Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Informal - House of Leaves

Adam wasn't kidding when warned us about this book at the very beginning of class.  My initial thoughts on the book are as follows:

I'm in love with how the book is written - using two voices by incorporating fictional footnotes is brilliant.  Basically I like how he pushes the conventional boundaries of the novel medium.

This story reminds me of Mulholland Drive.  Probably because it takes place in LA and its just as messed up at the Lynch film.

Secondly, I wish normal stories could be told in this way.  I feel that I'm missing a lot because these stories (Jimmy/House) are foreign to me.  Like I'm concentrating on the delivery method much more than story.  

And to be honest, I think with a logical mind, and I like to be able to figure all the idiosyncrasies out, but with how odd these stories are I'm having a hard time.  Maybe I need more literary training.

2 comments:

Adam Johns said...

Mulholland Drive is a nice point of comparison; for my part, I'd add that some of the disturbing spaces Lynch & co. portray in Twin Peaks are at least equally apropos.

You raise an interesting point, by wishing that a "normal" story was told this way. How do form and content relate here? Is a horror story particularly suitable to this new (or at least carefully designed, to refer to Erika's post) form?

sean said...

Yeah, I agree with what Erica said. Actually it helps me make sense of these two books a little bit. I could say almost superficially that the alien form reflects the strange content.

My suggestion would to incorporate this interesting synthesis of voices with the footnotes with something normal. For example, (detective genre) why not have the story be about a detective find a memoir of a wanted serial killer? The detective could then comment on the story from his point of view.

Or you could synthesis the views in a 'comic book' story. You could somehow convey both Superman's voice and Lex Luther's.