I Have Said Nothing

Auteure, auteur

Douglas, J. Yellowlees

URL

http://www.eastgate.com/catalog/q12.html

Dans l'hypertexte de fiction I Have Said Nothing, J. Yellowlees Douglas explore nos réactions devant la tragédie et la mort, médiatisées par notre expérience du spectacle (télévision, cinéma, etc.). La narratrice raconte comment les deux compagnes de son frère sont mortes dans des accidents de voiture, à plusieurs années d'intervalle. Elle cherche à reconstituer la tragédie, à comprendre les réactions de son frère, à accepter la banalité de tels évènements – mais elle s'aperçoit vite qu'elle ne fait que créer des fictions.

Pour se déplacer dans l'hypertexte, le lecteur peut utiliser plusieurs dispositifs Storyspace: console de contrôle permettant d'avancer, de reculer, de passer d'un menu à l'autre ou d'appeler les autres interfaces de navigation; option de sauvegarde des lectures; hyperliens dans le texte et liste des liens activables, accessible via la console de contrôle; cartographie navigable de la structure de l'hypertexte.

Citations:

You can't. There's some bullshit about the passive restraint giving way if you get pitched forward, so you don't, you know, get your shoulders both dislocated or anything like that. It happens in accidents where you get hit head-on. But the restraint thing locks up–or maybe the whole car got so fucking pretzeled up that it did go slack and then seized up. All I know is it locked around me, like some kind of goddamned giant boa constrictor, stretched right across my ribcage. It's like it gave a gentle little squeeze to my heart and lungs, you know, then wrapped its tail around my spleen and guts. Now the neighborhood comes out to play. There's nothing like a wreck to bring' em all outdoors–better than a sideshow. Or watching your next door neighbor beat his wife's face into hamburger while you stand back behind your kitchen or living room screens and suck your teeth in disapproval, but never call 911–why bother, what's the use? The wreck–us–it's a real spectacle without the guilt. It has nothing to do with you, it's like it just happened to wash up in your neighborhood. Kinda like teevee.

Notes:

A meditation on the enormous space that divides us from each other, bracketed by two car crashes. The seeming fragmentation of Douglas's hypertext, and the colloquial tone of the author's powerful voice, bring us closer than we would like to the randomness and loss that are just around the corner in our lives. The narrator is driven to tell us that our losses are not like the tragedies on our movie screens, built into meaning. Still, what we read is all a story, so we don't quite believe it–but then the flickering bits of texts, coming and going, make us know how it is, for an instant.

Auteure, auteur de l'entrée