The features of hypertext are said to drive its function , just as the form of the book was said to determine the nature of the text, the author, etc. I will call this the functionalist fallacy. Here are some examples. Note the connotation of illusion with which Landow endows narrative here. Every path defines an equally convincing and appropriate reading, and in that simple fact the reader's relationship to the text changes radically.
Electronic writing is both a visual and verbal description.
Hypertext permits graphic representations as well, such as a tree or network diagram, images, etc. Now the computer brings the network to the surface of the text. It is as easy for the reader to follow an electronic footnote as it is to scroll to the next screen. No hypertext system that we are provided with can represent the individual literary echoes, memories, etc., that we bring to reading a literary text, and which constitute a significant part of why we read. This disregards some standard accounts of literary reading by Shklovsky, Mukarovsky, etc.