House of Leaves: Unholy discourse

I have never read a novel with so many levels of discourse, nor such explicit narration. At its heart, we have the story of Navidson and his family, though our experience of those events is shaped by Navidson's film editing. Furthermore, we don't actually see this film, but are fed only excerpts from critical literature, which describe the scenes only as evidence for a certain reading of the text. All of this is assembled by Zampano--so much commentary on a film compiled by a blind man! But it has been organized from fragments by Truant, who also reveals up front that the entire Navidson video is a fabrication. Truant presents Zampano's work as nearly unchanged (except perhaps for the addition of the word "water" before "heater"). Yet, from his footnotes we see that Truant is practically a compulsive storyteller (aka, bullshit artist; ie, unreliable narrator). As frosting on the cake, we have the nagging question of how much change was affected by the anonymous "Editors".

Hayles does a nice job pointing out how each of these levels of narration have also affected a change in medium, from film, to scholarly article, to a box of notes, to a novel.

Also, we are constantly aware of the narration. (This book reminds me of The French Lieutenant's Woman, which is my only other major experience with this sort of thing.) Footnotes inherently break our reading of the text for the purpose of commenting on that text. (Though in House of Leaves, it's so easy to slide from the text into a footnote!) Each level of added narration comments on how the previous narrators were unreliable or biased, adding levels of their own experience to the mix. And the text wanders away from the story for pages at a time to make an abstract argument for a certain reading--such as the discussion of the mythological and symbolic nature of echo.

Certainly a very dense and somewhat unsettling read!

Mind Games

For me, HOUSE OF LEAVES, acts as a complex and intriguing set of mind games - a literary work that forces me to question my perceptions of what is real and what is imaginary. Never before have I read a book that tricks me so thoroughly into believing that the characters and events are real, only to have me reminding myself in the next minute that it is all fictitious. It is not so much the descriptions of darkness nor the dangers of nothingness that frighten me the most, but rather the ability of words on a page (words on these pages) to so thoroughly mess with my mind!

Katherine Hayles refers to this phenomena as it relates specifically to the “realness” of the characters. She notes that “the text emphasizes that people within the represented world – Will Navidson and Karen Green on one level, Zampano on another, and Johnny Truant on yet another – exist only because they have been recorded” (116). My relationship to the various characters – i.e. my willingness to believe that they are real – is precisely determined by the unusual nature of what is recorded on paper, who is recording it and how. I believe Will Navidson and Karen Green to be real because some character name Zampano dedicated his life to writing about them and referring to others who wrote about them. I believe Zampano is real because some character named Johnny Truant has found his writing and writes in turn about him. I believe Johnny Truant to be real because some anonymous authors have written about him and his desire to publish his writings as well as Zampano’s. Each of their writings – distinguished by location on the page, typeface and the addition of footnotes – further confirms the apparent validity of what they are writing about.

This cycle is one that transforms the traditional “unreliable narrator” into a “remediated narrator” (116-117). And it is the multiplicity of these remediated narrators that tricks me into believing, almost unconsciously, in the reality of what I am reading. While HOUSE OF LEAVES is definitely not one of my all-time favorites, I do recognize the value of a literary work that remediates reality so completely.

Creative Projects

I'm hoping you've all been thinking about what you'd like to accomplish with your creative projects for this class. We'll go around and hear from each of you in class tomorrow. I'd like to emphasize the importance of archiving your materials as you generate them, even early drafts/attempts/test-runs you don't especially like. You will be asked to account for your process at the end of the semester, and having a collections of previous versions and "cutting-room floor" sweepings will help you describe your trajectory and assess your final project in relation to your initial goals.

I'll refer you to Acid-Free Bits, an excellent resource for digital artists and writers that focuses especially on the problem of preservation. It's co-authored by Noah Wardrip Fruin, who is the editor of First Person, and Nick Monfort, a writer of interactive fiction and author of Twisty Little Passages, a critical book about IF.

