Project Proposal

Blog 8 – Final Project Proposal

            Since the beginning of the semester when the class was first informed about the final projects, I’ve had a story in my head. As soon as we were told that our final projects could be creative, but needed to somehow reflect the views of the class as a whole, it began to form. It has literally just been squatting in my imagination since day one. Now is the chance for it to finally leave my psyche.

            To summarize, in the far future humans will be encased in metal for their protection, like robots (or Cybermen). In this world there is a girl who becomes curious about the way things used to be, slowing becoming more and more disconnected from the world in which she was born into. It is not fully developed in my brain. I was fearful that something might get in the way of it actually coming out, whether it was a new final project format or just a new, easier idea from me. But luckily neither of those things happened.

            Much of what has been discussed in class comes off as an “outside looking in” perspective on technology (with the exception of Neuromancer and possibly Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) But in this story I want to try and capture an “inside looking out” view. I want to argue that technology is not necessarily a bad thing, but that it is not quite enough. For instance, I personally do not see technology as a bad thing, and tend to embrace it’s growing position in our every day lives. That being said, I would prefer to make friends face-to-face, not face-to-screen. I would prefer to give someone a hug or a handshake than text them a winky face emoticon. I’m glad to have technology in my life, but it is not the only thing I want in my life. I’m hoping to write a story that shows this perspective. The girl in this story is not Frankenstein’s monster, or an android that needs to be retired. She’s essentially me with a hard exoskeleton.

            Writing this will be hard. I understand that writing a creative essay is going to take a lot more work, and willpower to complete than a traditional essay would require. I’m not exactly tackling this project because I feel like I would do better on it than if I went the less creative route. I just really need to write this story, and I need some sort of pressure to do it, because on my own I just get too distracted. I know it is not the easy way to go, but I think for me it will be a more honest way. I could churn out a decent essay exploring the literature and themes addressed over the course of the semester, but then it would just be another essay I need to do. But with the story, it can be a bit more than that.

This is what I'm supposed to post, right?

            For my final project, I would like to continue focusing of the relationship between Marcuse’s One Dimensional Man and superheroes. Essentially, I would like to focus on how superheroes (specifically Batman and Superman) are held up as heroes within our literary tradition but, in reality, serve as agents of a corrupt, failing system. This is where Marcuse comes in. I will discuss the aspects of the society which Marcuse criticizes and how some of our better known comic book icons bolster them. After that, I will focus on specific villains and anti-heroes from our comic book tradition (The Joker from The Dark Knight and the Watchmen, respectively) and discuss how they are true agents of justice, using Marcuse’s philosophy as background. I have done similar work to this before in class but will look to expand my focus from simply certain characters as disruptive figures that question society’s morals (though that will still be a significant aspect of the project). In this project, I will look to include Marcuse’s ideas of governing bodies controlling the technology of a society for their own ends and the “happy consciousness.”

            As I have thought more and more about this project, I have decided that a powerpoint would be the most effective way to execute it. I would not arrange it as a simple presentation but would have slides introducing extended comic panels or video clips, followed but several written slides discussing their significance. This way, I could segment the project, separating Marcuse’s ideas into their own separate sections and give the visual aids a prominent place while minimizing technical difficulties. I want the project to be somewhat interactive and feel that this idea is a good way to accomplish that.

Proposed bibliography:

-        Watchmen by Alan Moore

-        The Dark Knight

-        The Dark Knight Rises

-        One Dimensional Man by Herbert Marcuse

-        Various Superman and Avengers Comics as yet not decided upon

Project Proposal! RPG!

Project Proposal.

I would like to do an RPG that uses Marcuse and comments primarily on the domination of nature, and the quantification of science, and how greatly this impacts our nature of conservation.

1.       Bibliography: Marcuse is going to be on there (of course), and this research http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/358/1439/1863.short - I also need to find some more indirect research to shape how the science is going to work out in refrences.

This idea can work well in this format because I have an entire mini-world and towns to play with. By altering what a forest looks like, I can make it more into a maze, by creating events and cut scenes, I can manipulate almost everything. There are already a lot of plant based enemies in the game database itself, and that would work well to counter-argue the issue of us dominating the ecosystem. We just do not know everything yet, and can heavily alter (or in this case have mutant flesh eating plants) ecosystems by pesticides and other manipulators including GMOs (genetically modified organisms). And then this alteration soon becomes detrimental for us.

I want to make this world in the transition of this quote:

Surely, the world of their predecessors was a backward. pre-technological world, a world with the good conscience of inequality and toil, in which labor was still a fated misfortune; but a world in which man and nature were not yet organized as things and instrumentalities. With its code of forms and manners. with the style and vocabulary of its literature and philosophy. this past culture expressed the rhythm and content of a universe in which valleys and forests, villages and inns, nobles and villains, salons and courts were a part of the experienced reality. In the verse and prose of this pre-technological culture is the rhythm of those who wander or ride in carriages. who have the time and the pleasure to think, contemplate, feel and narrate.

