Embedded Files
Room of Angel
"We started chatting. As it turned out, they were from Philadelphia and had been touring from coast to coast all summer. They called themselves Liberty Bell.
" 'Cracked. Get it?' howled the guitar player. Actually all three of them were pretty glib about their music, until I asked about 'The Five and a Half Minute Hallway'.
" 'Why?' the bass player said sharply, the other two immediately getting very quiet.
" 'Wasn't it a movie?' I stammered back, more than a little surprised by how fast the mood had just shifted.
"Fortunately, after studying me for a moment, presumably making one of those on-the-spot decisions, the drummer shook his head and explained that the lyrics were inspired by a book he'd found on the Internet quite some time ago. The guitar player walked over to a duffle bag lying behind one of their Vox amps. After digging around for a second he found what he was searching for.
" 'Take a look for yourself,' he said, handing me a big brick of tattered paper. 'But be careful,' he added in a conspiratorial whisper. 'It'll change your life.' "
--Chapter 21, pg 513
In so many words, this book can describe itself such as that:
"It'll change your life."
" 'We always look for doctors but sometimes we're lucky to find a frosh." (...) Not a bad way to respond to this whole fucking book, if you ask me."
"You didn't make this up, did you?"
"Dark."
"A riddle."
"Unheimlich."
"It's, well...one thing in two words: fucked up...very fucked up. Okay three words, four words, who the hell cares...very very fucked up."
This is House of Leaves. When I've tried to describe this book to friends, I can never really say much more meaningful, or indeed coherent, than "It changed my life." If you asked me what it means, I'd go with what Johnny Truant says of the work, "Fuck if I know. Your guess is as good as mine." What can one, anyone, say about the novel, other than it exists? On that much I, Johnny, Zampano, the unseen editors of the novel, Liberty Bell, Will Navidson, even Mark Danielewski the author, can agree on. Only that the book, and subsequently the house, exists.
Or does it?
In my limited space and ability, I'll give House of Leaves a try in a review, but the review in of itself, is but another part of the never-ending cycle of the book's legacy, its existence. I am one of many, not even the first and certainly (hopefully) never the last who have tried to quantify the book. My voice is one of a hundred, maybe thousands, of voices that are a part of the book, both inside the uneven and inexplicable cover, and outside of it. And through the mere act of writing about it, as many have before me (and as it turns out, some have NEVER, written about it), I hope to add my thread to the already spanning tapestry of the house. Hopefully, I'll have made that much clear.
Or as Johnny would say, "Fuck if I know."
At its core, House of Leaves is about a film, The Navidson Record, which is in turn about a house. A house inhabited by the Navidson family (if it can be called that), photographer Will Navidson, his companion-lover-whathaveyou Karen Green, his daughter Daisy, and his son Chad. Their house, inexplicably, is larger on the inside than it is on the outside, by about a quarter of an inch. This is echoed by the fact that the cover itself is short this miniscule amount, showing the cover page underneath.
House of Leaves is a story filtered through many eyes, a story of a house as seen by the owner with his cameras, which in turn is seen by Zampano (impossibly, one might argue, since Zampano is blind), which in turn is read about and further expounded on by Johnny's notes and story, which in turn is further edited by the nameless editors of the book you hold in your hands (and is a 2nd edition of a purportedly 1st edition that may or may not exist). If this book was water, it would be ultra-Brita filtered to its molecules.
5 1/2 Minutes
What I found to be especially challenging about House of Leaves is the fact that it starts so excruciatingly slow. Your intro from Johnny seems so long and unconnected to the story (whose story?), and only whets your appetite. The text is in huge blocks of academic sounding jargon of the film. But something will grab you: the explanation of the first teaser of The Navidson Record, "The Five and a Half Minute Hallway", which then dives into the short film "Exploration #4", the "trailer" for what would become the longer film.
Even from there, the story takes it sweet time getting to the "juicy" parts. Recall my review of K no Souretsu. I, by now, have no problem with slow start ups. I loved The Last Exorcism. Ah ha ha, je croirai toujours en moi.
Trust me. It gets better. If you're adventurous and spoiler-y, you've probably flipped through the book and seen some crazy ass shit. Bear with the start, the history of Navidson and Karen, the introduction of his brother Tom, the tidbits of action like Karen's scream, the hallway that threatens to swallow the children, the first explorations. These small tidbits early on are throughly detracted from by Johnny's long footnotes of his life as he goes through Zampano's manuscript, cushioned lovingly by excerpts of myths and critiques by other alleged views of the film. Trust me. It'll all be clear soon enough.
Ah ha ha. Or......IS IT?
Muss es sein? Narrative in the story is all over the place. With so many filters (Zampano, Johnny, etc), who really tells the story? Johnny's footnotes, in courier font, often take over the narrative, nearly taking over whole chapters, and while they often concern his own life and the exploits of his friend Lude, they also incorporate his research into who Zampano was, interviews and conversations with people who worked with him before he died. For most of the novel, you're consistently changing gears from Navidson's exploration of his house and Johnny's journey into what might seem madness.
