Exploration #1: Being a thread about House of Leaves

[Fetian]

This is a thread for reacting to and analysing House of Leaves. There will be spoilers!

[Fetian]

Here are the thoughts I had in my journal thread; they are reacting to things that happen up to the end of chapter 2

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it's really interesting that Johnny's re-introduction to the story (after the Introduction-introduction, which he wrote) is an extremely long footnote that's just blatantly flagging to the reader that he's an unreliable narrator and Will lie to you. Starts off with an extremely unlikely story (Lude just whips out some scissors and starts giving people haircuts in the middle of a bar, and everyone's just cool with that and totally wants him to cut their hair too because he's just so good at it? Sure, Jan. This is a story from someone who thought it was a neat idea but didn't think any further into the logistics of it -- for a start, no one wants itchy little cut hairs all over their neck and down their shirt while they're trying to enjoy themselves at a bar), which turns into him telling an extremely unlikely (and explicitly false) story to the throngs of women who are of course hanging onto his every word while they wait around for Lude to cut their hair (a story-within-the-story, you say (it was already a story-within-the-story, Johnny is telling it to us within the footnote)), and after all that he comes out and tells us that he changed some of Zampano's text to suit his own needs. This is a neon sign and fire alarm going off to get the reader on the right page as soon as possible. You should not take anything he says at face value, he has not earned your trust, and in fact has actively betrayed it.

That he is so quiet until this footnote, which is about four pages long, is also interesting -- it's so jarring, to be snapped out of Zampano's narrative by -- what is this? Why is Johnny's livejournal entry in the middle of all this? What does this have to do with anything? It really pushes you right into the water, up until now the footnotes have been Zampano's citations and some small and relevant comments from Johnny, and suddenly this. And it's not going away, Johnny will only become more of a feature from here on out.

Except that -- it's easy to gloss over, the above footnote is so notable and, as said, jarring, it distracts from Johnny's actual re-introduction to things, which is on-its-face relevant to the thing it's footnoting, except...
There's a footnote four pages earlier ((coincidence? (Yes))), which reads "¹¹Not the first and definitely not the last time Zampanò implies that The Navidson Record exists."

...Yes? The premise of Zampano's book is that it's an analysis of The Navidson Record, he never implies or states that it doesn't exist. The entire book is an implication that it exists. The thing it's footnoting is so innocuous, too --

Of course not everyone remains in accordance with this assessment. Dr. Isaiah Rosen believes, "Navidson's a fraud from frame one and his early posturing puts the entire work at risk."¹⁰ Rosen assumes the beginning is just a case of "bad acting" performed by a man who has already envisioned the rest of the film. Consequently Rosen seriously undervalues the importance of Navidson's initial intentions.
All too often major discoveries are the unintended outcome of experiments or explorations aimed at achieving entirely different results. In Navidson's case, it is impossible to disregard his primary goal, especially since it served as a progenitor or at the very least the "near origin" to all that followed. Rosen's presumptions¹¹ lead him to dismiss the cause for the result, thereby losing sight of the complex and rewarding relationship which exists between the two.

The question of 'why is this here at all' obscures the more relevant question (I think) of 'why is this here'. This is not the first time someone is being quoted as commenting on The Navidson Record, this is not the first time Zampano has commented on Navidson's goals or methods. As said, for six pages and an entire chapter preceding this, Zampano has presented the implicit case that The Navidson Record is a real documentary, made by a real person. I believe this is the first time someone has been quoted as believing The Navidson Record to be "fake" -- but still "fake" within the context of being "real". A real documentary, but documenting a fake thing. Fake, but existent.

So why has Johnny reiterated this for us? Danielewski using Johnny to remind the audience of the kayfabe? A deliberate -- not breaking, but straining of -- kayfabe, to jar the audience and remind us that we're reading the book? A nudge to remind the audience that Johnny is an amateur? Perhaps -- this is on the first page of the second chapter, perhaps Johnny has been doing this out of order, and this somewhat out-of-place footnote is a hint toward that. Perhaps at one point this was the first page of the book, before Johnny moved it (or moved it back)

Incidentally, and to jump back to the first comment I was making about all this -- Johnny's edit to Zampano's writing, to enable him to go on his diatribe about haircuts and underground boxing, explicitly makes Zampano's writing worse. It's a small change, something that in the moment doesn't matter at all, but which affects in an equally small way the rest of that part of the narrative. Something that Johnny would think doesn't matter, but which does, and has a greater effect than he expected (or, likely, even noticed (if he had noticed, would he have changed it back? Maybe that's why he admitted to doing it? I think he's too oblivious at this point for that to be the case, but it's possible))

 
Oh my god

Dr. Isaiah Rosen believes, "Navidson's a fraud from frame one and his early posturing puts the entire work at risk."

