Narrating feelings

Pry is a novella app created by Danny Cannizzaro and Samantha Gorman and edited by Tender Claws. Pry seems at any point different from a novel. It is not digital as an eBook is. It uses every thing that allows the digital. You need to touch, you need to choose, and you need to do it again and again in order to understand what is happening. The reader needs to go backward, to read it again, even when arriving at the end, otherwise it will not be understandable. Considering that a narration is supposed to tell a story, to immerse the reader (or listener, spectator…) can Pry be considered as a narration?

Pry is hard to understand. The reader is more often trying to understand what he has to do to continue and go forward, than really trying to understand how the characters feel. He is often under the impression that the creators concentrated more on how to be original and interactive than telling a story.

Pry is not meant to be easily understandable. The reader has only access to the thoughts and memories of the main character. Those thoughts or as disjointed and rambling as thoughts can be. Especially since the character seem traumatized by the events. The memories cannot be flowing. Moreover, as the narrator seem to suffer from a few mental disorders, he is absolutely not reliable. The reader keeps wandering whether or not what he just saw did actually happened.

Thus the narration of Pry does not consist in telling a story as classical novels do, but in transmitting the feelings and unease of the narrator. This is why many images appear and disappear to fast to understand what is presented. The reader cannot analysis, but he may feel surprised, maybe afraid, and mostly lost, just as the narrator. The third chapter on contrary may seem more peaceful. The narrator reads the braille, slowly as we touch it. It does not come from the narrator’s life, so it is not as stifling as other chapters. Though, he does not seem able to perfectly concentrate on the text as images from his memory appears through the text.

Thus, every thing is carefully considered to create a particular atmosphere. The acts of the reader are thought so he would feel as stressed or powerless, as the narrator. The narration of Pry aims to transmit a feeling, to emerge the reader in the narrator’s mind, not to tell a story.

However, if the narration consists in conveying feelings, and the means used to reach that aim are the whole presentation, the aspects of the texts, how the images appear, etc. How come is it possible to change the text from white on black to black on white? This aesthetic choice was a matter of atmosphere. Of course it would be easier to read black on white. But Pry is not meant to be an easy or comfortable experience. The reader is supposed to feel as stressed and oppressed as the narrator.