The art style reflects this idea very well. There are still swords and archery and ‘magic’ – which I need to change into ‘biosynthesis’ – to keep with the nature theme. I like that. That’s staying in there. So its going to look like that world, but it is going to be altered. Science is going to be there, all of the shops are going to be corporations (Brother in Arms Inc, etc.) Yet all of the people can still freely talk to a stranger and not have too much thought into it.

I can also go onto fun side-quest/regular quest tangents that would seem more haphazard in an essay, but absolutely fine in an RPG, like for instance: I can have quick break-off into another subject which has a limited field of discussion, but could work well (I’m still fleshing out the story-line).

 

So a bullet list of Goals and quotes!

1.       Ability to conflict and confirm with Marcuse’s ideas on our empowerment over nature

2.       Talking about the quantification of science, and possibly into a tangent of the religious aspect of this world as well (just a small quip).  Think chapter six such as

“The quantification of nature, which led to its explication in terms of mathematical structures, separated reality from all inherent ends and, consequently, separated the true from the good, science from ethics. No matter how science may now define the objectivity of nature and the interrelations among its parts, it cannot scientifically conceive it in terms of "final causes."” - Marcuse

3.       Also want to talk about a quote that I loved “this nation of the essential neutrality of science is also ex- tended to technics. The machine is indifferent toward the social uses to which it is put. provided those uses remain within its technical capabilities.” Having enemies have the same magical attacks as the character, having ‘good’ and ‘evil’ fighting with the same weapons. Oh, and still having Marcuse as a dragon.

Trust me, at this point, this is a lot more ambitious. My world is going to be a pre-tech Marcuse that is transitioning into regular technology and having effects on both the enemies and just everything about that world. Its going to be awesome!

“Defining and Using the Unexplainable: Investigating Scientific Control through the Hallway in House of Leaves.” – Taylor Hochuli: Blog Essay #8, Prompt #1

                Is it wise to try and explain the unexplainable? It seems paradoxical, but this thinking has led to scientific revolutions. Gravity was once unexplainable, but has now been mastered by Newton’s physics and Einstein’s General Relativity. The arrangements of the night sky were once unexplainable (except in myth), but were conquered by astronomers who began the massive task of mapping the universe. This mastery of nature by science has made production skyrocket and advanced civilization to the technological universe of today. However, Herbert Marcuse points out that this mastery of nature has also been turned into a way of domination. Natural things are now seen as just tools for production and are completely broken down by science just to be used. Such ideas are projected onto a mysterious hallway that appears in Will Navidson’s house in the book House of Leaves. Upon its discovery, both Will and his colleagues try to classify and explain this phenomenon with no success. Even during this attempted classification, the characters each look to use the hose for their own aims, just as predicted by Marcuse. The classification and domination of Nature described by Marcuse is directly reflected by the treatment of the mysterious hallway by Navidson, Holloway, and others commenting on the footage.

                Natural objects such as coal and oil used to be just defined as interesting geological items, but are now simply seen as fuel sources. The conquering of nature makes all things defined by their “potential instrumentality.” (Marcuse 1964) Marcuse argues that science is now centralized about operationalism rather than more transcendent goals (Marcuse 1964). From the very appearance of the hallway in the Navidson Record, it is used by the characters for their own goals. Will Navidson begins his filming project of settling down with his family in a house in Virginia to become more acquainted with his family. This decision comes based on an ultimatum by Will Navidson’s partner, Karen, who wants him to give up risking his life for his career as a photographer. Once the doorway appears, Navidson simply uses it to continue his risky travels and defy Karen’s insistence that he settle down with his family. This becomes evident since Navidson directly goes against Karen’s request for him to not go into the hallway by going off to film Exploration A. This occurs again when Holloway finds the staircase in the great hall, seeing Navidson angrily pass off the radio to Reston as he is angry that “he has been deprived of the right to name what he inherently understands as his own” (pg. 85, Danielewski 2000). When Navidson goes into the hallway after Holloway, he is described as being, “joyful, even euphoric” after sulking at the transmissions of Holloway (pg. 153, Danielewski 2000). Navidson does not view the hallway as a threat and does not theorize about it, he just wants to use it in order to get out his adventurous impulses.

