Briar Rose by Robert Coover

MATX 601 Analysis paper

Kristine Trever
You are such a door, accessible only to the adept, you are such a secret passageway
to nowhere but itself Briar Rose, page 8.
Redundant as it may be to say that Robert Coovers Briar Rose is an intertext - Ill
say it anyway. But what is intertext? Arent all texts actually intertexts and there is no
such thing as absolute text? Arguably, they must all be intertexts - because all texts share
a common textual thread, the thread of language (UVic 1). More specifically, Briar Rose
is an intertext that weaves more than just language, it weaves a yarn that re-writes and restructures the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty with written language, music and images.
What is perhaps taken for granted with Briar Rose and indeed many other
intertexts is the assumption that we carry cultural baggage, or in this case, a memory of
Sleeping Beauty, whether abstract or concrete.

References to pre-existing texts are the

backbone of intertextuality and infer that the reader brings a certain amount of knowledge
when engaging with the material presented. Kristeva states every text is from the outset
under the jurisdiction of other discourses which impose a universe on it (Chandler, 1).
Suppose my universe is very small, Ive lived in a cave my whole life and was never
exposed to Grimms brothers tales or even how to read written language? Would I think
that Coover was entirely original? Does intertextuality shift if the story is presented to
me orally, rather than read? Does intertextuality transcend the knowledge of the
individual and resist individual experiences and thus weigh the amount of stored
information projected onto the text as somehow meaningless? Ultimately, does

intertextuality concern the individuals universe at all, or does the simple fact of a texts
existence make my hypothetical connection to it, my level of (un)familiarity, arbitrary?
Going back to the idea that intertextuality already exists based on the common
denominator of language, then yes, intertextuality does not rely on any individuals prior
exposure to works referenced. As long as there is language, a text will always be more
than a text; it will always be intertextual. Barthes insists it is the language which speaks,
not the author (Chandler 2). Language is the bottom line, the great defining factor. How
ever many layers beyond language an individual finds or relates to or remembers in a text
is then only relevant based on phenomenology, or how much of and the kinds of things
one has encountered in the world/universe. If we flesh out meaning through
understanding, and understanding is based on experience, then even if our only level of
understanding is language, we will always have at least one layer to deconstruct, one
layer of intertextuality that cannot be eliminated. In essence, the experience of an
individual is entirely independent in defining intertextuality because intertextuality is
inherently built-in to every text, but the layers of experience will be self-reflexive based
on the amount of experience one has accrued. Beyond language, the boundaries are
never fixed: no text exists as an island entire of itself (Chandler 7).
As a hypertext, Briar Rose is much more exciting to analyze, precisely because
the online version is interactive, layered, nonlinear, fractal and undoes the assumption of
happily ever after. My experience, rooted in projected memories and a familiarity with
the tale, (since I did not actually grow up in a cave, but in the suburbs of Michigan, where
my mother read fairy tales to my sisters and I) draws from those moments. Though our
books were illustrated, and thus, intertextual, they were in no way hypertext format.

Linear, with a clear beginning, middle and end, each character provided a specific
function within the story, a series of cause and effect relationships that wound up to a
perfect and yet perfectly impossible resolution that we were, in our nave childhood
imaginations, almost willing to believe.
In contrast, Coovers hypertext version has no sense of ever ending or concluding.
Coover describes hypertext as a system of multidirectional and often labyrinthine
linkages we are invited or obliged to create that both absorbs and totally displaces
(Coover 707 -8). The narrative of Briar Rose, where over and over again our exhausted
prince struggles in the entanglement of briars, is a metaphor for hypertext itself. Coover
notes No fixed centers, for starters and no edges either, no ends or boundaries. The
traditional narrative time line vanishes into a geographical landscape or exitless maze
(707).

Coover asks How do you move around in infinity without getting lost? The

structuring of the space can be so compelling and confusing (709). We are, as readers,
like the prince. Our habitual quest to read a book and apply our contemporary and
learned understanding of linear structure to hypertext is as futile as the princes quest to
escape the prickly briars and free his captive princess from her sleepy spell in order to
live happily ever after in what we know will be the tedium of real life. The more he
struggles with the briars, hacking at them with his sword, questioning what hes doing,
why hes doing this, the more torn up are his clothing and painful are his wounds. As a
reader of hypertext, we must resist the urge to follow or engage in the conventions we are
accustomed to with traditional written texts and/or books. We must resist and reject
tradition, but we must not fight our way out. Acceptance is crucial to this finding our
way out of the briars.

