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Reviewer biography
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Writing Machines by N. Katherine
Hayles. Reviewed by Dene
Grigar To underscore her point about the materiality of the text further, Hayles embodies her ideas in Writing Machines as two characters reflecting unique voices and viewpointscreating a "double-braided text" (106) that eventually gives way to a synthesized third and final voice. First, we meet the voice of journeying author who talks about the theories underlying the analysis of texts; second, we are introduced to "Kaye" who speaks experientially about the way we read and make sense of texts. The dynamic interplay between journeyer-author and Kaye simulates the dynamism that takes place when "a literary work mobilizes its physical embodiment in conjunction with its verbal signifiers to construct meanings in ways that implicitly construct the user/reader as well" (131). The third voice that emerges in the last chapter is that of a much-wizened knower, who, after a decade of traversing multiple texts and paths, has reached a place where everything comes together. It is the proverbial meeting of the minds, the antithesis of a forking path. Hayles verbal argument, as convincing as it is alone, is augmented with a visual representation of what she is talking about. Designed by Anne Burdick, the book simulates the "technotexts" Hayles writes about as well as remediates electronic texts on its printed pages. So, when Hayles comments at the end of the book that "artifacts such as this book serve as noisy channels of communication" (130), readers are prepared for this conclusion because throughout Writing Machines they have encountered the image of computer noise running lengthwise from the top of the pages. Actually, that the book makes its metaphors material is obvious from the very start. Text printed on the edges of the pages announce the books title ("writing" seen when flipped one direction; "machines," the other) and then bleed onto or merge into each page inside; information is provided as if written on a computer screen; text is stretched and inflated as one would do with word processing software; words appear in all caps suggesting hyperlinks; citations emulate the electronic text the author investigates; appendices in the back of the book give way to "Source Material" that reprints the exact pages of the works cited; and references appear as playful and informal notations in an "Endtroduction." The result is a book that is as fun to read as it is provocative to think about. Without a doubt, Writing Machines is an important book, and the ideas Hayles posits in it have the potential of changing not just the way we think about and make sense of texts print and electronicbut also how we do literary criticism in the future.
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