When the explorer Holloway encounters the hallway, he sees his claim to fame much like Navidson. He approaches the house as a “conquistador landing on new shores” intending to dominate and control whatever lies inside (pg. 80, Danielewski 2000). He seeks to make a mark on history through this discovery and exploration, and will do anything to achieve that goal. This is shown when Holloway nearly cuts his line to the outside world in Exploration #1 to proceed further into the house, not being satisfied with just the Great Hall that Navidson has also discovered (pg. 84, Danielewski 2000). During the fourth expedition, Holloway takes the growling noise in the space to be a sign that there is a “definitive creature, thus providing him with something concrete to pursue” (pg. 124, Danielewski 200). Ultimately, upon not finding anything, Holloway goes crazy and attacks him team as well as Navidson and Reston when they try to rescue Wax and Jed. The nature of Holloway up to his suicide in the infinite hallway shows how he was trying to just use the hallway. Rather than just accepting the fact that his explorations were historical, Holloway wants something significant to be in the hallway. If he overlooks something that is later discovered, he will lose claim to it and that is not acceptable. Holloway sees this expedition allowing his, “company [to] thrive, to say nothing of the reputations” of his team (pg. 91, Danielewski 2000). He simply uses the explorations as a means to an end rather than reveling in the chance to explore this physics defying space.

Not only is this natural (or rather supernatural) hallway simply used by these characters, it is also the subject for relentless scientific classification. Marcuse explains that part of technological domination includes a classification of things through science. This “universal quantifiablility” is used to keep people within a certain line of thought and not consider what objects are beyond their definition (Marcuse 1964). In order to achieve this, everything in the universe is given a “measurable quantity” and intensely classified to create the illusion of complete control (Marcuse 1964). The hallway becomes the object of classification in many ways throughout the book House of Leaves. Preceding the hallways appearance, the house also creates a room one day when Navidson and his family returns home from a trip. This room is confusing and cannot be explained, so Will and Karen take the, “most rational course: they acquire the architectural blueprints” (pg. 29, Danielewski 2000). This is rational because the blueprint outlines the architecture that is organized and quantifiable. Later, there is a discrepancy from the measurement of the room on the inside of the house from the outside of the house. Extensive measures are then taken by Will, Tom, and Reston in order to correct this measurement since it is not quantifiable. The book explains that this is a riddle that cannot be solved and since science has determined that the measurements must be equal (pg. 33, Danielewski 2000). This shows the characters attempts to control this unnatural development because it must be quantifiable by our society’s standards.

Later in the book where Holloway is on his fourth exploration of the hallway, writer Zampanó points out that there are no architectural elements that define the hallway and there is “not one object, let alone fixture or other manner of finish work” (pg. 119, Danielewski 2000). This spurs on lists and lists of both architectural configurations and fixtures that we are acquainted with, but do not apply to the house. Zampanó discusses Palladian grammar and its attempt to “organize space through a series of strict rules” (pg. 120, Danielewski 2000). This organization does not apply to the hallway, but both the system and examples of architecture point out how science has turned space into a highly classified object. The hallway is so foreign because it resists the classification of either objects or architecture that society requires us to comprehend. Without the immediate ability to classify the hallway, the explorers are made to question the very existence of the hallway itself and break the technological control of scientific organization. This attempt to classify the hallway also reappears when Karen shows a tape of the hallway to Architect and Structural Engineer Jennifer Antipala whose job it is to classify these sorts of spaces. Karen is searching for meaning in the house, but Jennifer directly says that her questions about the architecture are “not exactly concerned with the meaning” of the hallway (pg. 355, Danielewski 2000). She goes on to try and hypothesize about the house’s soil bearing capacity, gravity, and load-bearing capacity of the walls. This treatment of a meaningful object in a strictly scientific way shows how this need to classify everything makes people like Jennifer skip over the meaning of anything in favor of making the object conform to science. Such lack of meaning is found by Will and Holloway since they seek to classify the hallway as well, skipping over the meaning of the hallway for just its use.

Works Cited

Danielewski, Mark Z. House of Leaves. New York: Pantheon, 2000. Print.

Marcuse, Herbert. One Dimensional Man. Boston: Beacon, 1964. Print.

My Computer Rises from the Dead!

After spending a criminal amount of money on a new fan for my computer, it finally came back to life so I could finish last week's essay.

Infinite, Impossible Space

          Chapter nine of House of Leaves carries one question with it: How the hell do I read this? Amidst a seemingly endless footnote, there are squares of separate text, some read left to right, others bottom to top. It is, in a word, a mess. A dense, incomprehensible mess. But, amidst all of the chaos, there might just be method behind Mark Danielewski’s apparent madness.

            John Brownlee of wired.com wrote, “House of Leaves by Mark E. Danielewski is the progenitor of what I hope will be an entire movement: the metaphysical horror novel, where horrible ideas are explored with nauseous dread. In House of Leaves' case, the idea is explored in infinite, impossible space.” It was not until I read his article: “How Not to Read House of Leaves” that Danielewski’s methodology began making sense to me. Well, I should not that it made sense to me (because it drives me up a tree whenever I try to read it) but it did help me understand what the author was trying to do.

