Unexpected references to pop culture that is relative to me get me in a tizzy. The Spectral Dollhouse by (visionary) Jilly Dreadful (IF that is her really cool actual name) does this on a level so imaginative, so in sync with my own passions that I’m certain the author and I are married in another life.
The gist of the work is thus- click on certain magnified items within the image of a dollhouse to receive a quip. This quip is (almost always) a tangent that relates to the “spooky spectral” theme on only the most basic of levels. The work hearkens back to the days of elementary high school where, stuck in the black hole that is a boring class, a single word spoken by the teacher might take your mind by the hand to a place your find much more engaging. This work takes your mind from an already interesting topic (the title conjures up this image), grabbing its hand like a sweaty schoolboy on a first date, and invites you into the mind of the author.
(This is what you’ll be looking at.)
I will tell you this, gracious reader- this author knows her nerdy references. For instance, clicking on a bloodstained couch might lead to a discussion on the tearing down of gender roles in most zombie fiction (a nod to The Walking Dead and George A. Romero is given). Venturing upstairs to the doll fridge (?) starts an aside on the choosing of the contents of the fridge being related to A HOMICIDAL TREND OF WOMEN CHARACTERS BEING OFFED IN COMIC SERIES. I’m not even hyperlinking that one- look it up.
The author describes the work in a link attached to a fallen chair (again, make your own connections here, for I have no metaphor for this one):
“The writing that is housed within these walls is both critical and creative, one haunts the other, inside this domestic space. The order is less important than the hypertextual connections you make on your own as you explore each room. I believe making connections is an act of creativity.”
That, folks, is the novelty of this piece. I think the author understands mechanical linking as it was first envisioned by Bush (not bush, Bush, but Bush); as a means of extending thought patterns beyond one source. Thoughts, unlike most pieces of literature, are usually not centered around one topic. Rather, they jump from topic to topic, always moving from one connection to the next. That’s what our brains do- they try to make sense of things. The author obviously loves video games, comics, and contemporary cinema, so those are things she (he?) associates with the elements of the dollhouse. Hypertext allows us to give readers insight into our own minds instantly- by storing entire webpages into a word, I could give you the perspective of what I think about when I hear the word girl space. Sure, the theme here is “horror.” But from that theme we travel all the way to the work of Maya Angelou as referenced by the Oxford English Dictionary (did I mention that clicking on the dollhouse bed takes you into an entirely different hypertext fiction?)?
Hypertext fiction is a journey of stories. We start with one (in this case, an object in a haunted dollhouse) and progress to another, all contained within the bubble that is the author’s own experiences. By creating a hypertext piece, the writer creates a nesting doll (or a TARDIS); stories within stories (see: Twelve Blue).
So, in a way, this work has everything and nothing to do with a haunted dollhouse that the author purchased and photoscanned secondhand.
(A)musings 
You definitely took advantage of strong vocabulary and research! Additionally, your hyperlinks (and, for some, absence of hyperlinks) really encouraged me, as the reader, to explore beyond the words of your blog post to better understand your path in understanding the electronic literature piece (just as Bush envisioned people would do with sharing associative trails). A very unique and engaging read!
Nicely written post, although as Marguerite mentioned a link to the original work would have been helpful. The doll house reminded me a lot of a children’s fairy tale. They always appear really happy and calming with nice characters on the outside. When you actually start paying attention to what is going on, though, they have really sinister motives and can be incredibly violent. Same with this work, its a child doll house, but everything inside is bloody or has a gruesome tale.
It is interesting how easy it is to capture the readers attention with something as simple as a popup text box or image. A few lines of Javascript are all it takes and it seems to have a much different effect then clicking on on text.
Oh my gosh, I want to cry. I don’t think anyone has understood The Spectral Dollhouse like you have. I want to be friends!!! I came across this because I’m just googling my own name–you know, as you do at 5am. (I swear I have a good reason! I’m making a new website because I have a book of short stories coming out.) Please find me on Facebook. I really do think we should be friends for digital realsies.