House of Leaves - Chapter 3

“It is no accident that the photographer becomes a photographer any more than the lion tamer becomes a lion tamer.”

- Dorothea Lange

I have no idea who Dorothea Lange is, but I find this opening quote quite apropos to what is happening to Will Navidson, and to a lesser extent to Johnny Truant. Focus on the articles here. The photographer becomes a photographer. The lion tamer becomes a lion tamer. If you’re fortunate enough, at some point in life you become someone in some shape or form. You become the artist, the writer, the baseball star, or even the dad. Even if it’s limited to a small social circle, you have something that is yours, a piece of you that makes you, well… you. 

Then, life plays its cruel joke on you. It robs you of these things through the simple passage of time and everything that it encompasses. You’re no longer the artist or writer because you’re too busy to do those things, or maybe because other people passed you by and are better. You’re no longer the baseball player because you stopped improving at the same rate as the competition, or because you simply became too old to keep up. You’re no longer the dad because your friends start having kids of their own so you’re no longer special. If not, then your kids grow up and treat you more like a friend than a parent. They don’t need you anymore, at least not the way they did before. 

Time reduces you to the a article. Or maybe, you always were the a article from the moment you sprang forth into this world. Either way, you become just another footnote in history which will eventually be erased one way or another. 

Am I reaching here? Am I being overly analytical and artsy? Probably, but I’m also being honest in regards to my interpretation of the text. Let’s read on.

The placement of Truant’s footnote at the beginning of the chapter pretty much allows the reader to choose between starting with that or with Zampanò’s text. Truant is always an easy choice. 

He begins by essentially asking, “Why me?” Why is he treated as the the article? The obvious response is because Lude called him at 3AM to go check out a dead man’s apartment, but we all know that there is more to it.

Truant goes on to tell us that his closeness to and compatibility with Lude is largely derived from the fact that their dreams do not interfere with one another. Lude is a simple man. He wants more money, better parties, and prettier girls. Truant, on the other hand, wants something else. 

“I’m not even sure what to call it anymore except I know it feels roomy and it’s drenched in sunlight and it’s weightless and I know it’s not cheap.”

I relate to this description of a dream so much. Though for me, I wouldn’t say it’s my dream so much as it’s my ideal state of being. Empty rooms with lots of sunlight give me such a sense of peace and freedom. Freedom from the burdens of material possessions and all the time and energy they command… When I think of my personal, inner peace I picture myself in an empty room in some cozy little house in the woods, with the windows wide open allowing as much sunlight as possible to pour into the space, while I sit in a chair writing whatever the hell I want on my laptop. That’s it.

Truant then explains how he has always been a great storyteller. We’ve seen an example of this in the previous chapter, but he uses an even better one here. He briefly recounts one of his favorite stories to explain the origins of his scars that run up from his wrists to his elbows. In this tale, Truant reveals to others, typically women at bars, that he was in a Japanese Martial Arts cult based in Idaho and that one of his tasks was to pick up a flaming hot wok with his bareforearms.

He knows that most people don’t actually believe this story, yet they still take comfort in it. Most people look away from his scars, seemingly hoping to forget that they exist. Truant himself admits to looking away from his own scars. His scars, all scars really, are permanent reminders of past trauma in some shape or form. We often find ourselves coming up with exaggerated tales of valor, toughness, or even humor to associate something positive with them. At least I do, anyway.

“We all create stories to protect ourselves.”

However, Truant knows that we can’t hide under the protection of stories or other forms of shelter forever. He said it himself in the Introduction. Sooner or later, we will be reduced to the nothingness of the a article. Sooner or later, the great complexity will capture its prey…

This makes me wonder about the timing of all this. Did Truant get these scars after he recovered Zampanò’s text? Why does he want to look away from his scars? What kind of trauma did he go through to earn such souvenirs? Does it have to do with the events ambiguously described in the Introduction? Let’s read on.

Truant reveals that he counted over 200 rejection letters from various publishing houses, literary journals, and even prominent east coast university professors within the trunk containing the bulk of Zampanò’s writings. It seemed that the only person that saw any value in Zampanò’s words, the only person that wanted them, was Truant himself. A childhood counselor once told Truant that his love for old, abandoned things reminded him of himself which could explain its appeal. He ends his footnote with this:

“You know this is still the simple answer. I guess the complicated one I don’t feel like getting into.”

You and me both. Why me? Why do I feel the way that I feel when I feel it? Why do I feel so strongly sometimes and other times… hardly at all? It’s easier to shove these questions to the back of your subconscious and move on with your day. Who can ever judge a person for taking the easy route? It’s in our nature, after all.

Back to our friend, Zampanò. We learn that Will Navidson was not the first occupant of the house on Ash Tree Lane. In fact, Alicia Rosenbaum, the realtor who sold the property to Navidson, revealed that the house had roughly .37 owners every year since its construction in 1720. Why Zampanò and/or Rosenbaum decided to use such a weird statistic like owners per year in this context is beyond me. I guess everyone in this story is a little fucked up somehow. Well, aren’t we all?

