Mystified

Well, I went to the library to find the reserve text for tomorrow, but was informed that it was unavailable. Apparently it’s been checked out from the Lewis Library, and the Cudahy reserves desk does not have Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts in their system. So, in lieu of a commentary on that text, a few words about Myst: first, a progress report. Using some of the tricks I learned back when I first played the game, I’ve taken the rocket ship out of the first age. Starting to play again reminds me exactly why I quit playing the first time back in grade school—it can be very spooky. The mysterious islands are confusing and barren, with twists, turns and somewhat disturbing imagery. While the dentist-chair in the observatory and the burned books in the library are creepy, they pale in comparison to the faces pressing in and out of the static in the nearby red and blue books—picture books gone very, very wrong.

But what significance do the books in Myst hold? Books, or more appropriately, texts, are the only form of human contact offered to the player as he or she attempts to unlock the secrets of this bleak and disconcertingly empty world. The texts in Myst (signs, diagrams, books, etc.) are the only means by which players can advance through the game, providing the necessary information to unlock the puzzles scattered throughout the world of Myst, and acting as portals to other worlds. By turning the figurative concept of a book as an invented world literally into another world, Myst expands the possibilities of texts. Texts contain worlds, people (Atrus, Achenar, and Sirrus), images, and of course, language. However, they carry with them more meaning than simply the words contained in them. Their varying physical conditions reveal information about their backgrounds and histories, and their relationships to one another do more than the words alone to reveal the underlying “plot” of Myst. In fact, the “plot” of Myst seems to actually be the story of the books in the library. It will be interesting to finally learn how all of the books interconnect, when and how they were written, and what they mean as a collection.