Fear of the Dark in HoL

You knew this was coming.

(To allow this post to have the most effect on you, you should play the song "Fear of the Dark" by Iron Maiden while reading.)

I had to write about having a fear of the dark, partially because I experience it a lot myself and also because Johnny seems to in a similar capacity (only with more hallucinations).

According to my brief Wikipedia research, this fear, when pathological, can be called nyctophobia, scotophobia, lygophobia, or achluophobia. All their roots relate in some way to night, or darkness. The opening paragraph to that article also states very concisely what I actually fear: "Fear of the dark is usually not fear of the darkness itself, but fear of possible or imagined dangers concealed by the darkness."

For many years I was severely plagued by this fear of monstrous possibilities lurking just out of my peripheral vision, to the point where I would run up the stairs from the dark living room, not necessarily because I was hurried to get there, but because a genuine thrill of fear went through me and caused adrenaline to happen. It was bad.

When I moved away from home, this response calmed a lot (I lived on the second floor, there were more people around, etc). I was able to tuck it away in the back of my head and be fine. I still never did well with completely dark rooms, but I could survive without running everywhere.

I made the mistake last weekend of reading House of Leaves with only a single lamp on in the apartment, night fully set in outside, and boyfriend out of the house. I was alone, with this book, and my fear of the dark. Because the fear is innately enough woven into my mind that sitting here with the TV blazing away and boyfriend right next to me, I can picture eyes peering out of a dark doorway in my head and be frightened. Almost to the point of glancing around. So, sitting alone, reading about Holloway appearing around corners and people's flashlights dying and Tom crouched stationary in a tent, I was way freaked out. I try to save on electricity by shutting off lights and my computer when I leave the house--I left them all on. I couldn't stand to turn my back on that much darkness, or even exist in it for the time it would take me to make it to the door.

Anyway, this isn't supposed to be about me. I only mention it at all because the darkness is so prevalent in this book that it reawakened my previously suppressed fear. The darkness in this book is the divine presence, it is as pervasive. Every character we encounter has noticed the dark, or mentions it--Karen's claustrophobia verges on fear of the dark, Tom's issues, how drained Jed and Wax and Holloway are after Exploration #3, Johnny's attack in the back room. When I identify with him during a section he's written, I can't help but fearfully exclaim, "Johnny, you dumbass!" He doesn't avoid the dark despite all these terrible visions of attacks happening to him, nor does he attempt to open his home more, let in the light. He shrinks into dark alleyways and bars and covers his windows with foil and lets his electric go unpaid. I can't believe it...I'd be even less able to sleep than he is.

I'm not breaking it down here as conclusively as I would in an essay, but the darkness literally touches every section of this book. I'm almost certain I could tie it to any section you can think of. The monster in the labyrinth of the house? Maybe a minotaur. Maybe just the house. It's the possibility that's so frightening.

Basically, trying to write about this book is like that idea we wrestled down at the beginning of the semester. Trying to write a scientific report that actually contains everything related to it is impossible, because everything relates to everything when discussed scientifically. Trying to write about House of Leaves is not impossible--but trying to write about every idea contained in House of Leaves probably ranks right up there with a complete scientific report on the scale of impossible things. The best we can do is what we have done--write a body of criticism that is infinitely expanding and covers a piece of it at a time.

Onward and upward.

Chelsea