The Never Ending Story: Patchwork Girl

I’m going to be perfectly honest here: I thought, hoped, and prayed I would never have to read patchwork girl ever again. I was wrong. Very wrong.

Allow me to fill you in on my last experience with this lovely piece of writing: Assigned to “read patchwork girl,” my classmates and I were unaware of exactly what this meant. After spending 3 hours standing in line to vote for Obama, laptop in hand, and arms aching, I realized that I had barely scratched the surface of the story. Then I went to discus the story with a classmate and thought that either they were reading some other story or I had gotten something seriously wrong. The stories we were describing to each other were extremely different with the exception of one or two small details. It was at this point I finally understood just how complex this style of story telling can be.

Upon revisiting this piece, I am still feeling the same way. However, (!) I have a new found respect for the complexity of style. My second experience produced yet another order of text and, therefore, another story.

I still feel however, that hypertext narrative, with the effort required by the author and reader, has been utilized mainly by people who are “out there” with their style of writing. Not that there is anything wrong with this, I am just feeling strong connections between Patchwork Girl and My Body - A Wunderkammer. I would like to see some other example of this style that would be more widely accepted and applicable to the more conventional style of reading. How, for example, do you discuss the story within a classroom setting if each student experiences the story differently?