This is about Johnny

 

Rosen assumes the beginning is just a case of "bad acting" performed by a man who has already envisioned the rest of the film. Consequently Rosen seriously undervalues the importance of Navidson's initial intentions.

Is this about me? (ie, the audience)

[Fetian]

This post reacts to things in chapter 3

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The footnotes I was examining earlier raised a question that I didn't give its due, which is-

In Navidson's case, it is impossible to disregard his primary goal, especially since it served as a progenitor or at the very least the "near origin" to all that followed.

What is Johnny's primary goal? He says himself that he's not an academic, he doesn't have a relevant background for any of this (or does he, I'll touch on that again in a second), his entire vibe is that of a burnout, not necessarily a slacker but certain parts of society would certainly assume so. Why is he putting all this effort into putting together a book for a man he didn't know on a subject he clearly thinks is bullshit?

To date, I've counted over two hundred rejection letters from various literary journals, publishing houses, even a few words of discouragement from prominent professors in east coast universities. No one wanted the old man's words--except me.
What can I say, I'm a sucker for abandoned stuff, misplaced stuff, forgotten stuff, any old stuff which despite the light of progress and all that, still vanishes every day like shadows at noon, goings unheralded, passings unmourned, well, you get the drift.

He goes on:

As a counselor once told me--a Counselor For Disaffected Youth, I might add: "You like that crap because it reminds you of you." Couldn't of said it better or put it more bluntly. Don't even disagree with it either. Seems pretty dead on and probably has everything to do with the fact that when I was ten my father died and almost nine years later my crazy Shakespearean mother followed him, a story I've already lived and really don't need to retell here.

(Let me digress for a moment and remind the reader that Johnny is a liar, and a page earlier admitted specifically that he lies about his past to make it easier for other people to swallow)

Anyway, if we skip ahead a little bit - literally, again, the next page -

Navidson's childhood was fairly bleak. His father was a St. Louis salesman who worked for a string of large electronics corporations, shuttling his family around the mid-west every two or three years. He was also an alcoholic and prone toward violent outbursts or disappearing for long periods of time.²⁷
Navidson's mother was no better. She soon left them all to pursue a career as an actress and ended up living with a string of not so productive producers. Purportedly in her own words, all she ever wanted to do was "bring down the house." Navidson's father died of congestive heart failure but his mother just vanished. She was last seen in a Los Angeles bar smoking cigarettes and talking about moonlight and why you could find so much of it in Hollywood. Neither Will nor his twin brother Tom ever heard from her again.²⁸

There are some obvious parallels here, and even keeping in mind that the chances Johnny is 'borrowing' some of Navidson's backstory to obscure his own -- I think Johnny is drawn to all of this because he sees himself in Navidson.

What can I say, I'm a sucker for abandoned stuff, misplaced stuff, forgotten stuff ... "You like that crap because it reminds you of you."

Because the enormous narcissism of their parents deprived Will and Tom of suitable role models, both brothers learned to identify with absence.

"Why Navidson?" and "Why Johnny?" are, in essence, the same question.

[Fetian]

Also chapter 3

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I want to note this line:

The house responds with resounding silence. No divine attention. Not even an amaurotic guide.

With the context that Zampano serves as the narrative voice, and that Zampano is blind

[Fetian]

I also just want to note that Lude, as a character, really brings to mind Fight Club's Tyler Durden, and I could certainly draw some parallels between that book's narrator and Johnny Truant

[knightofcups]

Quoting this from myself, in another thread.

futureAsh, remember you want to talk about how the specific style of the writing is reminding you of other literary classics, specifically Lolita, and dig into why that is, or if it was just a product of a tired brain. Also remember it was reminding you of philosophy texts and litcrit text but twisted (not actually referencing the original text in useful ways. Assuming the audience has information we don’t, and have no way to). Also comment on how all the stuff about this guy writing on every available paper gave you Feelings (and /strongly/ reminded you of that thing in Thud with Methodia Rascal)

I have only read the introduction and the first chapter and like... a half. Also read it while falling asleep, so I imagine my brain didn't record all of it. (This is going to be a book I read twice back to back, just to be sure I get it, I can already tell.)

