The literal mobility of nodes in network texts gives rise to material repetitions, which can in turn allow for creative acts of interpretation through recombination. Recombination implies an interpretive act; moreover, because the act of returning to a node often involves a re-interpretation that builds on a former interpretation, it is possible to speak of recursion as well as repetition in the context of reading. (81)
Dave Ciccoricco. 2007. Reading Network Fiction, Chapter Two, "Textual Kinetics"
This conceptualization of recursion poses a paradox of objectivity. In the same way as the "recombination [of nodes] implies an interpretative act," a recombination of interpretations destabilizes predicating interpretations, and thus undermines the objectivity of the narrative’s discourse. Traditionally, fictional narrative discourse has required a suspension of disbelief on the part of the reader in order for aesthetic pleasure to be derived from its narrative progression. However, if a narrative is groundless, shifting and constantly subject to the subjective (re)interpretation on the part of the reader, then any meaning is constantly reassessed by its own recursive material variations.
Peter Brooks argues that it is the anticipation of closure and the reader’s knowledge of their situation within the temporal progression of a narrative which inspires them to engender meaning and read to the end of a text. The search for fundamental meanings is inspired by the desire to reach the end of a narrative, and thus gain a retrospective viewpoint to assess the text from (See J Yellowlees Douglass, "How do I stop this thing? Closure and indeterminacy in interactive narratives,"2). Indeed, this kind of framing is fundamental to the way we interact with narratives. Contextual reference points such as cultural iconography and a process of investigation - a search for inherent, fundamental meanings - likewise motivate narrative interaction.
These processes of situating readers within contextual frames are not challenged by network texts. Indeed, they are reaffirmed, but they are also redefined. Within the structure of a networked narrative discourse, the process of reading becomes one of innovation rather than revelation. While conventional narratives imply that pre-inscribed meanings exists within narratives and will be revealed by retrospection, the structure of a network text does not provide an end point, and thus there no potential for this kind of conclusion. Rather, the focus is placed on the act of reading as a process of innovative interaction and interpretation: by subjectively interpreting the material basis of the transaction, the readers discourse with the text allows them to innovate a subjective meaning. Rather than placing focus on the task of unearthing a pre-inscribed, conclusive meaning the ethos of network navigation privileges the goal of recursive interpretation: the reader is obligated to constantly reassess their understanding of the narrative interface and establish private linearities.
However, destabilizing the concept of an explicitly inscribed objective meaning does not eliminate the reality of an implicitly inscribed meaning. While recursion may produce a subjective narrative discourse, the directives of that discourse are nonetheless pre-inscribed in the text itself. In reading any text, including networked ones, we must acknowledge that there is no truly objective material basis to discourse: only subjective readings of subjective writings, each with implicit addenda’s and contextual cultural frames. If we acknowledge that an act of imaginative, recursive reading enacts an implicit subversion of objectivity then we must also acknowledge that it is possible that the text itself enacts a subversion of the reader’s subjectivity. Indeed, the narrative interface, while promoting interpretative acts of navigation and innovation, also performs a subversion of the reader’s ability to truly innovate. For instance, while a reader returns to a node and is able to recursively re-interpret its meaning, the underlying material of that node is inscribed by the author, and thus the author’s intensions subvert the reader’s ability to innovate meanings.
This paradox of objectivity, which exists at the heart of network literature, performs a dialectic between oppositional paradigms 
: story and narrative; author and reader; subjectivity and objectivity; transcendence and inquiry. When placed in this context of discursive recursion, this discourse of critical interaction with Dave Ciccoricco's article razes a compelling question: what is the material basis of discourse; is it the reader, or the text, or is it an innovative discourse between the two?