The Home Stretch

At the beginning of our class I nurtured a fairly strong disdain for blogs in general. My own experiences with bloggers ranged from pushy to downright rude. I felt that they seemed to think themselves better than everyone else simply they had and published an opinion. Being an egalitarian and a firm believer in the fact that you are entitled to your own opinion and action as long as it does not harm anyone or impinge on their rights, I found blogging to be a form of proselytizing as all these bloggers that I had met rabidly asserted that their opinion was better than anyone else’s. So I was instantly reluctant to join this breed of self-promoting prophets. I maintained a small Myspace.com blog full of my creative writing posts and various thoughts about professors and school in general though only those people who knew about it and subscribed to it would go on and know that I had updated. I justified to myself that I wasn’t really a blogger because I didn’t foist the onus of reading it to anyone I passed and had barely met. However the first few critical posts got me kind of excited as I viewed them as a form of creative writing and as long as I didn’t talk about it to anyone else I could continue my view that I wasn’t “really a blogger.”
At the end of semester however I find that my opinions have changed. I enjoy writing in my blog. You, by far, have taught me more about reading critically than any teacher I have ever met. So maybe it was because I felt myself looking deeper into things that I normally wouldn’t have seen. The themes you outlined for us at the beginning of most of our classes helped immensely and gave me ideas to consider later in the semester such as the treatment of women in the literature, the meaning of stories, et cetera. Also in reading my classmates’ blogs I found that not all bloggers are as pushy as the ones I had met previously. I loved talking to them in person about their opinions though I didn’t often comment on them I talked with Jessica, Terrence, Rich, Ish, and Barry about our ideas fairly often. I also found a lot of blogs hilarious especially Rob and Kevin’s snarky wit. Though at the end I tried to tap my own brand of humor but I found it did not translate quite well onto the electronic page, but I enjoyed the jokes if only just for myself.
We discussed in House of Leaves that the new form of literature, some believe, will become a bunch of different authors adding to stories via electronic means. In this regard blogging gives us a chance to be a part of this new literary style. By posting our own views and allowing others to comment and give us more ideas we are forced, then, to add, revise, retract, rephrase, and rework our own thought and opinion. In this way we elevate literature from an insular experience, our own reading, understanding, and imagining of a story, into something much more fluid and alive. So our blogs become useful in understanding 21st century literature by making us a part of it. Additionally assignments like a blog make us a better writer, and allow others to comment showing us exactly where we must improve in order to be viable.
I found the improvement in my critical reading skills absurd and astonishing through the course of this blog. In looking back, my posts for The Mercy Seat were flat and pretty much only a superficial discussion about themes in the book. As we went on however I started to delve into the deeper meanings of the book and I found myself thinking deeper as to why someone would write something like this as well as author’s motives for choosing certain elements and actions for their characters in the story, graphic novel, play, diary of madmen that were the books we read. I also found the fact that I was truly enjoying posting blogs surprising as my initial hatred bordered on the all-encompassing.
If I could do this assignment again I would do more; I’d have more posts, more comments on other people’s blogs, more playing around with the texture and look of my blog. I found that lack of time severely restricted my dedication to this assignment and by the end of it I would have loved to have just put in more of myself to this. At the beginning it was chore, at the end was a joy; I feel that if I had spent more time in the middle the whole experience would have become fun much sooner.

And In Conclusion

This one is just for me. Anybody else read this book on public transit? Because I found time oddly warping while reading this. I found I missed a good few stops on the Staten Island rail as well as a good half hour on the ferry. One minute we were leaving staten island the next we were in Manhatten. While reading it in other classes I thought I had been reading forever but it had only been ten minutes. It was as if the minutes were warped. They would expand and condense and I found myself getting lost in words.154

154 If any of you actually believe this you are all as crazy as Mr. Squeri and should seek counseling. -Ed.

House

I picked this house because it is perfectly normal from the outside but holding something much deeper within. It is also secluded being the only house in view, as Navidson says on pg 8 "I bought a small house in the country." It also has a porch where Navidson would drink his lemonade. The only reason I really picked it was because it looks so normal here it really could conceal a horrible history. Like the Amityville horror or some other terrible murder.

Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKCSGQVFhek

I like this video because it puts a picture to the state of Zampano's apartment when Johnny and Lude first find the journal. I also like the shots of the hallways and how it previews the tension between Navidson and Karen. I also like anything involving Milla Jovovich. However there is a lot of meaningless space in here proving that just as in some of the footnotes, most of it may be worthless but there may be something in there worth reading. And I do not appreciate the shameful ripping off of Resident Evil footage. For shame youtubers!

Character Sketch

My first passage comes from pg. 37. "He (Reston) is a gruff man, frequently caustic and more like a drill sergeant than a tenured professor." He is a paraplegic as well. Navidson and Reston met in India and he took a picture of Reston running from an electrical wire. Here then is our first glimpse of Reston and it is a fair one. He first sends the brothers Navidson to the house armed with a laser leveler. Which of course doesn't work. Then he shows up himself. Instead of allowing himself to be carried into the house, this proud man says "That won't be necessary." And makes it onto the second floor of the house by his arm strength alone. (pg. 55) In fact, we see a bit of a sense of humor about his impediment as well. When Tom says "Too bad you forgot your chair," Reston laughs and says "Well, and fuck you." We see a gruff and serious man, but with a sense of humor and a calm acceptance of his lot in life. This is not the last time we see a softer side of Reston. SPOILERS!!! If you haven't read to 321 DO NOT CONTINUE!!! After Navidson is lost during the shift at the spiral staircase Reston remains at the radios trying to get in touch with Nav even after 5 days. (Pg. 321) He even communicates his hope. When Tom says That Navy's been gone over four days Reston says "There's still a chance."

So we have a gruff character who takes no nonsense but still can have a sense of humor over the bad hand that life dealt him, as well as a sincere devotion to his friends and willing to grab at a shred of hope, even if it's as faint as the light of a flashbulb in the deep darkness of the House.

When a House is not a House

I think the house is a metaphor for our psyche. We have the side of ourselves we present to the outside world. It is respectable, it looks reconizable for what it is because we strive to be like everyone else with a few differences on the outside. We have windows to the interior but even then in front of the windows we arrange things with the skill of a master landscaper. However through the door, and in the rooms that you can't see, something much darker may lurk.

Our long hallways can be our flaws. They may condense sometimes and be nothing more than momentary shifts into darkness. Anger can be a small blowup inside our own head, or a murderous rage from which nothing (no one) is safe. We all have minor insecurities and deeper damage that we hide in darkness impenetrable so no one else may see it.

Finally we come to our markers. Some of us blessed with self-knowledge know where we are deficient. So we place markers so we can understand where the darkness makes a habit of getting the best of us. However at times our markers become mangled and our flaws swallow what used to mark them and we succumb to our darkness. Still other times greater flaws lurk in the darkness ones which we do not know about and therefore fail to mark. The ever present growl of worse things than darkness and cold.

SKIP IT

While reading this book Jaime did not skip much. He did, however, skip the footnotes that just seemed to rattle off names and titles and lists of things that one would find in any normal house. He figured that these didn't have much to do with either story and therefore while cursorily looking at the words he allowed his mind to freely wander into whatever fantasy crossed his mind.

He enjoyed reading this book alot. He found himself taking it everywhere. He read it at work during lunch. He read it during other classes (sorry to Dr. Hurst, Prof. Valcin, and Dr. Boyenne)He even took it with him on a few porcelain cruises. He enjoyed the twisting and turning the words forced him into. He relished the chance to confront some of his own darkness in thinking about the unfathombably night of the book.

The one thing he did not enjoy, however, was the book's propensity to inflict Truant-like symptoms on those who read it. He found himself creeped by sounds in his basement that he's heard for years. The warming of pipes took on a definate growling tone, the darkness seemed less friendly and even on a layout he's known for years once he found himself lost until he stubbed his toe on a doorframe. In Truant's words "FUCK. FUCK. FUCK." He also noticed that while reading this book on public transportation time seemed to shift. Seconds elongated into minutes and minutes condensed to seconds and he missed stops on the train as the yawning darkness ate moments like morsels. As off-putting as that was he still enjoyed reading this book. He looks forward to the end eagerly peering into the darkness of the unknown.