In one sense, the nontraditional page orientation of chapter nine, at least pages 119 – 152, is meant to disconcert. The plot of House of Leaves is that of a rather simple horror film. Therefore, a literal, visceral feeling of dread is a must if the reader will ever truly understand the horror of the events transpiring. However, without the images and sounds that accompany a film and make an audience frightened and uncomfortable, this is hard to achieve. Danielewski’s response to this problem was to create nontraditional (absolutely insane would be more appropriate) page structures that disorient a reader, making them lose track of details, and most of all, putting them right in the middle of all of the insanity. I liken chapter nine to the movie Fight Club. The scene in which it is revealed to Everyman that he and Tyler Durden are one and the same utilizes fast paced flashbacks, quick camera shifts, and scattershot dialogue to create a feeling of chaos in the scene. The viewer does not just see but can feel everyman’s insanity. That is what Danielewski has achieved in the visual craziness of chapter nine. Writing the process of insanity is an exceedingly difficult one, one that, if executed poorly, only detracts from the work. Rather than swing for the fences but miss spectacularly, Danielewski chose to show the reader his book’s insanity instead of simply telling the reader that his main character might be losing his mind. Readers can see the madness of The Navidson Record for themselves and consequentially, can tell why it is making Johnny crazy. In the end, this complex exchange is extremely effective.  

            Danielewski has replaced the cheap tricks of the horror genre with a much more genuine feeling of insanity. He uses his page structures as opposed to monsters or serial killers to bring out the readers’ fear. Fear, of what though?

House of Leaves is many things, not the least of which is a chronicle of Johnny going insane (at least in his own mind). The reader witnesses his descent first hand but, when presented with sections such as chapter nine, the reader becomes a part of it. As disorientation abounds, combined with the unfamiliarity of that which they are seeing, their mind is left vulnerable to fear. Fear, perhaps, that they are the one going insane? The chaos of the chapter left me questioning my own mind after bushwhacking my way through it, the strangeness of it all taking its toll. In the context of having read the greater story, a reader may begin to feel absorbed by The Navidson Record, dragged to their doom by it just like Johnny. If that is what Danielewski was going for (and I believe he was), it certainly gives a reason behind the book’s orientation.

            To take the idea of the chapter’s page orientation one step further, one should examine the feeling of the Navidson Record. It is vast and empty (despite is mass of content), filled with more twists and turns than The Silmarillion. It is purposefully complicated, leading the reader on a goose chase to ultimately be about nothing. With that in mind, the orientation of chapter nine, which is primarily a footnote, seems appropriate. While Zampano takes the reader’s mind for a literary spin in one direction, Danielewski pulls it in another. He wanted to impress upon the reader the utter insanity and ultimate pointlessness of The Navidson Record. Just as it makes a reader feel robbed, wronged, and strangely obsessed, the purposeful page layout makes you feel like a chore – one you must get through because you feel that its gratification is tantalizingly close. But the gratification never comes. As each avenue that the Navidson Record explores only leads to another one, so too does the page layout of chapter nine only lead to deeper visual insanity.

            In the end, the page setup of chapter nine serves more to make the reader feel the story emotionally that it does to further it in a literary sense. Some might see this as a waste of time but I disagree. In ten years, I will not remember what Johnny did or who he had sex with in chapter whatever-it-was. I will remember that House of Leaves made me uncomfortable, confused me, and even lead me to question my own sanity. Reactions such as that are why Mark Danielewski set up the book how he did.

PS: Does anyone know why the spacing gets messed up when I paste long pieces into the comment box?

Questions/Comments on Danielewski/Marcuse Week 3

As always, post your questions & comments in response to this thread.

Prompts for the Next Two Weeks

Option 1: Theory

Use Heidegger, Marcuse, or Dreyfus (less obvious) - showing good knowledge of your critical source, and making use of specific passages - to make a coherent argument about some aspect of Danielewski. If you wish, you are welcome to engage with Danielewski’s own use of Heidegger, though if you do so you need to read enough of the surrounding material in Heidegger’s Being and Time to make sense of it.

The details of the argument are up to you.

Option 2: Music

Do the musical option (relating to the album by Danielewski’s sister) from last week’s options.

Option 3: Project Proposal

If you wish, you may do your project proposal this coming week instead of the following week. Note that the following description of final projects if both extensive and incomplete

Note: the default format for a final project is an essay. You don’t need to do an essay! You can create a video game, comic book, interactive essay, mock blog, etc., etc. (people have done all of these in the past). But you should read and understand the “normal” requirements first, so you can explain why using some alternative form will allow you to do better/different work.

