**SPOILER ALERT!**
When I was reading House of Leaves for the first time, it was impossible to look up all the historical, literary, religious references that MZD added to the text. Since I went through the book several more times to build the model for Inquiry #2, I had a chance to slow down a bit and was able to do some research on some of those references. I thought it’d be fun to talk about a few of them here:
Ash Tree Lane
Obviously, the Navidson’s house is on Ash Tree Lane. The ash tree apparently plays a significant role in Norse myths. The Yggdrasil (Old Norse for ash tree) was believed to be the World Tree that stands at the center of the universe. This World Tree joins the nine worlds of Norse cosmology, which includes worlds that exist above, on, and below earth. MZD might have chosen Ash Tree Lane as the location for the Navidson’s house because it a place where the human world and the supernatural world coexist. The reference suggests that the house is at the center of the universe, or at least suggests that something important and universal happens in that house. I wonder if there is any mention in the text of the existence of nine worlds.
Succoth
While I’m on the topic of the location of the house, the narrative also describes the house as “sitting quietly on the corner of Succoth and Ash Tree Lane” (18). Succoth is Hebrew for the Jewish Feast of the Tabernacle, but it can also refer to a location. This location could be (among other places) “the place of entering into darkness” or “where Jacob, on his return from Padan-aram after his interview with Esau, built a house for himself and made sukkot (booths) for his cattle.” The Jacob reference is connected to Chapter XI, where critics attempt to make a comparison between Jacob and Will Navidson. I’m still not really sure how this comparison is important to the overall scheme of the novel.
Devil’s Ear
In the story Johnny tells about being a Pit Boxer includes the detail that the Captain took him to Devil’s Ear in Florida (15). Devil’s ear is an underwater network of caverns that reminds me a lot of a labyrinth. The experience of going through this cave network is probably similar to the experience of exploring the labyrinth of the house. In fact, people have died in that cave despite the efforts to enact safety measures such as this sign.
There are also subtler connections between this underwater location and the text. Reston becomes sea sick when he goes on the rescue mission into the house with Navidson, and the metaphor of sea exploration appears throughout the text. In addition, the reference to the sea and to the ear is mentioned in Navidson’s Dream #2. In footnote 385, Derrida plays with the French word for snail (limaçon), which could refer to a spiral staircase (such as the one in Navidson’s house) or the spiral canal of the inner ear (the cochlea). Note that the diagram of the cochleal fluids vaguely resembles the map for Devil’s Ear. The reference might also be related to the theme of sounds in the novel (e.g. the echo), since the cochlea is the part of the ear that transforms vibrations from the air into nerve signals to the brain.