Victory Garden

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Description (in English): 

The Gulf War and its media frenzy serves as the backdrop for this Dickensian tale of campus politics, seduction, burglary, dissent, unsafe driving, and war.

(Source: Victory Garden - Eastgate Systems)

Victory Garden is a hypertext novel which is set during the Gulf War, in 1991. The story centres on Emily Runbird and the lives and interactions of the people connected with her life. Although Emily is a central figure to the story and networked lives of the characters, there is no one character who could be classed as the protagonist. Each character in Victory Garden lends their own sense of perspective to the story and all characters are linked through a series of bridges and connections.

There is no set "end" to the story. Rather there are multiple nodes that provide a sense of closure for the reader. In one such "ending", Emily appears to die. However, in another "ending", she comes home safe from the war. How the story plays out depends on the choices the reader makes during their navigation of the text. The passage of time is uncertain as the reader can find nodes that focus on the present, flashbacks or even dreams and the nodes are frequently presented in a non-linear fashion. The choices the reader makes can lead them to focus on individual characters, meaning that while there are a series of characters in the story the characters focused on can change with each reading, or a particular place.

Upon entering the work the reader is presented with a series of choices as to how to navigate the story. The reader may enter the text through a variety of means: the map of the 'garden', the lists of paths, or by the composition of a sentence. Each of these paths guides the reader though fragmented pieces of the story (in the form of node) and by reading and rereading many different paths the reader receives different perspectives of the different characters.

(Source: Wikipedia entry on Victory Garden)

Critical writing that references this work:

Title Author Yearsort ascending
Digital Fiction and the Unnatural Astrid Ensslin, Alice Bell 2021
Rebooting Electronic Literature Volume 3 Dene Grigar, Holly Slocum, Kathleen Zoller, Nicholas Schiller, Moneca Roath, Mariah Gwin 2020
The Persistence of Genius: The Case for Stuart Moulthrop's "Victory Garden" Dene Grigar 2020
First Half-Century of Electronic Literature at Brown Robert Coover, Robert Arellano 2019
Electronic Literature Scott Rettberg 2018
Contextualizing the King of Space Dene Grigar 2018
Autorschaft und digitale Literatur: Geschichte, Medienpraxis und Theoriebildung Heiko Zimmermann 2015
Digital Literary Arts - Scandinavian E-Texts: Criticism, Theory, and Practice Melissa Lucas 2014
Analyzing Digital Fiction 2014
Media-Specific Metalepsis in 10:01 Alice Bell 2014
Reading Network Fiction David Ciccoricco 2014
Pour une littérature cyborg : l'hybridation médiatique du texte littéraire Anaïs Guilet 2013
Hypertext and Ethnographic Representation: A Case Study Rulon Matley Wood 2012
E-Borges: Stuart Moulthrop’s Victory Garden Álvaro Seiça 2012
Design som medievitenskapelig metode Anders Fagerjord 2012
Fuzzy Coherence: Making Sense of Continuity in Hypertext Narratives Jukka Tyrkkö 2011
Ontological Boundaries and Methodological Leaps: The Importance of Possible Worlds Theory for Hypertext Fiction (and Beyond) Alice Bell 2011
'I know what it was. You know what it was': Second Person Narration in Hypertext Fiction Alice Bell, Astrid Ensslin 2011
Rytm jako kategoria opisu e-literatury Emilia Branny-Jankowska 2011
Transdução: Processos de Transferência na Literatura e Arte Digitais Álvaro Seiça 2011
Screen shots: 
Victory Garden cover image
Victory Garden map image
Victory Garden screenshot
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Record posted by: 
Jill Walker Rettberg