Final Project Proposal Guidelines for Essays:

Write a proposal for your final project. This proposal might be a little shorter than our usual blog entries (it should still be more than a page long, however). It must include the following:

1. A bibliography (see below for the number of sources) of your proposed sources, with a sentence or two each regarding how you plan to use those sources. This does not need to be a final list - you are just demonstrating the viability of the project.
2. A clear statement of your proposed argument, or a limited number of alternative arguments, or a clear question which is intended to lead directly to an argument. This should include the following:
   1. A clearly stated counterargument to your position stated in (2) above, or a discussion of why your question in (2) above is a reasonable way to generate an argument.
   2. A clear statement of why your reader should care about this argument. It might have small or large significance, but it should be clear why you think it’s worth making.
3. A clear statement of the role that Marcuse, Heidegger, or Dreyfus (or possibly Joy, if you can make a case for him) will play in your essay, including a discussion of at least one passage from the appropriate work. It is not an absolute requirement, but it is a strong guideline, to include this theoretical component in your essay.
4. If you are revising an earlier draft (again, see below), a paragraph explaining, with specifics, what you plan to keep and what you plan to change, and why. If you are not revising an earlier draft, just explain your argument at greater length.

You can use an outline, or just a regular text document, or a mix of the two. You will be evaluated on this plan, as with any other blog entry.

Broad Final Project Goals

Your final project should offer a serious contribution to the work of the class. It should show both that you understand our collective work, and that you have have your own direction or role within it (although this might even take the form of a challenge). You should have a clear, interesting, and worthwhile argument, which you make using both external sources and texts which we read as a class. Ideally, you will draw on your own individual strengths and interests in this project (including, for instance, material from your own fields of study). You may either begin a project from scratch or revise one of your existing essays, including existing revisions. You should ideally do work which interests you, and which you feel contributes in some way to the class as a whole.

Specific Final Project Requirements:

1. Your essay must be at least 8 pages long, including at least 5 pages of new material (if you are revising). 8 pages is sufficient; I prefer that you not go above 12 pages, but this is preference, not a requirement.
2. Your project must include at least 2 additional academic sources (generally, academic books and journal articles) beyond any that you might have used in an earlier revision. If you feel that you’re best off with non-academic sources, please discuss that preference with me. You should, however, do as much research as your argument requires.
3. Your project must include some close readings of particular passages from at least one literary figure we have read collectively. Some projects, though, will need more close reading than others. Some highly research-oriented projects may do relatively little; some may revolve primarily around close readings.
4. Your project must make sustained use of either Marcuse, Heidegger, or Dreyfus. This does not mean that you need to agree with them, however. “Sustained use” does not mean that this critic needs to dominate your argument; they do, however, need to be part of the conversation, and you do need to show a good understanding of one of them.
5. You should display a good understanding of all of your chosen texts, as well as of any relevant class discussions. I don’t expect perfection, and I do expect differences of opinion, but I also expect you to know your material.
6. Your project should make a single sustained argument from the first sentence to the last. This does not mean you cannot make use of any tangents, nor does it mean that you must continually remind us of where you are, at a particular moment in your project, within the larger argument. Your goals and direction should, nonetheless, by clear, even if they might sometimes become subtle.
7. Think of this as your lasting contribution to the class, and your opportunity to teach something to

I’m sure questions will arise about all of the above; I’ll do my best both to answer questions you raise in comments, and to revise as needed.

Final Project Proposals for Non-Essay Projects:

If you want to do something other than an essay, you should be ready to work harder, with an even clearer purpose, than those doing a conventional project.

Thus, I expect a 1–2 page description of your goals, of why you want to do something in the chosen form, of your argument (even creative projects, for this assignment, need to have something like an argument), with a paragraph explaining in detail why you expect to do better, more ambitious work by doing creative or formally unusual work rather than an essay.

Prompt 1 - Why? Karen Knutson

In House of Leaves, there is a phenomenon in the house in which there is an area that constantly changes in size, shape and direction, completely independent of the other parts of the house. People get lost and even are to the brink of death trying to ascertain why this is happening, or possibly to find an end. However, there is no end, or if there is one, no one has found it.  There are a series of questions on pages 172 to 174 asking fundamental questions of the book that have no definite answers. Such as “Can Navidson’s house exist without the experience of itself?”

This question is posted almost like, “If a tree makes a sound, can you hear it?” in which there are two possible answers, but no solvable outcome. Either a) you accept the fact that the only thing in this haunted house that is existing is tangible and only the tangible parts that can be experienced exist, or b) due to the abyss of the room that basically becomes a cave, all of it exists, even though it can’t be experienced because it is forever changing. One of the main issues is,  once there is an experience, the physical becomes only a memory and then that section of the house takes on a whole new form. So once something is experienced, it can never be fully experienced again in the same fashion.

