Dysfunctionality is no pleasant experience. As a student I, like many others, work tirelessly to avoid dysfunction — we carry planners and complete assignments to perfection striving to look as fully functioning as possible. Thus, we have painstakingly mastered the art of form never mirroring content. What I mean by this is no matter how dysfunctional our brains are on the inside (content), we rarely let it show on the outside (form).
That being said, I found A Perfect World by Ansh Patel most intriguing due to its desire for form to mirror content. One example of the content we are given in the piece is of the disconnect between the narrator’s “body” and “mind.” Therefore, because the interface, or “readability,” of the work performs what Ryan calls “experimental dysfunctionality”, which makes it difficult for the reader to distinguish between what they are seeing and reading and what is happening or not happening, the dysfunctional workings between mind and body in the story is mirrored though the text’s linguistic and aesthetic confusion. Additionally, the reader of A Perfect World experiences similar psychiatric dysfunction of the narrator via the way the piece limits the readers understanding of what is actually happening and the seeming lack of control over the outcome. While we get to pick which way to go, those decisions do not necessarily match what happens. For example, at one page our options are: “Continue silencing the mind” or “Separate yourself from the body.” Both options lead to an end of the game. The game itself ends, like the life of the narrator.
A Perfect World is a rather dark game and shouldn’t be read lightly, but in looking closely at it, it reveals a potential relationship between mental health and dysfunction as bodily dysfunction that can be played out through experimental forms of literature.