Sunday, April 13, 2008

final project proposal - a few more details

For my final project I am going to attempt to figure out why Danielewski/Karen decided to pick the interview subjects that they did in chapter 15. Some of them are obvious, such as the architects and psychologists. The ones I would like to possibly look at are Douglas R. Hofstadter and Steve Wozniak.

Both Hofstadter and Wozniak are in the computer fields. Hofstadter studies computers(more research needed on him), and cognitive science. He teaches abstract ideas, but tries to make them as concrete as possible. I thought this was interesting because some questions in House of Leaves cannot have a concrete answer. Wozniak is a computer engineer. He is the co founder of Apple Computers.

I thought it was interesting that Danielewski chose these people for the interview section because I am still not sure how they relate to what is going on in the story. Why would he choose people that deal with computers among others that are involved in psychiatry, architecture, and writing? I was hoping to try to come up with some sort of idea as to why they are included here because they just don't seem to fit.

Two other people I could try to figure out are Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick. These may be easier to explain because Stephen King writes about horror, science fiction, and strange happenings(like the house). Kubrick makes films like this and has even turned one of Stephen Kings novels into a movie(The Shining).

Any other suggestions?

1 comment:

Adam Johns said...

One thing I meant to mention to you earlier is that Hofstader's book _Godel, Escher, Bach_ is probably the reason for his inclusion; I strongly suspect that that if you read a few chapters you'll get a good sense of why D would include him in the book.

As far as Wozniak, it's unfair to credit one person, _but_ if you are going to credit one person for the personal computer revolution it would probably be him.