Comprehending House of Leaves
House of Leaves is unlike any novel I
have ever read, and presents a challenge in deciphering the multiple stories
revolving around Zampanò’s writings. The Navidson
Record is a pretty straightforward mystery-horror story, but the way it is
presented along with Johnny Truant’s interjections give House of Leaves a different level of difficulty; a level that has
me sometimes asking myself “what the hell am I reading?” I’ve been noting pages
along the way that have confused me, but page 131 acts as a good representation
of all my issues with the book. This page details an example of Truant’s
hallucinations, his brief hookup with Ashley, a continuation of the upside down
list of names from previous pages, a “window” that is listing features the
Navidson house lacks, and a sideways footnote. Through further examination of
these details and reasons for their presentation and difficulty I hope to understand
the book better as a whole.
First, lets look at Johnny Truant.
As the story is progressing, he seems to be sinking more and more into a state
of delusion. This can be attributed to one of or a combination of three things:
working through Zampanò’s writings, his lifestyle, and/or his troubled
childhood. On page 131, he is visited by a ghost, which he first says is “a
seventeen year old (girl) with gold braided hair” that he “encountered many
years ago, maybe even in another life.” (Danielewski 131) He then goes on to
realize the voice is coming from the “domed ceiling” rather than a fixed point.
I understand why he is having these
hallucinations, but what is this one’s significance? One possible explanation is
that the girl is someone that he has mistreated or mistreated him. She could be
from his childhood buried in his sub-conscience, or a hookup gone wrong. Either
way, from the way she says his name there was obviously some sort of affection
between the two (Danielewski 130, 131). Truant keeps putting off talking about
a lot of his past, so this girl might be part of one of the unknown stories.
This unknown ghost could also be a manifestation of Ashley. His subconscious
may have been telling him to go meet her, if only for a random hookup. After
all, that is what he seems to enjoy doing with his life. The dome ceiling most
likely comes from Zampanò; referencing the Great Hall that Hollaway, Jed, and
Wax discover, and also the theme of architecture widely present in The Navidson Record.
As I came
across the giant list of names on the side of the pages in this section, I did
not pay much attention to them. They seemed irrelevant to what I was reading at
the moment and would not aid me in understanding the book anymore. After doing
some random sampling, the names seem to be a list of architects, which makes
sense because of the architecture theme. This still leads to the question, is
there a deeper meaning to this list? Looking at the house that Navidson and his
family reside, it has no set definition of architecture. The mysterious part of
the house seems to move on its own and the distances change depending on the
perception of the person exploring. The list comprises of many, many different
architects from across time that all probably have their own style. Perhaps the
correlation here is that all of the architects, when designing a building, have
different visions of what they are going to create just as those who explore
the Navidson house have their own perceptions of what they are looking for in
the house and what they actually find. Hollaway goes into the house with the
clear intent of hunting the monster so that is what he thinks he sees. Reston and Navidson go in for the rescue
wanting to get to the lost party as fast as possible, so they want to see the
staircase as being small as opposed to the previous explorers who were looking
for the unknown, which caused the staircase to be massive. The architects want
to see a, for example, a gothic style building so that is actually what they
are going to design. The windows apparent on these pages could also go along
with the architecture theme. They list features that the house does not have with
increasing complexity from page to page. This is most likely a reference to the
increasing complexity of the house as it continues to grow into a
labyrinth. However, they are different
kinds of complexity. The house keeps growing, but it is more of the same (bleak
and ashy rooms and hallways) while each feature on the window would add
something different to the house. I think this is just a way of exemplifying
the bleakness and twisted nature of the house. The explorers and the Navidson
family may desire all the furnishings and supplies on the list, but the house
is going to keep messing with them by giving them more of the same; they will
never truly find what they are looking for.
The
footnote content merely seems to be a simple citation. What is more important
to me is its orientation as well as the arrangement of the rest of the page.
Efficiency is obviously not the intent of the arrangement. The author wants us
to turn it sideways for the footnote and upside down for the architects, but why?
A similar approach was used in the beginning of Jimmy Corrigan, Smartest Kid in the World. Chris Ware used it to
signify that something was different, something was off and that the reader
should definitely take notice of the first few pages of Jimmy’s past (Ware).
What is Danielewski trying to get us to notice? The arrangement is possibly
trying to call attention to the randomness of the Navidson house. Walls are
always moving and distances are always changing, which confuses anyone who
dares to enter it. Upside down, sideways, and backwards writing also give a
sense of disorientation to the reader. The difficulty in understanding the
material along with the arrangement of text on the pages were probably
Danielewski’s way of trying to get us to feel what the explorers were feeling;
confusion and disorientation.
I’m
extremely grateful I picked this prompt. Analyzing the material on just one
page has helped me get in the right mindset for the rest of the book. I now
understand that the difficulty of the material is not to deter the reader, but
to compliment the actual story. We were meant to ask questions and think about
the arrangement of text, and the significance of seemingly random ghosts or
lists of names and materials, not simply bypass it and consider it
insignificant.
References
Danielewski, Mark. House of
Leaves. 2nd. New York: Pantheon Books, 2000. Print.
2 comments:
Your explanation as to what the content of the passage means is very good. When discussing Truant's story about the girl, or ghost, that he refers to as Ashley, you miss a part of the passage where the girl (which I presume to be Ashley or who Johnny believes to be her, although his wording is unclear) tells the story of how they met in Texas, only for him to confide in the reader that he's never been there. This could work towards your argument that his troubled childhood is pulling him into insanity, as he ends up with a girl that obviously isn't who he thought she was all on the pretense that she is possibly Ashley. You may well read the passage differently (one of the best properties of the book), so I might be wrong here, but I feel like that portion of Johnny's footnote is too large to ignore outright. Another thing that could have been expanded upon is the presence of the "windows" on each adjacent page. You mention that they reference the book's architectural themes, but the irony that they appear to seemingly decorate the labyrinth of pages that is meant to mirror the Navidson's house is something that could be worth examining if you decide to possibly use this as a starting point for you final project. All that being said, I still think that your examination of how the difficult content and formatting works in the novel's favor is very good.
Your first paragraph is oddly vague about what, exactly, you find to be so difficult. I'm not saying that you're wrong, or choosing poorly - I'm just saying your focus could have been clearer.
The section about the domed ceiling refers to a school he attended as a child - I'm not sure how important it is, but there it is. I could care less that you're arguably misreading this passage, but note that you're focused on explaining it, rather than on focusing on what, exactly, makes it difficult. If something is truly difficult, rushing too hastily into explanations might not be desirable.
I'm fine with your reading/intrepretation of the list of architects, but it remains on a rather vague, general level, and I question whether it's really best to tackle this together with the material in the previous paragraph *unless* you want to work on explaining how they're connected. In any case, I still think you're leaping too quickly to explaining the text - if it's truly difficult, the explanations shouldn't be this easy.
In the last couple paragraphs, you retreat away from having any precise argument or even focus. Your explanations of what's happening on this page are fine (some are better, some worse) - but you try to explain too much all at once, without really asking about the difficulty itself. Explaining difficult material is not the same thing as explaining why it is difficult, if that makes sense.
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