 

There are also two quotes on the previous page, made by the same man, that have the same conflict. One is, “architecture comes into being only when experienced” and the other “Architectural space certainly exists independently of the causal perceiver, and has centers and directions of its own” (Danielwinski 170-171). So even this person, fictions or not, cannot come up with a suitable answer because they are also dealing with the same issue. These quotes are almost saying that Navidson’s experience of the architecture will be different than  Reston’s experience, but it almost doesn’t matter because the architecture stands alone. It is the experience maker, not the other way around.

 

Then there is the added layer of that hidden question that is constantly churning within (at least my) mind of why and what. Why is this house behaving like it is and what specifically is causing it? It’s rather obvious that science has been thrown out the window and cannot aid the answer to this question, so then we need to turn to the metaphysical and spiritual ways, which still may not answer the issue. So far in the novel, a suitable answer hasn’t come up other than ‘movie magic’ which has been debunked because it would take an enormous amount of money; money that the Navidson’s didn’t have. So are we dealing with ghosts, demons, intergalactic aliens… we don’t know, and may never know throughout the course of this novel. The answer may just never show, just as the answer of the existence of the house cannot be fully answered.

 

The difficulty is in the unknown of the answer, which seems to be prevalent throughout the novel. We don’t even know if this section of narrative is entirely true because of Johnny Truant’s interpretation of the mess he found in Lorenzo’s house. There are entire chunks of Zampano’s work that we can be missing and not even know, and we are even missing some of Johnny’s writing for some, of course, unknown reason. Maybe its possible that we just need to accept this unknown, because this could have had an explanation, but we may never find it because Zampano burnt it. This question just goes into a void that cannot fully be thought through at this point because we do not have enough information of anything to make a conclusion, or in the words of Johnny Truant on footnote 206, “which you are quite right to observe makes no sense at all” (Danielewski 169).

Blog 7, Prompt 1

House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski is not a book for the fair weather traveller. It is not a tale for those wanting something easy to read while they lie by the pool. This is not a story for those who are easily dissuaded by the difficulty of a book’s contents. The dedication page says it all, “this is not for you.” (Danielewski). This book does everything in its power to discourage the reader from moving forward. Between its contents, its format, its strange way of moving the story forward. A single confusing passage could be discussed for hours trying to disentangle its content from its format, or diction, or organization. Yet making even a little headway could potentially help a reader better understand the book as a whole. Zampano’s discussion on the labyrinth that entrapped that Minotaur of legend is one such passage. (Danielewski 109-110, footnote 123).

The brief passage gives a cursory description of the myth of the Minotaur that King Minos had constructed by Daedalus. The footnote that follows describes Zampano’s interpretation of the myth, that the Minotaur was in fact King Minos’ deformed child that he had locked away without actually locking the child away. The content on a base level is not hard to understand. What makes this passage infuriating is that the entirety of it has been crossed out, all the way done to the citations. Before this myth is mentioned, Zampano is talking about mazes and other labyrinths, making the inclusion of this perfectly acceptable, and, considering the widespread knowledge of the belief, almost expected. Yet not only did Zampano make the choice to leave this information out, but future editors (Johnny Truant included) decided that for some reason it belonged in. Why leave it in at all?

The brief passage and the footnote take opposing sides. The passage describes what most people believe, while the footnote is about Zampano’s belief. Originally, Zampano decided to include two separate perspectives on the same topic, and in the end decided to take both of them away. This seems to resonate with how the rest of the book should be read. There is always two perspectives behind a story as it is being read: the author’s and the reader’s. These do not always coincide. In a book like House of Leaves, it makes perfect sense. Danielewski could not possibly expect that a book like the one he has written here would get readers to the same point that he had in his head when he began constructing it. There is more than one way out of the labyrinth.

But if the meaning behind the passage is to give permission to the reader to form their own opinion, why cross it out? Why not have its message unmarred so that it rings out loud and true? A person’s desire to absorb and critically think about knowledge is often increased if the information is presented in a way that gets the person thinking. When information is presented in an atypical manner, curiosity can get the better of us. This inclusion of the myth could have just been another part to a boring discussion on architecture and its relation to the mysterious house. Most likely a reader would skim through this information until they once again reached the juicy, exciting plot. Instead he/she is faced with a page of crossed out text, causing them to stop and try and figure out what makes this crossed out text so important. On the surface it is just about King Minos and his son/prisoner the Minotaur, but it has to be more than that. It is only when the format is related to the first seven words of the footnote, “At the risk of stating the obvious…” that is begins to make more sense. (Danielewski 110).

The myth of the Minotaur and the labyrinth could be so simple and obvious, but it is not necessarily, just like the tale of the House on Ash Tree Lane. The tale spun here could be taken at face value: an interesting account of a horror story and how the characters dealt with their struggles into an unknown. Or like the twisted pathways and unending staircases of the house, you can go deeper into the labyrinth. This story is not going to be about a monster trapped away to feed on the innocent, and with one mighty swing of a sword will be dispatched by a hero. Danielewski wants you to expect more than a heroic tale.

