NOTE: THIS WAS WRITTEN A LOOONG TIME AGO... STILL, THE AMAZING WORK OF ALAN SONDHEIM IS INTERESTING AND... FOLLOWING THE LINKS MAYBE YOU WILL DISCOVER AT WHICH POINT IT IS NOW...
When for the first time I saw a text from the "Jennifer" series, I was surprised. The second time, I was confused. The third, I became suspicious.
Someone -Alan Sondheim- was playing as he had personality problems. Uhm.
It was only after some further messages (all on the "Cybermind" list) that I begun to understand Alan's Literary plan, and to be enthusiastic about it.
Now, after some years, I have to say that the work of Alan Sondheim -still going on, still growing- is, in my humble opinion, one of the most stunning and valid things born FROM and INSIDE the internet age. I mean, not a work ABOUT the internet but a work that IS the internet. Not a best-seller novel about hackers or cyberpunk futures. We are talking about Literature and I do believe Alan Sondheim will be recognized as a very important Author in the future. Just Literature. The Internet's Recherche.
From Alan's keyboard an acid rain of short texts -sometimes apparently, just apparently, unconnected each other- falls and flow in some different streams. The characters are not "described" by the Author, they simply ARE Authors themselves, each one living in Alan's mind and computer(s), but also each one living his (mainly "her") life, a kind of alternatve life generating different email "personalities" and headers, different approaches, different moods and different thoughts.
A kind of schizophrenia . Yes. At firts sight. But anyone of us is a little different on the net than in real life. Someone is more shy, some other more aggressive. That's why borders between schizophrenia and fiction, between everyday's life and an extraordinary psichological and ideal adventure are less and less defined. This is, from my point of view, one of the best qualities of Alan Sondheim as a Writer, because I've always thought a Writer should also express something about his times, about his "philosophy", and, yes, an Author SHOULD have something to say to the world, not only a well-written empty story to propose.
Alan Sondheim has more than something to say; day by day, message after message.
Moreover, the shocks the different crashing personalities produce, are a quite extensive picture of the inner contradditions not only of the Author but also of the Net. The problems of personalities, of roles. Also the recurrent obsession for the Body and Sex is the evidence of a definitively different relationship among people - different relationship between we and ourselves, also...- via Internet, where the Body and Sex do not exist anymore if not "said"/written, if not shouted . The problelm is that we are spending more and more time in a space (the "cyberspace") where we have no body, and no evident sex. The problem is that the net proposes (also, not only as some newspapers and unaware people believe...) a bodiless sex, and in the meanwhile we are still governed by our bodies. Contraddictions. Alan Sondheim does not make any academy on this matters, does not express theories or theorems, he simply LIVES these problems like any other in his Writer's work.
The problem about Alan Sondheim and his characters/multiple personalities.
Sometimes I believe Jennifer, Nikuko, Julu and so on DO really exist.
I can't explain in any other way the creativity of the Author (he used to post at least one text a day, but often even more tha one), and his incredibly wide knowledge about literature, philisophy, sociology, his continuos referring to books "he is reading", the continuous flow of web sites' highlights, the comments to other people's messages to Cybermind...
So, at last, is Alan helped in this huge amount of job by Jennifer traveling on the web for him, by Nikuko reading books for him?
This is where fiction and reality meet. Where Literature and Routine(s) mix.
Just look inside of one of your Eudora's emailer menus: you'll probably find the option for creating "Personalities"...
Giuseppe Iannicelli, thelab, Aug. 7th 1998
NB: Thanks to Alan Sondheim's authorization, I put some links inside the texts, so that the reader can browse in a rather unusual way based on my own perception of some thematic "assonances" . This mode can drive you more times at the same page, so it's much more an "adventure" to find your path.
If you prefer to travel trough the texts in a chronological mode, just click on the "next" icon.
From this page, you will begin browsing anyway from "next".
