Blogger crashed so I'll have to rewrite this. The second copy of House of Leaves arrived this week. It came in an elderly yellow package, that had done little to prevent whatever event caused a few of the corners to bend. That said, I'm not sending it back after waiting two weeks for it to arrive. I don't really mind its injuries. This new copy's the full colour edition. Though I'm sure it isn't missing any pages, it feels a lot lighter than my original version.

If I look at the husk of packaging now I can see darkness still clings to the far corners of its mouth, despite the fact that it has been opened. I wonder how many days the book slumbered (or paced) in the envelope. How many hours it spent drenched in night. How it existed in that eternal span of time before any eyes set upon it again. I wonder if that black journey means anything, changes anything about the book. It certainly changes how I look at it. As I waited for my cheap oven pizza to 'cook', I walked in ellipses around my kitchen, holding the light copy, reading the opening from where the words spring (or more accurately: drift) off the page, into my mind, through me. It takes a powerful book to do that to you. If you've ever read one, you'll understand the sensation I'm talking about.

The formatting on that last post came out a bit oddly, probably because I had to use Open Office to insert the footnote. I'll keep it though, it reminds me of the shifts in font and size that you get in H.O.L.

History

The house has been described as history. Zampanò suggests that "The house is history and history is uninhabited." (p. 540). As we know, the noun history stems from two words. His story. It would be foolish to put it past Mark Z. Danielewski not to have understood the etymology of the word.

Let's imagine that this is in reference to Zampanò's own story, the myth buried within his essay - the myth that is The Navidson Record. The house is thus the story of Zampanò. However, we can look deeper than this simple inference. History, the story of a person, is in essence, his past experience. And the house has been called a "solipsistic enhancer". I can't remember the page of that one. What it suggested however, was that one's own cognitions influence the behaviour of the house. For instance, after the staircase is first completely descended, it takes a significantly lower amount of time to reach the top again. It is proposed that this is because the explorers are aware of the fact that the stairs are finite, and that the knowledge that there was an end in sight created a feeling of optimism, which in turn caused the house to shift, reflecting their own more confident, positive emotions.

In essence, their experience at having found the bottom of the stairs influenced their perception of that place, and as we have discussed, the house responds to perception. It echos and reflects it. People's individual past experiences, or as we can now call it, history - whether it is as short-term as remembering the end and beginning of the spiral steps you have found, or as long-term as Tom's reasons for adopting fatalism, which ultimately results in his death - defines their perception. We are but the sum of our past experiences, behaviorists would claim. In the house on Ash Tree Lane, our history can have colossal repercussions.

I've probably made this more wordy than it needs to be, and I'm sure there's a typo or two, but it's late evening now and I'm tired. I just needed to get this out. God this book is brilliant. I'm currently waiting for a second copy to arrive. I bought the full colour edition on ebay so that I can make notes in one of them, and leave the other clear.

Still no reply from KCRW.

A potential lead

Still rereading House of Leaves. On page 347 of my edition Zampanò in his essay mentions a interview with  Audrie Mcullogh, a friend of Karen Green, who briefly entered the house. Zampanò claims a transcript of her interview can be obtained by writing to KCRW.

Which is exactly what I'm going to do.

I'll update the blog once I've got a reply. The work is fiction, but can I find any ghosts in the book's paper shell?

Edit: No progress so far, I've sent another email to an alternate address I managed to find for them.

"...the drug would make her forget how bad the pain had been, when all the time, in some secret part of her, that long, blind, doorless and windowless corridor of pain was waiting to open up and shut her in again."

That Particular House

Today, as usual, I can't help but think of that House on Ash Tree Lane. Much of House of Leaves is set in the residence, though we shouldn't ignore Johnny's flat, or Zampano's flat, the rest of the city for that matter, including places one hardly thinks of and never visits; Johnny's Hotel room, many other hotel rooms, though not belonging to him; New York (and more specifically, Central Park), the Whalestoe Institute, the tattoo parlor (aka The Shop), Ashley's house, Texas[sic], and Texas; to say nothing of Johnny's original home, Karen's childhood home - and the nearby well and barnyard - though I cannot forget Raymond's House, the hospital, the bloody curb, the strip club by the airport, and the airport; the labyrinth of Kyrie's inner ear, a match to Johnny's own; the Skylab, the Atrocity; Gdansk man's oil rig, the two-door BMW Coup (if that can be defined as a place), and the windy edge known to some as Mulholland, or to others as a sinuous road running the edge of the Santa Monica mountains; the Santa Monica mountains, with that one lonely spot beneath one lonely lamp; the state of Virginia, Antarctica, the coast of Spain, a laundry room, a swimming pool, car parks, the many bars, pubs, parties and mansions, Yggdrasil.

Ah, Yggdrasil. Barely mentioned in the entire novel. But I have more than a suspicion that it is there. The great tree of life connecting the worlds of the Nordic mythos. Perhaps no coincidence, I met an Odinist recently, which only served to strengthen my belief that I could find the tree in the House. The last page denotes its presence.

 

The tree that supports the nine worlds. And what supports it? The same question has been applied to the dark hallways of House on Ash Tree Lane. Perhaps the House is a manifestation of it, and the darkness that tears through Holloway, the claws that rip Zampano's floorboards, perhaps the roots wreck such havoc. Perhaps. The tree is an ash. An ash on Ash Tree Lane.

I have pictured many times a web that holds the secrets and mysteries of the book, suspends them and conceals them throughout the pages. Call it Calypso. But this is not a fitting image, a web is flimsy, like leaves before the wind. What if this was not a web, but roots? Where then, is the whole, where is the rest of the tree?