Danielewski aims to confuse and confound. He wants us to twist and turn down these pages until we don’t know where we are like some literary pin the tail on the donkey. But that could be the point of it all. He gets us lost so we can find our way out on our own, using our own compass, following our own myths. He may stop and try to remind us that the obvious is not always the answer, but more than one perspective is right. Otherwise, we’re finding our own way out of the 5 minute hallway.

“The Straining Nature of Chaos: Connecting ‘House of Leaves’ with Poe’s ‘5 & ½ Minute Hallway’” – Taylor Hochuli: Blog Essay #7, Prompt #3

                Putting oneself in danger both affirms one’s life and denounces it at the same time. The glory involved in stunts as climbing Mt. Everest or going into space seems to outweigh the risks…as long as one survives the danger.  Such a paradox of daring is investigated in Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, a book both critiquing and describing a haunted house home movie. In the book, several fictional writers edit and inspect this (also fictional) movie as they begin to experience hauntings themselves. The director of the film Will Navidson and his wife Karen are fleshed out by the writers and their relationship is discussed thoroughly from their interactions on film to outside articles on their partnership. It is also brought up in the album Haunted by Mark Danielewski’s sister Anne Decatur Danielewski, who goes by the stage name Poe. The song “Five and Half Minute Hallway” on the Haunted album is both shaped by the events within the household as well as Will and Karen’s relationship.

                The Five and a Half Minute Doorway in the novel acts as a teaser for the movie Will Navidson releases years later. It is a short “optical illusion” examining a doorway “climbing outside of the house,” but when looking through a window there is “nothing more than [Navidson’s] backyard” (pg. 4, Danielewski 2000). During the final cut of the Five and Half Minute Hallway as described in the book, the book discusses Karen’s outburst warning Will not to go into the hallway in more detail as follows:

“Navidson has always been an adventurer willing to risk his personal safety in the name of achievement. Karen, on the other hand, remains the standard bearer of responsibility and is categorically against risks especially those which might endanger her family or her happiness.” (pg. 60, Danielewski 2000)

Eventually, Navidson does enter the hallway titling his findings “Exploration A” (pg. 63, Danielewski 2000). He directly defies Karen’s warnings since he is used to danger and exploration as an adventurous documentary director. During this voyage, he finds the space to be very vast and ever changing, nearly getting lost after travelling into a giant room at the end of his house’s new hallway.  However, the actual new rooms are very plain and not much actually exists in the space. A ladder and more hallways are found during later explorations, but otherwise, nothing of significance is found in the physics-defying space. Toward the end of the required reading section, things start to become chaotic only when one of the investigators named Holloway goes crazy and injures his fellow explorers while hunting a monster who’s growling is heard in the never-ending halls.

                The song “Five and a Half Minute Hallway” does not begin scary at all. There are no eerie sounds or tritones that would coincide with the footage of the same name, nor does it make use of organ or synthesizer music common to most haunted house movies. Instead, the listener is introduced with a guitar and the sweet sound of Poe’s voice.  The tune is very basic and sad as Poe continues to sing. As the song progresses, more and more instruments are added including a violin and a drum. The music grows more chaotic until Poe’s voice escalates and creates a resounding echo at the lyrics “’Cause I was hoping it would fix it all” and “I forgive you for leading me on” (Poe 2000). Such echoes are discussed in the book and act as the singer crying out down this hallway to reach the person she loves. The song continues to escalate in volume until at the very end, the sound fades away completely leaving just a slight echo with words overtop of the near silence.

My reading of Danielewski’s novel affected my listening of this track as what happens to Navidson as he explores the hallway. Will Navidson and Karen move to the shape-shifting house to initially settle down. As Navidson explains, they just want to “settle in, maybe put down some roots, interact, hopefully understand each other a little better” (pg. 9 Danielewski). Such is embodied by Poe’s very personal and quiet guitar melody at the beginning of the song. A dissident violin section brings in the drum which then moves the song, much like the introduction of the mysterious doorway stirs up the peaceful family.  The family ties begin to strain as seen when Karen flirts with Holloway and Navidson goes against Karen’s wishes to film “Expedition A.” The reader also sees Navidson’s son, Chad, begins to spend “more and more time outside by himself” and even has a fight at school (pg. 91, Danielewski 2000). This tension is found in the moments when Poe cries out into the “hallway” with very dissident chords that make the listener feel uneasy as the echoes trail away, only to be brought back again later in the song. As the action ramps up in the household when the explorer Holloway goes crazy in the hallway, the volume increases in the song to a point that is quite the opposite of the original guitar and voice combination. This increase in chaos and tension in the household is reflected in the song completely, although one part of the song goes unexplained. The fade off at the end has not yet been implemented in the book and may foreshadow an event yet to come that ends the chaos, but is completely silent unlike the soothing guitar at the start of the song.

