In Passion For Pity and Other Recipes For Disaster (London: Greenhill Books, 1996) Helmut Muir cried: "They both live. They even get married. It's a happy ending."
Which is true. Both Karen and Will Navidson survive their ordeal and they do exchange conjugal vows in Vermont. Of course, is it really possible to look at Navidson's ravaged face, the patch covering his left eye, the absence of a hand, the crutch wedged under his armpit, and call it a "happy" ending?
The centerpiece of the novel is a documentary video of what may be a haunted house that has come to be known as “The Navidson Record.” The book itself is not just about that film, but pretty much everything it covers springs forth from that video document. The postmodern pastiche that is House of Leaves is utterly dependent upon the experience of Karen and Will Navidson, but that experience is merely the jumping off point for everything else which comprises the text.
Appendix
Zampanò produced a great deal of material outside of The Navidson Record. Here's a selection of journal entries, poems and even a letter to the editor, all of which I think sheds a little more light on his work as well as his personality. — JT.
Part of that postmodern pastiche are appendices. Some have referred to this essentially unclassifiable book as a satire on academic papers while others consider it a horror story. In addition to a fake movie there is also a fake academic paper written about the fake documentary film by a man named Zampanò. Of course, within the construct of the fiction, neither the film nor the academic paper is treated as a fake. Just the opposite, in fact, as is evidenced by the extended appendix to the Zampanò paper which is followed by another appended by Johnny Truant.
Dear, dear Johnny,
Pay attention: the next letter I will encode as follows: use the first letter of each word to build subsequent words and phrases: your exquisite intuition will help you sort out the spaces: I've sent this via a night nurse: our secret will be safe
Tenderly,
Mom
Further adding to the postmodernity of the pastiche is the story of Johnny Truant—twice removed from the story of the Navidsons—as well as the story of Pelafina Heather Lifevre Johnny’s mentally ill mother, thrice removed. Johnny Truant enters the narrative as the editor of Zampanò’s unwieldy academic study of the Navidson’s movie. Along the way, the reader learns his story which involves a clearly disturbed—and possibly homicidally so—mother. Mother and son are both distanced from mental stability and Johnny’s backstory is often somewhat at odds with his mother’s as well as the official record. As she devolves deeper into insanity, her letters do indeed contain secret coded messages which can be decoded following her advice.
“What matters is how that film affects us or in this case how it affects me. The quality of image is often terrible except when Will Navidson handles the camera which does not happen often enough. The sound is poor. The elision of many details contributes to insufficiently developed characters. And finally the overall structure creaks and teeters, threatening at any minute to collapse.”
Part of the academic paper written by Zampanò about the Navidson’s movie which Johnny is editing is an oral analysis of the Navidson’s movie compiled by Karen Green titled “What Some Have Thought” which includes statements about the film supposed gained in interviews with luminaries ranging from Steve Wozniak (Apple computer co-founder) to Stephen King. Interestingly, another famous person interviewed about the haunted house documentary is Stanley Kubrick, noted for his film adaptation of King’s novel The Shining which King loathes. Even more interesting is one of Johnny's footnotes raises serious questions about whether any of the famous people quoted in Karen Green's oral analysis was actually ever interviewed by her.
