After I had gotten about half way done reading this piece, I for some reason remembered what we read as one our first homework assignments of the year about George Orwell. It was his piece about the english language and indeed how bad it had gotten when in written form. His idea about trying to use big words and metaphors to try and spice up your writing, I feel, parallels mine. I think that Shelley Jackson did exactly this. She lost me in her writing because of how she tried to formulate her ideas. The only parts of her writing which seemed to make the most sense were the first two or maybe three of every new topic. After that, in most paragraphs, she went on and on and began to lose focus of what it was that she was writing about. She kept connecting her topic to different ideas, but they always connected back to her thoughts on hypertext. After reading "Banished Body", (one of the paragraphs in her article) I began to realize what it was that she was trying to do. As I was reading that entire paragraph/list it hit me that she was writing a hypertext while writing about hypertext. By this I mean that all of the things that she listed in "Banished Body" all could be found in her actual article.
"It is unstable. It changes from moment to moment, in its experience both of itself and of the world."
"It has no center, but a roving focus. (It "reads" itself.)"
-Shelley Jackson
It is these two which stood out to me the most, mainly because they are the most obvious in her writing. Granted after reading this list it changed my whole outlook on this article, but I still do not like it. This list merely made me recognize what it was that she was doing. This did help me somewhat while reading it, but I still think that her article was terribly overdone in metaphors, which in the end made me get lost and lose track of what I was in fact reading about.
I appreciate your disstaste for this piece and fully agree with your opinion that Shelley Jacksons writing was both confusing and frusterating to read. I too experienced much confusion trying to sift through her overuse of metaphors and the thoughtless intro, leading the audience on a wild chase to figure out who exactly the stitch bitch was. I, however, did not have the same brilliant realization half way through. By linking this work to George Orwell you not only proved your point beautifully, but you successfully tied all of our previous assignments together, opening our minds to the connection between two astoundingly different pieces. When you said, "It was his piece about the english language and indeed how bad it had gotten when in written form. His idea about trying to use big words and metaphors to try and spice up your writing, I feel, parallels mine." you made a beautiful connection. Your authoritative tone combined with the opinion of a true professional helped point out your ideas to the audience in a well thought out, and clever way. I agree with your dislike for this piece and I admire your ability to tie what seemed to be completely unrelated pieces together with such a neat bow.
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