Yes, I keep feeling ridiculous for trying to analyze this book. Last week when we were talking about whether or not Johnny Truant was a reliable narrator, someone asked, why does it matter? I’m starting to feel that way about the whole book. Danielewski leads us around in his little text mazes, getting deeper into the analysis of a movie that doesn’t exist, about a house that doesn’t exist. Truant, for that matter, doesn’t exist either. Neither does Navidson. Or Karen. Or her problems. Danielewski’s writing fiction here.
However, as much as it resists analysis, it kind of cries out for it. Sure, nothing really exists, but really, neither do the dark hallways, so everything at least relates. It reminds me again of the layers in The Crying of Lot 49. Peel away everything only to reveal more layers:
“From the outset of The Navidson Record, we are involved in a labyrinth, meandering from one celluloid cell to the next, trying to peek around the next edit in hopes of finding a solution, a centre, a sense of whole, only to discover another sequence, leading in a completely different direction, a continually devolving discourse, promising the possibility of discovery…” (114).
Even if Danielewski doesn’t want us to interpret it, there’s this need to at least mull over the deeper implications of everything that happens. Especially when he presents so much analysis of everything. I mean, given the interpretation of Minotaur-as-deformed-child, how could people just move on like that isn’t an interesting consideration? At the very least, we can analyze his analyses, right?
I really like the part about the Minotaur, even though it’s hard to read because of the strike-through. I also like how he describes how to read the text sort of the same way he describes how to view the movie. For example, he’s talking about how Navidson mimics the distress code by timing his film clips to the pulse of SOS. At the same time, the text in the book forms a similar pattern. Later he leads us through the maze of text and footnotes, some dead ends, while explaining how to interpret a maze. I suppose this is pretty gimmicky, but I kind of like it because it reminds me in some ways of a comic strip – how you’re visually led from one frame to the next.
If the form of the text is so interwoven with the interpretation of the movie, is it any wonder the book itself gets analyzed? I’m not sure how to read it without constantly applying whatever he says to Truant. I’m also not sure what to do with the Sheehan Disability Scale. I guess it’s like the ultimate form of analyzing the book, right? Put it through psychotherapy?
Also, can I just point out that on page 84, an article titled “The Illusion of Intimacy and Depth” appears in an issue of Ladies’ Home Journal? That’s pretty funny. So was the story about the captain with the red shirt/brown pants.
You’re right when you say that “at the very least, we can analyze his analyses.” There are so many gaps, contradictions, and omissions in the analyses offered by the various narrative voices (Truant, Zampanò, Pelafina, the people in The Navidson Record) that these analyses themselves become open to interpretation. I think of it this way: we have to look awry at House of Leaves, catching it by surprise out of the corner of our eye, where we can detect peripheral traces of wide-open analytical doors.
For example, there’s a discussion by Zampanò about “the uncanny” that quotes from Heidegger. But what is strangely missing from this discussion is an earlier and much more important dissection of “the uncanny” by Freud, in which Freud offers up more insightful interpretations of the uncanny than Heidegger. The fact that Freud’s uncanny is missing from House of Leaves suggests to me that (1) it was intentionally left out and (2) that it might be a productive way to think about some elements of the novel.
My reference to the Sheehan Disability Scale was another instance where I sought to turn the book against itself, catching it unawares by its very own excessive allusions. The SDS might be forced, I’m willing to concede. But I’ll hold my ground on the uncanny.