Blog for LIT330, Fragments of Rationality: Modern and Postmodern Literature and Theory, Fall 2010, Chester College of New England, Instructor Dr. Monica O'Brien
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Specificity vs. Identification
Here's a quote from Mark Z. Danielewski: "I've always wanted to create scenes that verge on the edge of specificity without crossing into identification." How do you interpret this statement as you read House of Leaves?
Danielewski's work is rife with footnotes. Perhaps one of the most interesting is the one by the editors referring the reader to the letters by Johnny Truant's mother in the appendix (72). The reader is subjected to many of the details of Truant's childhood while never specifically learning what occurs from them. Furthermore, the letters themselves begin to take on a sense of communicating secret messages, while never revealing the entire truth of the matter. One example being how his mother constantly complains about the new director, only to describe later that the new director was actually the old one the entire time. We are given scenes that lay out her ordeal, and yet the reader never gets a concrete sense of what is truly occurring to her there.
Most of Johnny's scenes have felt like a dream to me. The way Danielewski treats these often drug-induced wanderings through the city does exactly what the above statement speaks of. Johnny's descriptions come close to description and then veer off into museless wondering. He occasionally tells us what he's just described is false and never happened, but he never confirms that what he's just told us is true. I entertained the possibility while reading Molloy that he was lying the entire story through his teeth while in bed as he was in the opening scene. It almost feels like it could also be true that Johnny has been overcome and is sitting in his locked up apartment, windows covered in foil, walls wrapped in tape measures, telling us his fantasies of one night stands that he never really goes on. Is Lude real, or is he like the Brad Pitt version of Tyler Durden in Fight Club, egging Johnny on?
Between the footnotes, the multiple interlacing (and non-interlacing) characters, and the appendices there is so much room for interpretation and guesswork. Even if all language does is refer to itself and create more language. Even if the center is not the center and that centers limit freeplay. I think what Mark is saying that he doesn't want a center, he tries to shy away from it, but despite that he creates one. The center of HoL is the House. Everything about HoL emanates from that core. But regardless of this there are too many facets to behold all at once. In order to pick apart HoL one has to go piece by piece, facet by facet. It is very hard to see the "big picture" as it were. Due to that I believe Mark hits on his goal by not being too specific to identify everything. There is much marginality left within HoL for freeplay to exist.
In reading house of leaves, Danielewksi often hints at concepts, describing them, using them, illustrating them without ever defining them. He hints at numerous psychological conditions, most of which he never mentions specifically by name, but rather works into the characters so intimately that there is no missing it if you know what to look for. As other's have said, the quality of the book to describe a scene in exacting detail and then veer off into an unexpected diatribe on purely academic information emphasizes this idea of avoiding saying anything too plainly, but instead flooding the reader with seemingly endless specific details to the point that the sheer quantity of them seems to mask the real meaning.
Danielewski's work is rife with footnotes. Perhaps one of the most interesting is the one by the editors referring the reader to the letters by Johnny Truant's mother in the appendix (72). The reader is subjected to many of the details of Truant's childhood while never specifically learning what occurs from them. Furthermore, the letters themselves begin to take on a sense of communicating secret messages, while never revealing the entire truth of the matter. One example being how his mother constantly complains about the new director, only to describe later that the new director was actually the old one the entire time. We are given scenes that lay out her ordeal, and yet the reader never gets a concrete sense of what is truly occurring to her there.
ReplyDeleteMost of Johnny's scenes have felt like a dream to me. The way Danielewski treats these often drug-induced wanderings through the city does exactly what the above statement speaks of. Johnny's descriptions come close to description and then veer off into museless wondering. He occasionally tells us what he's just described is false and never happened, but he never confirms that what he's just told us is true. I entertained the possibility while reading Molloy that he was lying the entire story through his teeth while in bed as he was in the opening scene. It almost feels like it could also be true that Johnny has been overcome and is sitting in his locked up apartment, windows covered in foil, walls wrapped in tape measures, telling us his fantasies of one night stands that he never really goes on. Is Lude real, or is he like the Brad Pitt version of Tyler Durden in Fight Club, egging Johnny on?
ReplyDeleteChelsea
Between the footnotes, the multiple interlacing (and non-interlacing) characters, and the appendices there is so much room for interpretation and guesswork. Even if all language does is refer to itself and create more language. Even if the center is not the center and that centers limit freeplay. I think what Mark is saying that he doesn't want a center, he tries to shy away from it, but despite that he creates one. The center of HoL is the House. Everything about HoL emanates from that core. But regardless of this there are too many facets to behold all at once. In order to pick apart HoL one has to go piece by piece, facet by facet. It is very hard to see the "big picture" as it were. Due to that I believe Mark hits on his goal by not being too specific to identify everything. There is much marginality left within HoL for freeplay to exist.
ReplyDeleteIn reading house of leaves, Danielewksi often hints at concepts, describing them, using them, illustrating them without ever defining them. He hints at numerous psychological conditions, most of which he never mentions specifically by name, but rather works into the characters so intimately that there is no missing it if you know what to look for. As other's have said, the quality of the book to describe a scene in exacting detail and then veer off into an unexpected diatribe on purely academic information emphasizes this idea of avoiding saying anything too plainly, but instead flooding the reader with seemingly endless specific details to the point that the sheer quantity of them seems to mask the real meaning.
ReplyDelete