The Joys of a Double-Braided Text

In chapter seven of Writing Machines, Katherine Hayles discusses the importance of allowing personal experience to inform and transform texts. She argues that the application of broad literary theories through the specificity of personal perspectives will allow “scholars to read old texts in new ways and seek out new texts that cannot be adequately understood without the theory” (Hayles 106). This was a refreshing take on literary criticism, a form that can be thought of as being very impersonal, scholarly and aloof – an obscure analysis floated down from the Ivory Tower. I wonder if what Hayles is proposing might be something along the lines of the gritty analyses especially noticeable in the fields of post-colonial and post-modern literature. Could Candace Fujikane’s response to Blu’s Hanging be one such example? If memory serves me correctly, that response combines the formal structures of literary theory with the personal realities of racial stereotypes and cultural attitudes.

Hayles goes on to propose that “now is a good time for a double-braided text where the generalities of theory and the particularities of personal experience can both speak, though necessarily in different voices. A text where both voices can be heard, at first very different but then gradually coming closer until finally they are indistinguishable” (106). It occurred to me that this is precisely what Hayles does herself. In Writing Machines she switches back and forth between the first and third person voice, and it is easy to hear one in the other. It would seem that House of Leaves could also be considered a “double-braided text.” Johnny’s voice and experiences inform Zampano’s writing (in the form of extensive footnotes), while Zampano’s experiences seem mirrored in Johnny’s personal/mental breakdown. So far however, the voices are very distinct from one another (both visually and audibly), and since I haven’t finished the book yet, I’m not sure if they ever merge to the point of being indistinguishable.

Ultimately, the form of analysis that Hayles discusses seem to speak to the possibility that literary criticism can be both scholarly and personal. It can represent the best of academic thinking with the best of complex realities, offering a richness and depth that is accesible to those of us who choose not to reside in the Ivory Tower!