The novel printed in 27 loose sections that you read in any order
Ergodic Literature
Espen J. Aarseth coined "ergodic literature" for texts that demand nontrivial effort to traverse, borrowing the Greek ergon (work) and hodos (path). His book Cybertext maps every text across seven variables—dynamics, determinability, transiency, perspective, access, linking, and user function—yielding 576 possible media positions. Examples range from B. S. Johnson's The Unfortunates and Julio Cortázar's Hopscotch to ELIZA and the I Ching.
The ergodic work of art is one that in a material sense includes the rules for its own use, a work that has certain requirements built in that automatically distinguishes between successful and unsuccessful users.
- dmbche
Good reminder to check back on House of Leaves. Didn't like it but it keeps nagging at my brain, I must have missed something.
It's quite exhausting to read though.
Although thinking about it now I remember feeling the author being kind of cruel in making things hard to read/understand with that as the purpose (the real excentric stuff at the end), it put me off. Maybe I just don't like it.
- Waterluvian
This is essentially what Myst is, isn’t it? It has a clear start and end. But the books are visited in any order. And as a bonus; the pages of the red and blue books are reassembled in any order.
- Trace88
These rely so heavily on physical layout that e-readers basically ruin the whole experience.