Here’s the cool part. Zampanò tells us that there have been many instances of the previous occupants experiencing horrors within that house:

“...quite a few people have slept and suffered within those walls.”

Zampanò goes on to claim that Navidson’s unique psyche stemming from his troubled childhood shaped the way the house “behaved” and “haunted” his family. I wonder if Danielewski was inspired by the video game series, Silent Hill. Silent Hill has the concept, except it applies to an entire town instead of a single home. I won’t say anything else about the games, just be sure to check them out if you can. Silent Hill 1-4 are seriously some of the most captivating, masterful pieces of art I’ve ever consumed. Sorry if I just set you up for disappointment.

Now we learn about Will Navidson’s childhood, and boy did it seem lousy. His father, Tony Navidson, was a traveling electronics salesman who moved his family around the Midwest every couple of years. Tony was an alcoholic and prone to violent outbursts. He would disappear for long periods of time, usually spanning 4-5 weeks before returning home, totally unannounced.

One anecdote revealed that Tony once cracked the windshield of the family’s new car with his thermos and then proceeded to go inside his home and threw a hot pan of pork chops against the kitchen wall. 

Navidson’s mother was arguably worse. She flat out left her entire family to pursue a career as an actress. There’s no happy ending here. She was found living with “seedy” producers (we’re not told specifics but you get the idea) and never spoke to her children again.

To sum it up, both parents had abandoned Will and Tom. After regular disappearances over the years, their father died of heart failure. Like I said above, the mother straight up vanished. One of Zampanò’s footnotes sourced a doctor, Rita Mistopolis, who aptly compared starvation to emotional abuse in children. If either affliction (starvation or emotional abuse) is too severe, the damage will be permanent. Obviously with starvation, the damage will be physical or physiological in nature. With emotional abuse, the damage could manifest itself in a myriad of ways involving a person’s psychological or emotional state.

Unfortunately for Will and Tom Navidson, their emotional abuse seems to have been severe enough to impair them permanently. They both survived through their parents’ abandonment by treating everything as temporary, even the good things and people in their lives. Zampanò reasoned that Will’s entire career aspirations stemmed from this abandonment and abuse.

“Perhaps one reason Navidson became so enamored with photography was the way it gave permanence to moments that were often so fleeting.”

God damn. That was beautiful. I don’t think it’s necessary to expound on that quote further. To do so would only take away from its meaning.

Zampanò then calls back to the shot of Navidson sitting on his porch, sipping on lemonade. Navidson states his purpose for his project and for his overall move, including the sentence:

“Personally, I just want to create a cozy little outpost for me and my family.”

Zampanò becomes hyper-focused on the word “outpost” and declares:

“Navidson wanted to use images to create an outpost set against the transience of the world. No wonder he found it so impossible to give up his professional occupation. In his mind abandoning photography meant submitting to loss.”

Dictionary.com provides the following definition for outpost:

“A station established at a distance from the main body of an army to protect it from surprise attack”

It’s like Navidson was using the video cameras and the house itself to defend against the enemy that was impermanence. It’s a very profound observation by Zampanò and I agree with his analysis.

Finally, we are left with this:

“Why not someone else?

Considering his own history, talent and emotional background, only Navidson could have gone as deep as he did and still have successfully brought that vision back.”

I guess we’re in for a treat in the coming chapters. The ominous ambiguity and dread… I love it.

I want to wrap up this post by talking a little bit about Zampanò. He’s proven to be quite an astute individual and seems to also be quite emotionally intelligent. However, I find myself sort of disliking the dude. His footnotes read with a tone of superiority and arrogance. He often argues and disparages the sources he provides in his footnotes and comes off as kind of an asshole.

For example, Zampanò argued that everything Dr. Iben Van Pollit concluded was wrong in his work, The Incident, after he complimented him on his research and thought process. Zampanò also stated that “Navidson is a man who understands the meaning of outpost and his tone seems too straight forward to imply any kind of jest” after Keillor Ross (another source) suggested that Navidson was joking around when he used the word “outpost,” with the context being that Navidson had moved to the wilderness of the Virginia countryside from New York City.

It may be a minor thing, but that really pissed me off when I read it. Like, motherfucker you do not have inside knowledge of Navidson to know exactly what the man was thinking and feeling whenever he spoke in front of a video camera. I hate arrogance and especially despise arrogant people. I don’t know about you, but the older I get the more I realize how little I actually know. Honestly, there is little absolute truth in the world if you ask me. Perspective accounts for most things. Maybe I’ll elaborate on this in the future.

Well, there you have it everyone. Can you believe Chapter 3 is only five pages long? It baffles me how so much material and meaning can be extrapolated from so few pages of words. Reading this book is probably going to take months and months and months with this methodology, but hey… I’m still here now, doing it.