Mark Z Danielewski

by House Of Leaves (pdf)

  Therefore to revisit our first two questions:

  Why Navidson?

  Considering the practically preadamite history of the house, it was inevitable someone like Navidson would eventually enter those rooms.

  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.[19]

  Faith, sir, as to that matter, I don't believe one half of it myself

  — Diedrich Knickerbocker

  In early June of 1990, the Navidsons flew to Seattle for a wedding. When they returned, something in the house had changed. Though they had only been away for four days, the change was enormous. It was not, however, obvious—like for instance a fire, a robbery, or an act of vandalism. Quite the contrary, the horror was atypical. No one could deny there had been an intrusion, but it was so odd no one knew how to respond. On video, we see Navidson acting almost amused while Karen simply draws both hands to her face as if she were about to pray. Their children, Chad and Daisy, just run through it, playing, giggling, completely oblivious to the deeper implications.

  What took place amounts to a strange spatial violation which has already been described in a number of ways—namely surprising, unsettling, disturbing but most of all uncanny. In German the word for 'uncanny' is 'unheimlich' which Heidegger in his book Sein und Zeit thought worthy of some consideration:

  Daji die Angst als Grundbefindlichkeit in sol- cher Weise erschliejit, dafiir ist weider die alltagliche Daseinsauslegung und Rede der unvoreingenommenste Beleg. Befindlichkeit, so wurde friiher gesagt, macht offenbar »wie einem ist«. In der Angst is einem »un- heimlich«. Darin kommt zunachst die eigentiimliche Unbestimmtheit dessen, wobei sich das Dasein in der Angst befindet, zum Ausdruck: das Nichts und Nirgends. Un- heimlichkeit meint aber dabei zugleich das Nichtzuhause-sein. Bei der ersten phanome- nalen Anzeige der Grundverfassung des Daseins und der Klarung des existenzialen Sinnes von In-Sein im Unterschied von der kategorialen Bedeutung der »Inwendigkeit« wurde das In-Sein bestimmt als Wohnen bei . . ., Vertrautsein mit . . . Dieser Charakter des In-Seins wurde dann konkreter sichtbar gemach durch die alltagliche Offentlichkeit des Man, das die beruhigte Selbstsicherheit, das selbstverstandliche »Zuhause-sein« in die durchschnittliche Alltaglichkeit des Daseins

  [1]Declared Martin Heidegger's Sein und Zeit (Frankfurt Am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1977), p. 250- 251.33

  [1]And here's the English, thanks to John Macquarrie and Edward Robinsons' translation of Heidegger's Being and Time. Harper Row, 1962, page 233. A real bitch to find:

  In anxiety one feels uncanny. Here the peculiar indefiniteness of that which Dasein finds itself alongside in anxiety, comes proximally to expression: the "nothing and nowhere". But here "uncanniness" also means "not-being-at home." [das Nicht-zuhause-sein]. In our first indication of the phenomenal character of Dasein's basic state and in our clarification of the existential meaning of "Being-in" as distinguished from the categorial signification of 'insideness', Being-in was defined as "residing alongside . . .", "Being-familiar with ..." This character of Being-in was then brought to view more concretely through the everyday publicness of the "they", which brings tranquilized self-assurance—'Being-at-home', with all its obviousness—into the average everydayness of Dasein. On the other hand, as Dasein falls, anxiety brings it back from its absorption in the 'world'. Everyday familiarity collapses. Dasein has been individualized, but individualized as Being-in-the- world. Being-in enters into the existential 'mode' of the "not-at-home". Nothing else is meant by our talk about 'uncanniness'.

  Which only goes to prove the existence of crack back in the early twentieth century. Certainly this geezer must of gotten hung up on a pretty wicked rock habit to start spouting such nonsense. Crazier still, I've just now been wondering if something about this passage may have actually affected me, which I know doesn't exactly follow, especially since that would imply something in it really does make sense, and I just got finished calling it non-sense.

  I don't know.

  The point is, when I copied down the German a week ago, I was fine. Then last night I found the translation and this morning, when I went into work, I didn't feel at all myself. It's probably just a coincidence—I mean that there's some kind of connection between my state of mind and The Navidson Record or even a few arcane sentences on existence penned by a former Nazi tweaking on who knows what. More than likely, it's something entirely else, the real root lying in my already strange mood fluctuations, though I guess those are pretty recent too, rocking back and forth between wishful thinking and some private agony until the bar breaks. I've no fucking clue.

  das Nicht-zuhause-sein

  [not-being-at-home.]

  That part's definitely true.

  These days, I'm an apprentice at a tattoo shop on Sunset. I answer phones, schedule consultations and clean up. Any idiot could handle it. In fact the job's reserved for idiots. This afternoon though, how do I explain it?, something's really off. I'm off. I can't do a fucking thing. I just keep staring at all the ink we have, that wild variety of color, everything from rootbeer, midnight blue and cochineal to mauve, light doe, lilac, south sea green, maize, even pelican black, all lined up in these plastic caps, like tiny transparent thimbles—and needles too, my eyes catching on all those carefully preserved points and we have hundreds, mostly #12 sharps, many singles, though plenty in two, three, four, five, six and seven needle groups, even a fourteen round shader.