Poe’s musical reflection of the book House of Leaves also comments on Will and Karen’s relationship though the lyrics and nature of the song. Poe sings that she is living “at the end of a five and a half minute hallway” and that the person that she is talking about is “miles away from [her].” The “hallway…keeps growing” and the singer (Poe) is having a hard time reaching the doorway where the person who she loves is waiting. Oddly enough, the time until she reaches her love grows shorter (from “five more minutes” to “thirty seconds”) despite the hallway growing (Poe 2000). This representation of the hallway as more personal rather than a simple anomaly in the house is an interesting way to look at Karen and Navidson’s relationship. As Navidson journeys deeper and deeper into the hallway, this couple in the house grows more disconnected. As mentioned before, Karen begins to flirt with Holloway, Navidson investigates the hallway against Karen’s wishes, and Karen even kisses a member of the investigation team named Wax (pg. 96, Danielewski 2000). Despite this, it is still Karen who is trying to keep Navidson away from all this chaos and keep him from investigating the hallway. Much like Poe runs down the hallway to reach her loved one, Karen is trying to reach out to Navidson in order to pull him back to a simpler life than one that involves risking his life. The shouts of Poe are comparative to the shouts of Karen trying to keep Navidson out of the hallway in order to get away and secure their family life like they originally intended to do.  Both the action of the novel and the more personal relationships of the book are brought to life in Poe’s music and reflect the situations going on as the story progresses.

Works Cited

Danielewski, Mark Z. House of Leaves. New York: Pantheon, 2000. Print.

Danielewski, Anne D. "5 & 1/2 Minute Hallway." Haunted. Poe. Atlantic Records, 2000. MP3.

Danielewski and Ware Both Representing the Deteriorating 'House' -- RJ Sepich, Blog Essay 7, Option 2

Although Mark Z. Danielewski’s book House of Leaves and Chris Ware’s graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan differ significantly in the amount of traditional writing used to tell each respective story, both books frequently utilize complex visual elements that delve into similar ideas. One of the main themes in both of Danielewski’s and Ware’s comprehensive works is the idea of the “house”. Danielewski always writes the word in blue—and he even uses it in the title of his book—while Ware’s work with the concept deals more with what goes into a house: a family. But there is one section in each piece that I believe presents the reader with a similar image of a house slowly deteriorating into nothing.

Beginning on page 119 of House of Leaves, Danielewski presents the reader with a blue box filled with words. Considering his use of blue when typing the word “house” throughout the book, it is fair to say that this blue box should be viewed as a representation of a home. For 20 pages, the house remains filled with words as a long quote continues within it. During this time, the “house” is always safely protected by a slightly changing, but fairly consistent block of text. But on page 141, Danielewski’s “house” begins to deteriorate. Only about half of the blue box is filled with text, and even the block of words around it isn’t as sound. Flip the page to 143, and now the blue box is completely empty with no protective text surrounding it. Flip again to 145, and the box is gone altogether, replaced by white space surrounded by some new text. On 147, some text is beginning to fill in the area where the blue box originally was, but there are no remaining remnants of the box shape. Flip over to 149, and there are more words where the box was. And by the end of chapter nine on page 151, the entire area where the box stood is filled with a block of text, perhaps a new box-like figure beginning to form in its place.

A similar visual series occurs early in Jimmy Corrigan. All on the same page, Ware draws four main panels of the same place at different moments in time. In the top left, the panel is sideways with a nice new house in the late winter/early spring, presumably waiting for a family to begin living in it. In the top right panel, the house is right-side-up in the summer with two cars out front, showing that a family now lives there, with the nice weather suggesting that the family is likely happy and comfortable. Over time though, as the panel in the bottom left shows, the house begins to show age and only one car is parked out front in the fall. And in the bottom right panel of the page, the house is gone completely in the winter, leaving behind only the tree that stood beside it for so many years to show that this is indeed the same area where the house stood. A small red bird is in the middle two frames, representing a significant change in time, which lets the reader know that the house didn’t dissolve over night, but instead over a period of years.

So what do we take from these two different visualizations of the “house”? There are many different thoughts that can be derived from these different, yet strangely similar images of a home standing strong for a certain amount of time before quickly crumbling away. Although Danielewski seems to give the reader a sense that perhaps a new home is forming, Ware instead ends his drawings of the houses with the last depressing panel of the home completely gone and the tree with no leaves. The overriding sense I get from looking at these visual elements is that both authors wanted their readers to understand a similar concept: that the house and everything in it will stand strong for a period of time, but that at some point that stability will end, and the home will crumble and disappear. This idea can also be representative of many other things, such as life itself, but it is interesting to see two authors working with two completely different means of telling their story, yet they both utilize a similar visual construction to generate an idea related to the theme of each book.