Like Stars in a Clear Night Sky
“Like Stars in a Clear Night Sky” is an interactive piece of electronic literature in which readers explore interconnected stories by clicking on different stars on the website page. Each star represents a life story of someone that is connected to the narrator in some way. The author, Sharif Ezzat, recalls encounters with his mother, uncle, lover, a young boy, cousin, and his sister. Each story focuses on the character’s life challenges, some focusing on his love life. In his work, Ezzat argues through digital interaction that people should treat others as family because, as Ezzat sees it, the world essentially is one's family.
This collection of poems is effective in demonstrating the dynamics of relationships by forcing readers to interact and click on the stars to read through each of the poems. Each poem is one component/interaction of the author’s life, allowing the reader an insight of to who the author is and his values in his relationships and encounters. "Like Stars in a Clear Night Sky" is a unique and effective in that, by sharing about his personal life experiences and how others have influenced his life, Ezzat leads readers into coming to appreciate the people in their lives.
In the selections from Text to Hypertext by Silvio Gaggi, Gaggi supports that by allowing the reader to choose the stories they read and what order they read them in, “weaken the privilege of the original text as well as the sense of being a single dominant axis that directs the reader from beginning through middle to end.” In "Like Stars in a Clear Night Sky," Ezzat gets his information across to the reader in a creative and effective way, allowing the reader to take their own path in navigating through the memories and stories.
According to Mary Flanagan and Helen Nissenbaum in Values at Play, "values are properties of things and states of affairs that we care about and strive to attain." Ezzat's creation of "Like Stars in a Clear Night Sky" is effective because he recalls direct memories from his life, giving a clear insight to the reader what he finds important and values in life.