Lolita
So, first thought that I had when I got to the text-text, was that it reminded me of Lolita. Not story, obviously, but HOW it was written. It was almost the first actual reaction I had to the text, which was kind of confusing.

I'm not going to get super deep in examining why I think that is till I've read more, but I think a large part of it is that it's written quasi-intellectually. Like, it's written by someone who knows how to sound intellectual, and knows the motions of intellectualism to go through, but there's this hint of... faking it? Disingenuousness?

Both Humbert and Zampano are intelligent, and talk like they are, and have the LANGUAGE of art and art criticism, but there's this disconnect between how they're talking and what they're saying? Or, there seems to be?

Anyway, off the cuff, first thoughts ^

Fact, Fiction, & The Nightmares
I'm confused about what is real and what is fake and who knows which and anyway it's all fake because it's a book. But this is a place I'm comfortable to be in.

The idea of someone inventing a found footage phenomenon, and then inventing critique about it, and then saying it's real, except no, it's fake or a hoax or... all those layers pile up nicely in my brain in a way that fits fine, because it IS all fake, and it's also all real within the context we're reading, and ultimately it doesn't matter because The Nightmares.

That whole bit of the introduction was actually weirdly comforting to me. I think my own relationship with dreams and nightmares is such that it felt... reassuring. I'm already at the nightmare stage. Which is the worst of it. So I don't have more to be afraid of.

Coming in from that did very effect my feelings and thoughts going into the book proper, and honestly, I don't think it's in the way it was intended to, but I liked it. I feel.................. comforted? coming into this experience? Like... nothing makes sense in the real world anyway, so here, at least, I know that it shouldn't. I'm not expected to make sense out of this, because there isn't any.

(Aside-- something I've learned about myself is that while I do not like chaos and disorder in life and reality, so many things that happen around me feel like disorder, or like people following rules I don't know, so experiencing media that just obviously has no rules, or the rules don't make sense to everyone feels freeing. [[I think this might only be the case for some brains, though, because I can feel parts of me saying no, no, we do not in fact like that, because it's adding more disorder to disorder. but today's brain does, so it stands.]])

Going to skip over the stuff re: litcrit b/c I basically got into it as much as I can right now above.

Thud and Methodia Rascal

"He was convinced that if he went to sleep at night he would turn into a chicken. He'd leave little notes for himself saying "You are not a chicken" although sometimes he thought he was lying.

...

He left notes to himself, Sergeant. All the time. When his last land lady entered his room, she found many hundreds of them, stuffed in old chicken-feed sacks.
...
Scholars have puzzled over the notes ever since, seeking some insight into the poor man's tortured mind. They are not in order, you see. Some are very...odd
...
Oh, there is stuff about voices, omens, ghosts... he also wrote his journal on random pieces of paper, you know, and never gave any indication as to the date or where he was staying, in case the Chicken found him. And he used very guarded language, because he didn't want the Chicken to find out."

So when I first read the bit about the papers and how he wrote all over bits and pieces and stamps and everything, this is what I thought about.

Nothing useful to add here except it's interesting!

[knightofcups]

I also just want to note that Lude, as a character, really brings to mind Fight Club's Tyler Durden, and I could certainly draw some parallels between that book's narrator and Johnny Truant

I was thinking about this too.

His voice reminds me of... well, less a specific voice than a kind of book.

[Fetian]

Re Lolita: I have never read Lolita, but have ingested some critiques/analyses of it, so I know some of the broad strokes -- it is an interesting comparison given all of the blatant nudges I'm noting for House of Leaves that cue the reader in to the fact that Johnny (and Zampano?) are unreliable and could at any point be lying to us. The Zampano angle is one that I was overlooking because of a focus on Johnny, but it's also clear that he isn't being forthright with us -- the documentary he's analysing doesn't exist, after all, so he can't be telling the truth about it. I believe it will get more clear later, as well, that he was disingenuous to the women in his life.

This one is a more... complex conclusion than Johnny, however -- yes, Zampano is lying to us. What does that matter? If the documentary doesn't exist, if we know that 100% of what he is saying is fiction... Does a lie matter if you know it's a lie?

 
Re Thud: That's a very striking comparison, what are the chances Pratchett was riffing on House of Leaves specifically with it? Thud came out in 2005, House of Leaves in 2000; I haven't read Thud so don't know if more context waters the comparison down, but solely from what you've quoted, it makes me think

 

His voice reminds me of... well, less a specific voice than a kind of book.

I can see it -- Johnny's misdirection puts up a facade that turns him less into a character and more an archetype