11.26.08 | House of Leaves [day6]

1. 11.26.08 | House of Leaves [day6] Schedule: • Attendance & Questions? • Discussion • HoL Wrap up • Review interactivity section. • Talk papers. • HW – Finish Reading! Start thinking about, brainstorming papers. Goal[s]: • Identify and evaluate the role of the reader in the ‘realization’ of a story. • Relate role of the reader to the discussions raised by the text.

2. In the story, there seems to be many hidden messages within the passages. From research done on the book from wikipedia, it seemed that if you go through the first letter of footnotes 27-42, it would spell out the author’s full name and same for foot notes 46-57 which spells out his surname.             27 Mitchel Nadine Goetz                      32 Declared Martin Heidegger’s             28 A selection of personal                     33 And here’s the English             29 Rita Mistopolis                                34 Neatly translated             30 Keillor Ross                                    35 In Appendix II                                                                         36 Easily that whole bit             31 Zampano.                                        37 Look at David Conte’s                                                                         38 Edith Skourja’s                                                                         39 Walter Jospeh Adeltine                                                                         40 Something like                                                                         41 Know what, Latin’s way out                                                                         42 In an effort to keep Another code that seem to be hidden in the passages of the story were the portions that were written in alternating short and long paragraphs which turn out to be Morse code that correspond to the text. I believe this could be found on page 97-106. More hidden codes could be found on page 64-65 from the long list of random names given. If you put the first letter of each of the individual's last names together, it would spell out the phrase "A LONG LIST". Knowing that this book have many hidden codes within its passages, does it affect your interactive/immersion with the reading or does it increase your curiosity with the book making you more interested in discovering where and what the codes are of?

3. Many people will claim that House of Leaves is an interactive experience, often defensively citing the varying approaches readers take when reading the novel, for example. Does the ability to skip reading certain sections really conform to the idea of "interactivity" as you understand it? What would Ryan say?tl;dr -- is it really interactive to simply choose what parts of the book not to perceive?

4. October 31, 1998 Back here again. These pages are a mess. Stuck together with honey from all my tea making. Stuck together with blood. No idea what to make of those last few entries either. What’s the difference, especially in difference, what’s read what’s left in what’s left out what’s invented what’s remembered what’s forgotten what’s written what’s found what’s lost what’s done? What’s not done? What’s the difference? 515

5. Yeah, right. What’s the difference? • Seems a pretty fair question to ask. After all this, what’s the difference? • Think back to all the ways this book opens up the reading and simultaneously frustrates coherent readings. In the end, what’s the point? If it is this open, if there is no center, what difference does any of this make? • Think of this as Truant asking the So What? • What is at stake for this book? • What is at risk? • What is potentially lost or gain?