Ergodic Literature

jill/txt mentions the frustrating part(s) about trying to work with what she calls_books in boxes_The LitCrits often call the books in boxes by other names,_ergodic literature_or, my favorite,artifactual hypertext. But its true, its alot easier to spin out funny names for these things than it is to actually read them.

Its odd, there’s a way to mass-produce something like a toy castle, complete with catapult, court and cavelier – but they won’t make books in boxes.

Just as it is difficult to find the works themselves that fit in this category, it is similarly diffficult to find information about them. So, difficult, in fact, that an attempt on my part to write a paper about them was thwarted by the lack of sufficient reading material. I did manage to find a sufficient list of vaious works of ergodic literature , and in that book, Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature, I also foud this: “for an exhaustive historical inventory of ergodic literature see: “Vuilllemin, Alain. Informatique et literature 1950-1990/ Paris: Champion-Slatkine”

I wish I could get my hands on some of this stuff.