it forms a continuum that the internet and computers as mediums facilitate through their ability to resist linear organization. Hypertexts may be read in any order, however, the fragments that make up the hypertext are typically connected so that the reader can create a “network” of understanding as they progress from one fragment to the next.
This hypertextual approach is described, by Landow, as being an early step toward rhizomatic literature, a step or a similar concept because there is no one to one correlation that can be descirbed (61). Atwood’s book is a “rhizomatic book” (59) in the same vein as Stuart Moulthrop’s classification of Deleuze and Guattari’s books as “rhizomatic books”, or as rhizomatic as a book could hope to achieve. I don’t remember, now, how the texts are ordered, if there is some building sense of unity that culminates at the end of the collection to create a sense of “orgasm” or completion, however, the nature of the collection as a “collection” capable of elude the linear dictates of the book form itself successfully resists such an orgasm, and if read the right way can achieve something at least peripherally “plateau”-like in structure, a constantly immersive process that resists closure. After all, even the title of the collection creates a sense of a non-linear continuum “Moral Disorder” (my emphasis not “Moral Order” which would suggest an ordering principle that would invite linearity through ordering. The choice of “Moral Disorder” as the title short story of the collection suggests that Atwood is seeking to escape the ordering function of the book format. In fact, unless one were to check off each story in the table of contents as one read, the process of reading Atwood’s book could remain immersive, and if there were no table of contents at all perhaps it would be further immersive by enabling the reader who chooses the non-linear, anti-cover-to-cover route to continually cycle through the stories without a sense of closure or hierarchical ordering.
Hypertext, as Landow presents it, is not confined by the linear structure of the print book, Instead it forms a continuum that the internet and computers as mediums facilitate through their ability to resist linear organization. Hypertexts may be read in any order, however, the fragments that make up the hypertext are typically connected so that the reader can create a “network” of understanding as they progress from one fragment to the next.
This hypertextual approach is described, by Landow, as being an early step toward rhizomatic literature, a step or a similar concept because there is no one to one correlation that can be descirbed (61). Atwood’s book is a “rhizomatic book” (59) in the same vein as Stuart Moulthrop’s classification of Deleuze and Guattari’s books as “rhizomatic books”, or as rhizomatic as a book could hope to achieve. I don’t remember, now, how the texts are ordered, if there is some building sense of unity that culminates at the end of the collection to create a sense of “orgasm” or completion, however, the nature of the collection as a “collection” capable of elude the linear dictates of the book form itself successfully resists such an orgasm, and if read the right way can achieve something at least peripherally “plateau”-like in structure, a constantly immersive process that resists closure. After all, even the title of the collection creates a sense of a non-linear continuum “Moral Disorder” (my emphasis not “Moral Order” which would suggest an ordering principle that would invite linearity through ordering. The choice of “Moral Disorder” as the title short story of the collection suggests that Atwood is seeking to escape the ordering function of the book format. In fact, unless one were to check off each story in the table of contents as one read, the process of reading Atwood’s book could remain immersive, and if there were no table of contents at all perhaps it would be further immersive by enabling the reader who chooses the non-linear, anti-cover-to-cover route to continually cycle through the stories without a sense of closure or hierarchical ordering.
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