Unreliable narrators. You've heard the term, when your narrator can often be less than completely truthful. Both narrators in The Heart of Darkness (Marlow and the unnamed narrator) are considered unreliable. Most will cite Johnny as the unreliable narrator; he's admitted in text to his additions and edits, things like Navidson's water heater, when Zampano only wrote the word "heater". In the cover page for the novel, a notecard in his typeface considered killing off the Navidson children, angling the story. A reader must wonder what Johnny is saying, what he's said before, and what he's discarded in his journey from Zampano's version to his, and ultimately the version you read in your hands.
On the other hand, shouldn't Zampano also be an unreliable narrator? He, after all, is blind and has been for many years. How can he have seen such a movie to write this critique of it? There is no mention of his being told of how the movie plays out, though there are certainly enough instances where he's been noted as being read to, and needing people to type out his manuscripts. How reliable can a blind man be when he's discussing a film?
The editors too must be considered, when one thinks about the glut of information that might have been present in Johnny's version. After all, he's let the editors know when to leave out information (the information concerning his father's surname, for instance). What else could have they left out? They seem to be more hands off than Johnny or Zampano, but in the end, they too have agendas, do they not? They have never met Johnny. Not in person.
Then again, they must know him all too well. We do, after all.
You're Not Here
Its been mentioned that a reader considered House of Leaves was a love story. Certainly, if the book can be considered a love story, then cannot not the supernatural thriller horror Paranormal Activity also be considered as such? Where PA reflects the breakdown of a relationship (a breakdown, certainly, of trust between Micah and Katie; as a wise woman has said, one cannot love if one cannot trust, and thus the lack of trust between them inevitably tore the couple apart in the most violent and terrible of ways), then House of Leaves too is a story of love, but inversely, the story of finding and obtaining love.
Perhaps now I'm blowing smoke up your asses. But its not outside the scope of the book. Its not just Karen and Navidson, I think the love story must also include Johnny too, and perhaps Zampano. Where are their loves, ("my dear Zampano, who did you lose?" asks Johnny's mother Pelafina)? Danielewski seems to be amused at the thought of House of Leaves being a love story.
If anything, its one hell of a love story. But then again, love makes one do stupid things. Even now, after centuries of stories of love gone wrong, love driving violence, love doing everything imaginable, we never seem to learn from our ancestors, our history and fiction. Don't fuck with a woman and cheat on her, or she'll kill your mistress, her father and your kids, like Medea did. Only fools rush into love, like Romeo and Juliet. People will do anything they can to attract the love of their life, even give up identity; sound familiar, Christian? Cyrano?
Think of this, my dear readers: House of Leaves, starring Bill Murray and Cameron Diaz, with Morgan Freeman as Billy Reston, a rollicking rom-com in the deadpan horror vein of Shaun of the Dead. Ha. Now stop skimming and trying to click on every link that isn't there.
Additionally, there is ONE HELL of a lot of sex in the book, mostly from Johnny's story, almost lovingly yet bluntly told from his point of view. Johnny's exploits with girls are sometimes told in lurid detail, yet they read like a saucy romance novel, sometimes poetically, sometimes forthright and unadorned with details "the the longest unzipping of [Johnny's] life". Its great stuff. 8D
Tu fui, ego eris, non sum qualis eram
Is it real? How can a book that straddles and blurs the line between fiction and non-fiction exist as both? Danielewski's work takes off in every direction, with its roots in fictional critiques of the work (Ken Burns, for example) and fictional music (Liberty Bell's "5 1/2 Minute Hallway"), and in reality's (Poe's music relates to directly. Not surprisingly as she and Danielewski are siblings). There are plenty of forums, discussions and papers on House of Leaves as a piece of fiction, not nearly as many (currently) as there are in-text.
The battles and debates rage on over the book, and will likely for years to come. But more than a book, House of Leaves is an experience. It scares people. It causes vertigo, nausea, paranoia. Your experience is not unlike Johnny's, not unlike what you assume Zampano's was. Half of this is the intense typography you'll encounter later in the book as things hit the proverbial fan, the other half is your own obsession to see where this book will end up. I have met those who will not read the book based on my inadequate descriptions of its narrative and...what ever else I can try to explain. In the end, the experience becomes less of an experience through reading, and more of an actual experience you will feel and remember for years to come.
This is the only novel I have ever read that, when I finished, I turned it over and started again. I don't do that very often. I usually need the grace period.
@_@ Wutypography
Um. Well. Just take a look. There isn't much more I can add than a Navi approach: "HEY LOOK".
I mean....WTF, right? This is the sexy stuff of the book, so you best be clicking full view. WHATDOESITMEAN?!
Well, sometimes, it doesn't mean much (or conversely, it means plenty), but on occasions, the text is a reflection of the narrative, such as the first page, where the text stretches and inverts or is printed upside-down from a corner. They illustrate actions such as the dimensions of the room stretching, a rope snapping, the vertigo Navidson feels traveling the labyrinth of his twisted house alone. Other times, like the example of text sitting smack dab in the center of the main body in a blue box (above, right), listing all these different furniture and home appliances that aren't there, terminating in a simple black box (left), and then a void where the box ought to be.
