House of Leaves is obviously a tough book to read. Please use this space to ask questions. At least three. Press "comment" at the the end of this post and ask your questions.
They can be plot driven, "Does anyone know Delial is?" or "Wait a second, if Zampano is blind, how did he write this book?" to more abstract, "Is Johnny Truant and Navy really the same person?" or "Are the cameras just a rip off of The Real World confessional?"
Then I and the rest of your classmates will respond if we think we know the answer.
Please try to respond to at least three questions from your classmates throughout the night.
Let's help each other out----I'll get the fishing line and you get the radios. And we will beat Mr. Monster.
[if you didn't get those references, then you need to do more reading.
VA - Lounge Music (2011)
14 years ago
27 comments:
Do you think the kids have been playing (H)allways by themselves?
Why doesn't Navidson strap a camera to the dog? or try walking through the same time as the dog and seeing what happens? Is the only explanation that dogs don't have knowledge of self, emotions, etc. so the hallway and its psychological nature doesn't affect them?
Do you think Johnny Truant's Mom was really being raped in the Whaletoe?
How exactly do you think Johnny's tooth was chipped - seems he stops just short of telling us specifically right?
Does Johnny's boss know something about the closet, or is he just afraid of a lawsuit?
Did it occur to anyone else during the introduction when Johnny is begging us not to read this book that this assignment is a form of "torture?" huh Dr. Lennon?
1. Why don't they just move?
2. Is there a reason Danielewski is putting false footnotes in the novel? Is it a way for his audience to feel like they are in a labyrinth?
3. What is with the blue text boxes? Is there a connection between the coloring and the blue houses?
1. How does Johnny Truant know Zampano? Are they friends? If so, how does an academic film critic befriend a tattoo artist?
2. How is it that Tom can easily get along with a fraternal twin brother who has not spoken to him in eight years?
3. Why does the author insist on using symbols for some of his footnotes? What added significance do these footnotes have?
How did Johnny get trapped into this mess?
1. Does anyone else think that Zampano was actually Davidson after the fact? or am I completely off in this question.
2. Who the hell calls someone at three in the morning to come investigate something that you were looking through at three in the morning and for that matter actually answer the phone at three in the morning? Caller ID much?
3. Why is Karen so full of shit? She hates but she loves, she shows excitememt and she plays it cool. What does she want?
1) Is it necessary for the text boxes and footnotes to have long (and I think random)lists of compiled names?
2) Why does Holloway run off into the darkness when if he stayed he could've easily escaped incarceration?
3) If Johnny Truant lies to us as he admits in some of his footnote tales, could Zampano be nothing more than an alter ego for Mr. Truant?
Some (attempts at) answers:
1)Why doesn't Navidson strap a camera to the dog? or try walking through the same time as the dog and seeing what happens? Is the only explanation that dogs don't have knowledge of self, emotions, etc. so the hallway and its psychological nature doesn't affect them?
I KNOW THIS BOTHERS ME...THE DOG MAKE SIT THROUGH THE HOUSE SO WHY NOT BRING THE POOCH WITH HIM DOWN THE HALLWAY....WHY DOES THE VICTIM OF A HORROR MOVIE ALWAYS DROP THE CARS KEYS RIGHT BEOFRE S/HE IS KILLED?
2)Did it occur to anyone else during the introduction when Johnny is begging us not to read this book that this assignment is a form of "torture?" huh Dr. Lennon?
UM, BARRY, WOULD YOU MIND WEARING THIS MASK FOR A SECOND......
3)What is with the blue text boxes? Is there a connection between the coloring and the blue houses?
DOES THERE HAVE TO BE A REASON OR COULD IT JUST BE "COOL".....
4)How does Johnny Truant know Zampano? Are they friends? If so, how does an academic film critic befriend a tattoo artist?
HE DOESN'T. HE WAS INVITED TO GO OVER TO THE DEAD MAN'S HOUSE BY LUDE WHO THEN INTRODUCED HIM TO THE PAPERS THAT ZAMPANO LEFT BEHIND
5)How did Johnny get trapped into this mess?
HE STARTED READING THE BOOK--JUST LIKE YOU...BECAREFUL WHEN YOU START GETTING TOO MUCH INTO A SUBJECT.....
6)Who the hell calls someone at three in the morning to come investigate something that you were looking through at three in the morning and for that matter actually answer the phone at three in the morning? Caller ID much?
WELL TRUANT SEEMS LIKE A GUY WHO DOES MOST OF HIS LIVING AT 3AM......
1) Do you think Navadison knew about the freaky house the whole time and that is why he went their to do the documentary.
2) if he didnt why would he stay there
3)There was a history of that house driving people crazy so how is it the first time the person who rented it to them is seeing or hearing about this.
1- If the footnotes, in fact, are falsified, is what we're reading even truth?
2- If the halls, rooms, etc. are always changing size & such, could the house possibly kill someone if they contract to a tiny size?
3- Does the certain colors chosen for the boxes, exed out writing, etc. play any significant role to the novel or was it just his favored color of choice?
1. There was no door but why didn't the individuals trapped in the "haunted" house not look for other means to escaping, i.e. a window, hole, doggies door?!
2. Were he stories in the blue box designed to confuse readers, a lot like Johnny and his family must have been?!
3. Did Zampanò have any involvement with the war, was he a solider?
2. Were he stories in the blue box designed to confuse readers, a lot like Johnny and his family must have been?!
I think the blue boxes are supposed to force the readers to feel trapped like Navidson. The box is blue...so is the house.