I'll also invite you to take a look at one of my creative projects. Ask Me for the Moon is a combination of a poetry chapbook and a critical essay on Waikiki. It appeared in the Summer 2005 issue of The Iowa Review Web, but I'm giving you the direct link to my site to save you having to hunt through the IRW archive.

comments for "New or Recycled?" by Michael

Michael-

I'm still in awe on how far the design of your site has evolved from its initial stages!

Navigation/Organization: I love the organization of your site--how you incorporated different ways to navigate through the lexias, with the navigational bar on the side and the links w/in the text. They seem to complement eachother-one is good for the type of person who needs some kind of linear organization, and the other for the type of person who doesn't mind the nature of hypertext (in that you are able to jump around from screen to screen). I'm kind of embarrased to say that it took me several visits to realize that the green and blue (non-underlined) links are activated by the rolling-over of the mouse. (I kept thinking...did I accidentally click the mouse? That's certain evidence that I'm an "old dog"!) I also like how you incorporated the definitions with the red links--it cuts out on the time spent waiting for a new window to open.

Content: You provided a very deep analysis of Hermeticon in relation to the philosophy of the past (Bruno) and present (Hayles). You also discussed concepts I never would have came up with on my own, such as conning, consumerism, alchemy...etc. There was one part that I found a little confusing...on the "Fifthly" screen, you start off with, "The importance of this can be seen with a few kewstrokes." I was a little confused by what you mean by "this," is it the importance of the screen capture/what you captured in it? Or is it another concept you discussed in one of the previous screens?

All in all, besides what I mentioned above and a few spelling/grammar errors, I think you provided an excellent, insightful analysis of Hermeticon and covered topics an average net-surfer would not pick up on. I don't think what I said will spark any new ideas but I hope you feel very accomplished in a job well done!

-Kanani

Justin's Critical Review

Hey Justin.

I apologize for how late this response to your work is. I held off on responding because I kept waiting for you to put up more sections of the essay, thinking that all you'd posted were screen shots. It wasn't until just now that I realized the screen shots were themselves links to individual pages!!! Once again...I forgot to do a sweep of the page!! Grrrrrrrr!!

In any case...here are just a few thoughts and reactions to your scholarly review:

Organization
I like that you've used individual, chronologically ordered screen shots. Given the style of "Faith" itself and the importance of each individual screen, this seems like the most logical and comprehensive way of approaching the work. This clear, simple way of organizing your review made my life as a viewer pleasantly easy. All I needed to do was click on individual screen shots to view your analysis of that section of the work.

Navigation
However, I would consider using some type of navigation bar or hypertext link so that the viewer has multiple ways of navigating the site. As it stands right now, the only form of navigation available to me is the back button. Was this intentional, or have you just not gotten around to it yet?

Style
Again, I enjoyed the simplicity and legibility of the site's style...but you could always toy around with different color combinations and maybe a slightly smaller/more interesting font.

Critical Analysis:
I appreciated your detailed analysis of each screen shot, but was also looking for some tie-in to the criticial theory we've studied. Maybe some theoretical arguments from Hayles' work or from First Person might complement and flesh out your own personal analysis.

Other Screen Shots:
As it stands now, I believe the last three or four screen shots do not lead to linked pages. I guess you'll be finishing out these screen shots in class? Are there any other screen shots from Faith that you plan on analyzing?

Well...that's about it for now. Hope I've not been too nit-picky and that some of this is helpful. Best of luck as you complete your review!

See you in class! :)

text wrap with external style sheets

Aloha!

I learned how to wrap text around images but still be able to use an external style sheet.

You can use an inline style. If you look at my home page, you can see the coding. Resize your browser and you'll see it works.

http://www2.hawaii.edu/~mesulliv/

Of course, if you have a lot of images, an internal css might be the way to go.

Also, if anyone wants to create a personalized/custom background for their page, I have photoshop. Let me know if you want to play!

Aloha,
michael