Suggesting, then, that the house, that SHOULD have all those things (heaters, vents, bathrooms, etc), does NOT have these things, that instead of having what a house should have (and should BE), this house has none of it, except, the unending, unyielding darkness, and in the end, nothing.
Unheimlich, plain and simple, as unheimlich as anything could ever be.
Let Be Be Finale of Seem
Most of Zampano's work on the manuscript is his own prose and narrative in his critical essay, though a great amount of work outside the footnotes in the main body are, like any other academic paper, full of citations and research regarding the film as well as academic sources on other theories and supportive claims on the points he makes in his essay (a substantial amount is on echoes early in the novel).
The work would read like so many dry academic papers if not for Zampano's artful narrative of the film and what goes on in it (and of course without the completely batshit insanity of the content), Johnny's narrative notwithstanding. There are so many commentaries, critiques, and reviews of The Navidson Record (as well as films Karen herself made during Navidson's final exploration into the house) that it seems almost like a college thesis.
And the jarring, hilarious, and sometimes sad reality of it is the wildly varying opinions of the work as a whole, from film critics, to art critic, to other authors, psychologists, the whole gamut of critics, are trying to MAKES SENSE of this bizarre film, this bizarre HOUSE. @_@ God, even I don't get it, and I'm a simple reader. But even some of those critics don't even know what it means.
Film critics divide themselves on the climax of the film, as Will Navidson begins to die from lack of everything (food, water, light, sensation, will, everything), these six minutes of black screen as he narrates. Michael Medved, viewing the film as cinema when it really isn't (critics further divide as to whether or not the house is even relevant; is the film a commentary of cinema, or merely commentary on something else, anything except for what it is: a house), is shocked and appalled. Kenneth Turan called it "a wonderful fiasco". Janet Maslin applauds is as a film "with cojones!".
Other critics focus on Karen, her phobia of the dark, her paralyzing claustrophobia, her dark past, and her present. Still others look for meaning in Navidson's editing, his choice in media, camera angles, even his limitations of his media. They argue whether or not the end of Holloway was due to a trick of light or a real monster in the walls of the house.
They all are scrambling, trying to find meaning in this bizarre work, trying to read it in such a way to walk away with something tangible. Unfortunately, the only thing you're going to walk away from is a mind blown
wide open. You can talk about it til the cows come home on a flying pig, but in the end, the only one who may truly know what the work MEANS is Danielewski, if that. In finding meaning, one can control the book, and yet the book itself will always defy true meaning. In the end, what do all the academics say? What CAN they say? What am I trying to say? They use the book's details to write these papers, trying to make sense of it all, ultimately disagreeing or agreeing, or in fact, coming to nothing. Is there a meaning?
If anything, the author Stephen King, when he viewed the rough cut of the film from Karen said "Symbols, shmimbols. Sure they're important but...Well, look at Ahab's whale. Now there's a great symbol. Some will say it stands for god, meaning, and purpose. Others say it stands for purposelessness and the void. But what we sometimes forget is that Ahab's whale was also just a whale."
"You didn't make this up, did you?" he asks. No, Karen didn't. Sometimes the house is a house, however terrible and murderous and impossible it may be. The book and the film, simply ARE. They are as they are, "let be be finale of seem" as the Emperor of Ice Cream may say. The house simply is.
This whole area used to be a sacred place
The legacy of the film, of the , seems to permeate and devour anyone who comes in contact with it. The characters of the book notwithstanding, there are countless others who have felt its power, drawn by this mystery, and continued the legacy into their own lives, further touching more people. House of Leaves is one part Silent Hill and one part Ring Virus, and one is never fully rid of the book once it takes hold (and anyone who denies it is either fooling themselves or outright lying). In fact, it wouldn't hurt to have future collaborators of the Silent Hill franchise to take a few lessons from House of Leaves (as well as a couple pages from another beloved yet underrated game Eternal Darkness).
The legacy of the novel in-text doesn't stop there, on the pages. The manuscript hints at operas dedicated to the film, with an aria for Karen at the climax. The appendices are riddled with works of art from sketches on envelopes to photos of houses, and collages, and other weird pieces from magazines and other artists (models, paintings, etc), offered in Appendix III, which has a note from the editors: "Contrary evidence".
And the artists that continue to make art and music based on the work, from Poe, to myself, and other fans, we too are a part of this legacy, adding to the unofficial appendices of the fan community. We are all a part of the book, whether we are conscious of it, or not.
Unsettling, no?
But, what can you say of House of Leaves, without ultimately having to explain it, its reasons for existence, how it came to be, how it straddles that fine line between what is real in reality, and what is fiction. What part, if any, of this book lies in fiction and which lies reality, when the book itself does not follow the rules of existence, even spatially, which is about the most I can really say it does. I touch it. It is here in front of me, on my desk, to the right of me as I type.
But is it really here, other than the signals that tell my sense of touch, through synaptic impulses, that there is a physical object here? Or am I a part of this book too, this winding, never ending thread of existence that wraps around and forms the book out of nothingness?
Or am I just full of shit, my dear lunies?
You tell me.
Fuck if I know.
--Dio (10/11/10)
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