Nice work, Nicholas, and thanks for this trip down memory lane. More than mere nostalgia, though. I have been thinking too of how the “ways of seeing”, as you put it, from a small group of hypertexters (and 90s metafictionalists and experimentalists in a broader sense) informed more broadly received directions in fiction since then and considering whether those experiments are still being carried out today (under the radar, as it were). About a year ago I wrote this piece, which was meant to be part of a series (which I might pick back up), below. By coincidence I reposted it yesterday on Twitter, where it got more traction than it did when I first wrote it—there’s a brief nod to The Rachel Condition in there.
Hi Alvin, thanks for pointing me to your piece, which introduced me to Coover's Open House, which I've not read but now am going to. I like how you bring in the term "contingency"--and thanks for The Rachel Condition shout out. I hope you return to this series you were working on--I'd definitely read more. I haven't thought this out yet, but my feeling is that as the culture (not the best word for this, I know) itself became more broadly meta (everything is a commentary on a commentary on a commentary and digital media itself is built on being endlessly self-referential) the metafictions of Coover's era lost the aura of their distinctiveness. . .
Nice work, Nicholas, and thanks for this trip down memory lane. More than mere nostalgia, though. I have been thinking too of how the “ways of seeing”, as you put it, from a small group of hypertexters (and 90s metafictionalists and experimentalists in a broader sense) informed more broadly received directions in fiction since then and considering whether those experiments are still being carried out today (under the radar, as it were). About a year ago I wrote this piece, which was meant to be part of a series (which I might pick back up), below. By coincidence I reposted it yesterday on Twitter, where it got more traction than it did when I first wrote it—there’s a brief nod to The Rachel Condition in there.
https://alvinlu.co/city-god/metafiction-2
Hi Alvin, thanks for pointing me to your piece, which introduced me to Coover's Open House, which I've not read but now am going to. I like how you bring in the term "contingency"--and thanks for The Rachel Condition shout out. I hope you return to this series you were working on--I'd definitely read more. I haven't thought this out yet, but my feeling is that as the culture (not the best word for this, I know) itself became more broadly meta (everything is a commentary on a commentary on a commentary and digital media itself is built on being endlessly self-referential) the metafictions of Coover's era lost the aura of their distinctiveness. . .