The Harmless Yank Hobby

[jbor at bigpond.com]

On 10/06/2006:

> Most critics simply don't go to
> the trouble to explain allusion, reference, symbolism,
> allegory

They're not all the same thing, of course, and none of them is 
necessarily the same as a hyperlink. I guess there's an assumption that 
most readers will know just what each one is, or can easily find out by 
looking in a dictionary.

But "intertextuality" is probably a good generic term for all of these 
textual features.

In most cases a hyperlink equates most closely to a footnote or 
bibliographic reference in a text.

Infinite Jest is much more of a "hypertext" kind of novel than anything 
by Pynchon.

I'd also argue that "we" don't all read in the same way, and that if 
one reader asserts that the "Kenosha Kid" is a deliberate reference to 
Orson Welles and another reader asserts that it's a inserted hyperlink 
to Heller's Major Major, well then, Houston, we have a problem.

I think that Slothrop has a lot more affinity with Yossarian than with 
Major Major, and that what he's doing in St Veronica's is more 
comparable to what Yossarian's doing in the hospital at the opening of 
Catch-22 (which is what prompts Major Major's forgeries anyway).

best