Constructed by Robert Scholes, the hypertext website features each of the three
characters, the Princess (buttercup), the Fairy/Witch (light grey) and the Prince (light
emerald) delineated by their own unique background color, so that each distinct tone or
point of view can be easily recognized. This helps with the dialectical approach of
question and answer that occurs within the narrative, as often stories unfold within stories
and multiple voices occur within each lexia. Other than color, each page resembles the
last. The designs of the page layouts are simple and nondescript, each using the same
font, relative point size with hypertext links located at the bottom. These links offer the
reader the option to advance forward, to randomly access any page they like from the
homepage, to comment on the selected lexia, or to move onward into the intertextual
realm added by Scholes. These realms, consisting of a short music track and still image,
open up the narrative of Briar Rose in completely new and infinitely subjective
directions. If a picture speaks a thousand words and the songs chosen have words
expressed in the form of lyrics (most of them country and bluegrass songs with
underlying themes of love and devotion to one thing or another) combined with the actual
words on the computer monitor (Coovers prose), then the possibilities for interpretation
are nearly limitless.
What this means for the person reading Scholes hypertext version of Coovers
Briar Rose is that our subjective interpretations and freedom to choose which lexia we
want to read, listen to or look at is at our sole discretion. This puts us in a position of
power not found in the traditional linear layout of books, where a structured system of
line driven text controls our experience. As we interact with hypertext and cease a
possible resistance to its form, a sense of empowerment emerges as we reconstruct or

decipher a text in our way, the new way, as it might be. Hand on the mouse, eyes and
ears both working to construct meaning a meaning that is not forced upon us but subtle,
loose and variant one can conclude that hypertext must be a democratic form of written
media. A call for equal empowerment in media is clearly a post-modern view that rejects
the traditional bourgeois novel (707) and offers choices, trajectories and options never
granted before but existing now in this potentially revolutionary space available
through hypertext via the internet (707). As we navigate through a hypertext, we
become co-authors in a plurality of discourse (706), where the readers voice is
projected by the choices one makes and our openness to interpretation and willingness to
carry on with our quest.
One critique I have of the hypertext format is the notion that everyone has access
to a computer and/or can afford internet access. Coover states if interaction is to be the
hallmark of the new technology, all its players must have a common and consistent
language and all must be equally empowered in its use (708). But the death of the
traditional bourgeois novel may simply be the birth of the new bourgeois computer (or,
it already is and Im of the elite). Without access to the resources or platforms that
hypertext can only exist in, some citizens will undoubtedly be left behind in the
technological revolution. Is it not elitist to assume that everyone has equal ability to log
on and interact? And what about those who are blind or deaf, do not natively read the
language which the text is presented in, do not understand how a computer even works?
Do their experiences with an intertextual hypertext diminish, or is there a way to truly
democratize this narrative concept to transcend issues of class, handicap or other issues
that may affect ones access to the material? Libraries, those unattended museums

(706) still offer free memberships and access to any of their materials including and not
limited to computers, even if they, the libraries and the books, are dying breeds. If
hypertext is indeed the re-birth of story and storytelling, then it must be truly democratic
with access available to everyone at all times. This kind of revolution would require
communities, educational systems, governments, authors and readers to fully embrace
hypertext and adopt its concepts unconditionally, if, and only if, the media is granted
shared accessibility to all. (Dont kill off books yet, we may still need them).
The narrative of Briar Rose never concludes, rather, it is cyclical and intertwining,
with false conclusions, restarts and juxtaposing narratological experiences. Stories
converge within the story, as told by the fairy/witch, or as remembered vaguely by the
princess, or as experienced by the prince, or in many ways shared and the same by all
three characters. Graphic and visceral, often hilarious, Briar Rose tears away at our
comfortable consumption of closure and shows us only an ephemeral reality. The spell is
never broken, not for the princess and not for the reader. It is re-written, revised and
altered with every lexia. We may feel an end is near, only to be pulled back into the
narrative, unconvinced if it was a dream, twist of fate or a trick of the imagination whilst
stuck in eternal re-enactment. Perhaps an image of Jack Nicholson from The Shining or
Hannibal Lector, or a familiar Elvis tune will help us find some closure? No. Not yet,
not here. Not here in this revolutionary space, where nothing is sacred and interpretation,
experience and freedom are the only rules and structure allowed beyond the technical
jargon of how a hypertext is built physically into a computer and will live, function and
operate within hyperspace. Leave that to the technocrats; Im busy navigating through all
the options before me, getting lost in a sea of interpretation and experiential bliss. But

its so hard to know whats real and whats not in such a space says the prince (BR 36).
And he is correct.

Works Cited:
"The UVic Writer's Guide." Intertext, Intertextuality. September 23 1995. University of Victoria. 4 Sep
2007 <http://web.uvic.ca/wguide/Pages/LTIntertext.html>.

Chandler, Daniel. "Intertexuality." Semiotics for Beginners. University of Wales, Aberystwyth.. 22 008
1997 <htt;://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem09.html>.

Coover, Robert, Scholes, Robert. "Briar Rose." Briar Rose . Brown University. 4 Sep 2007
<http://www.brown.edu/Departments/MCM/people/scholes/BriarRose/texts/BRhome.htm>.

Wardrip-Fruin, Noah, and Montfort Nick . The New Media Reader. 1st ed. Cambridge: The MIT Press,
2003. (Coover and Robert 705-710)