This book will make of me a Johnny Truant, a Zampanò, Will Navidson, the house itself. I decided that the best way to commit to a little bit of writing every day will be to keep a diary alongside my reading of two books, House of Leaves and my favorite professor's thesis on Nietzsche and Heidegger. Honestly, I'm stealing this idea from MyHouse.wad's companion diary. I thought it'd be better to be honest. Another truth, I've never really cared much for either Nietzsche nor Heidegger. I've always been more attracted to the figures of Hegel, Althusser, Deleuze and Bataille. Dr. E and I talk a little bit about all of them.
My only interest in Nietzsche and Heidegger are the effects they've had on Western thought. Dr. E makes persistent references to Heidegger's confrontation with Nietzsche, a combative word. I don't know if I've ever truly struggled with a philosopher enough to call my engagements a real confrontation. It's far from Hegel's struggle-unto-death, I've yet to confront the Absolute Lord through our struggles. It feels more like I'm in a boxing match where the trainer knows not to get too serious for fear of hurting me. I've yet to develop what Deleuze describes as a proper intellectual athleticism.
Today the first thing I underlined in House of Leaves that I wanted to save for later was this particular section:
As I discovered, there were reams and reams of it. Endless snarls of words, sometimes twisting into meaning, sometimes into nothing at all, frequently breaking apart, always branching off into other pieces I'd come across later—on old napkins, the tattered edges of an envelope, once even on the back of a postage stamp; everything and anything but empty; each fragment completely covered with the creep of years and years of ink pronouncements; layered, crossed out, amended; handwritten, typed; legible, illegible; impenetrable, lucid; torn, stained, scotch taped; some bits crisp and clean, others faded, burnt or folded and refolded so many times the creases have obliterated whole passages of god knows what—sense? nothing of the kind?, and in the end achieving, designating, describing, recreating—find your own words; I have no more; or plenty more but why? and all to tell—what?
[Written on the margin: the schizophrenic's table]
While reading the book I thought it'd be a good idea to write down the things that the sections remind me of. Next to one paragraph I wrote the names of The Convent and The Lucid Hollow, locations I stole from other books that I want to rewrite for my own works. I think in another story I tried to write there was a bar I came up with called the Red Beetle. Next to another paragraph I wrote that the writing reminded me of the apartment scene during the intro cinematic of Cruelty Squad.
There was one particular line that made me think that Zampanò is one of the literary giants of hyperstition:
Zampanò knew from the get go that what's real or isn't real doesn't matter here. The consequences are the same.
Next to another paragraph I wrote down the name of every woman I've ever loved. The names will only ever be seen by whoever ends up with this physical copy after me. I don't really know what to say about this book. I've tried reading it before but I only got a couple hundred pages into it. I don't expect my thoughts to be particularly systematic and sometimes I find it rather silly to write about a book. A book is always so much more complicated than anything you could say about it unless you were to set yourself to the task of writing an exact replica, like Pierre Ménard in the Borges tale; or writing a commentary so extensive that you end up reproducing a horrific clone of the original work with all sorts of deformations. How could I ever hope to compete?