1)Why did Lude expect to find his old neighbor dead in his apartment?
2) In order to consider how distances within the Navison HOUSE are radically distorted, we must address the more complex ideation of...?
3)Who does Jed try to calm down after the realization of shooting someone which may result in jail time?
1. Why didn't anyone take a sledge-hammer and bashed down the wall on the side of the door to make sure that was the only way to get in. (or real for that matter)
2. Why are those goddamn footnotes so long?
3. Can anyone explain the part where he is telling us where "riddle" came from? and what did that have anything to do with Karen?
Answers (maybe)
Prof. Lennon suggested a question might be, "Wait a second, if Zampano is blind, how did he write this book?"
Wasn't the Greek poet Homer blind? And he wrote some pretty famous stuff so I guess blind people can do things just like the rest of us.
Questions
1. Did reading the Introduction help in understanding what you read? (I did not read that part)
2. How come we never find out the stripper's real name? Strippers are people, too.
3. Did anyone else notice the checkmark in the bottom left corner of page 97? Why is that there? Did I miss something?
Attempting to answer some of the questions:
Q 1.Why did Lude expect to find his old neighbor dead in his apartment?
A 1. Well he was old lonely and barely made it out of the house. Now what would you think ;)
Q 2. How is it that Tom can easily get along with a fraternal twin brother who has not spoken to him in eight years?
A 2. Dude he smokes POT! :)
Q 3. Why is Karen so full of shit? She hates but she loves, she shows excitememt and she plays it cool. What does she want?
A 3. (I know I am gonna get crucified for this but hey screw it)
SHE IS A WOMAN!!!
2. How come we never find out the stripper's real name? Strippers are people, too.
I think that this is just an example of Johnny's blatant sexism. I may be wrong, but I don't think we have anyone else's word to go on but Johnny's on this. If he assumes she is a stripper, that says more about him than it does about her.
Then again, considering Johnny's lifestyle, that may be true...
1. Is Johnny Truant reliable?
2. Why does the story involving Minotaur have to do with the main story line? In connection to that, what is the main story line?
3. Why is footnote 142 just blank lines? Was there an intention to place something there?
2. Why are those goddamn footnotes so long?
The footnotes are an integral part of the story; they're just as important as the story itself. I think it makes a point on the boundaries of literature and just how a story can be told.
2. Is there a reason Danielewski is putting false footnotes in the novel? Is it a way for his audience to feel like they are in a labyrinth?
Absolutely. The book's purpose is to tell a story in a way that a reader cannot be comfortable with, especially all of those who are conditioned to read and analyze literature in a certain way.
There are more than several biblical allusions in the text. On page XX of the introduction, Truant states that Zampanó, "knew from the get go that what's real or isn't real doesn't matter"... 1) Does anyone else agree that FAITH plays a major role in the text, i.e. Zampanó's FAITH in his scribes, Navidson's FAITH in his friends who are summoned to the house to investigate, Karen's alleged unFAITHFULNESS, our FAITH in the author and the veracity of this work?
2) Is Truant a paranoid Schizophrenic who, along with inventing several horrific events in the novel, in unable to exit the house without battling a debilitating fear of the unknown? Are all the characters in the text merely inventions of his psychoses?
3) The layout of the text, especially deep into the assigned reading, has several shape shifts that convey a copy-and-paste technique employed by one of the many hands that have touched the analysis of "The Navidson Report". Who is responsible? And what deeper meaning lies beneath such action?
***Muss es Sein? Must it be?***
To the question of whether the house might be able to kill someone -
I think yes, it supposedly is helping to save people by interpreting half-finished SOS messages and passing them on.
To Terrence's question of whether the whole thing is an invention of Truant's psychoses?
I really like this idea - no Lude, no Zampano, no anyone, this is just a drunken improv story he told to some hot girl at a bar who happened to be from a publishing company, perhaps Random House, eh? eh?
To the question of Holloway running off into darkness -
I agree, doesn't he realize everything's on tape. Don't leave Wax and Jed - you gotta kill them too! He reminds of Ted Nugent a little anyone else?
Why did Zampano choose to describe the movie instead of just writing the story?
Why does "Hoss" choose to write about his life in the footnotes instead of publishing his own story?
Why does Karen choose to stay in a life that she seems to be unhappy with? Is it for the kids? For companionship? Or does she really just not see how unhappy she really is?
annmarie
While reading the novel i wonder what was wrong with the Navidson family. If i return home from a trip and find my house as different as they did i would not only move but never return.
I was wondering if anyone else felt that Johnny was maybe on some strong drugs or was he just crazy
what's up with the blind Zanpano writing a novel, a blind man with a very visual sense of things
"I was wondering if anyone else felt that Johnny was maybe on some strong drugs or was he just crazy."
Johnny was indeed on drugs. I makes me wonder what long terms effects the drugs had on his psyche, if it effected his perception and editing skills.
"Why don't they just move?"
The house was totally a bargain, plus it seems like it has the quintessential Victorian, maybe Suburbia/2.5 kids feel to it.
3. Did anyone else notice the checkmark in the bottom left corner of page 97? Why is that there? Did I miss something?
i think the checkmark is there to acknowledge something. But i dont know what yet. A message, a Hint, something. or maybe something accomplished already.
3. Why is Karen so full of shit? She hates but she loves, she shows excitememt and she plays it cool. What does she want?
i think she is the worst kind of woman. a really bad lady.. i tended to ignore her for the most part
Some really great questions but since I am in between panel sessions right now I will hold off and we will begin answering some of these questions next week....
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