My introduction to nonlinear novels

In my undergrad, I was introduced to postmodern art and literature during an English class. After reviewing classics such as Heartof Darkness and best-sellers such as Toni Morrison’s Beloved, my professor described a novel that was composed of a set of loose pages contained in a box. Readers could begin reading the non-linear novel by picking up any page and could shuffle them into a new order at any point. This unstructured narrative struck a chord for me. How could you read a book like that? Would you be able to understand it? Was it written differently because of its format? I was instantly intrigued.

Although I regularly skip to the final chapter of a book to learn what happens, I still return to the section and continue reading, secure in my knowledge that my favourite characters would survive. But to start a story in the middle and then try to piece it together piece-by-piece seemed like an interesting challenge. Sadly, I lost the name of the novel. 

Now that I’m learning more about nonlinear writing, I searched out the book he mentioned. As far as I can tell, the book was Composition No. 1 by Marc Saporta. Composition No. 1 is written on 150 pages that are three-quarters filled with text. As noted on this article “Maybe You Should Start Again” from 3:AM Magazine, “each page is both in a sense complete in itself and part of a larger narrative that unfolds differently for each reader depending on the order of the pages,” (p. 1). The author explains that The Unfortunates where the random nature of the middle portions replicate the fragmentary nature of memory and make little difference what order they are read.

The end of books?

I keep reading and my reflections keep changing.  Robert Coover's article about a class in writing novels using hypertext in the 1990s suggests that e-books that use hypertext can't be read in print.  The non-linear format does not fit the linear format of what many of us recognize as a book.  It's interesting that he does refer to my concern about technology changes: " its hardware and software seem to be fragile and short-lived; whole new generations of equipment and programs arrive before we can finish reading the instructions of the old." para 19. 

An interesting question he raises is one of closure. When does the story end and if an author writes a hypertext novel, are they obligated to keep the story going?

I recall a History of the Novel class I studied in university where we looked at how stories were told in the beginning and how that has changed.

Perhaps hypertext novels are a new genre. We're not just talking about taking a 'print' novel and putting it into electronic format, although that has been my limited  understanding until now.