  It depends on what you need.

  I don't know what I need but for no apparent reason I'm going terribly south. Nothing has happened, absolutely nothing, but I'm still having problems breathing. The air in the Shop is admittedly thick with the steady smell of sweat, isopropyl alcohol, Benz-all, all that solution for the ultrasonic cleaner, even solder and flux, but that's not it either.

  Of course no one notices. My boss, a retinue of his friends, some new inductee who's just put down $150 for a rose, keep up the chatter, pretty loud chatter too, though never quite enough to drown out the most important sound of alls the single, insistent buzz of an original "J" tattoo machine logging yet another hundred stabs a minute in the dimple of some chunky ass.

  I get a glass of water. I walk out into the hallway. That's a mistake. I should of stayed near people. The comfort of company and all that. Instead I'm alone, running through a quick mental check list: food poisoning? (stomach's fine) withdrawals? (haven't been on a gak or Ecstasy diet for several months, and while I didn't smoke any pot this morning—my usual ritual—I know THC doesn't create any lasting physical dependencies). And then out of the be-fucking-lue, everything gets substantially darker. Not pitch black mind you. Not even power failure black. More like a cloud passing over the sun. Make that a storm. Though there is no storm. No clouds. It's a bright day and anyway I'm inside.

  I wish that had been all. Just a slight decrease in illumination and a little breathing difficulty. Could still blame that on a blown fuse or some aberrant drug related flashback. But then my nostrils flare with the scent of something bitter foul, something inhuman, reeking with so much rot years, telling me in the language of nausea that I'm not alone.

  Something's behind me.

  Of course, I deny it.

  It's impossible to deny.

  I wanna puke.

  To get a better idea try this: focus on these words, and whatever you do don't let your eyes wander past the perimeter of this page. Now imagine just beyond your peripheral vision, maybe behind you, maybe to the side of you, maybe even in front of you, but right where you can't see it, something is quietly closing in on you, so quiet in fact you can only hear it as silence. Find those pockets without sound. That's where it is. Right at this moment. But don't look. Keep your eyes here. Now take a deep breath. Go ahead take an even deeper one. Only this time as you start to exhale try to imagine how fast it will happen, how hard it's gonna hit you, how many times it will stab your jugu
lar with its teeth or are they nails?, don't worry, that particular detail doesn't matter, because before you have time to even process that you should be moving, you should be running, you should at the very least be flinging up your arms—you sure as hell should be getting rid of this book—you won't have time to even scream.

  Don't look.

  I didn't.

  Of course I looked.

  I looked so fucking fast I should of ended up wearing one of those neck braces for whiplash.

  My hands had gone all clammy. My face was burning up. Who knows how much adrenaline had just been dumped into my system. Before I turned, it felt exactly as if in fact I had turned and at that instant caught sight of some tremendous beast crouched off in the shadows, muscles a twitch from firing its great mass forward, ragged claws slowly extending, digging into the linoleum, even as its eyes are dilating, beyond the point of reason, completely obliterating the iris, and by that widening fire, the glowing furnace of witness, a camera lucida. with me in silhouette, like some silly Hand shadow twitching about upside down, is that right?, or am I getting confused?, either way registering at last the sign it must have been waiting for: my own recognition of exactly what has been awaiting me all along—except that when I finally do turn, jerking around like the scared-shitless shit- for-brains I am, I discover only a deserted corridor, or was it merely a recently deserted corridor?, this thing, whatever it had been, obviously beyond the grasp of my imagination or for that matter my emotions, having departed into alcoves of darkness, seeping into corners floors, cracks outlets, gone even to the walls. Lights now normal. The smell history. Though my fingers still tremble and I've yet to stop choking on large irregular gulps of air, as I keep spinning around like a stupid top spinning around on top of nothing, looking everywhere, even though there's absolutely nothing, nothing anywhere.

  I actually thought I was going to fall, and then just as abruptly as I'd been possessed by this fear, it left me and I fell back into control.

  When I re-enter the Shop things are still askew but they at least seem manageable.

  The phone has been ringing. Nine times and counting, my boss announces. He's clearly annoyed. More annoyed when I express some surprise over his ability to count that high.

  I pick up before he can start yammering at me about my attitude.

  The call's for me. Lude's on a pay phone in the valley with important info. Apparently, there's some significant doings at some significant club. He tells me he can guest list my boss and any cohorts I deem worthy. Sure, I say, but I'm still shaken and quickly lose hold of the details when I realize I've just forgotten something else as well, something very important, which by the time I hang up, no matter how hard I try, I can no longer remember what I'd meant to remember when whatever it was had first entered my head.

  Or had it?

  Maybe it hadn't entered my head at all. Maybe it had just brushed past me, like someone easing by in a dark room, the face lost in shadow,

  Nevertheless regardless of how extensive his analysis is here, Heidegger still fails to point out that unheimlich when used as an adverb means "dreadfully," "awfully," "heaps of," and "an awful lot of." Largeness has always been a condition of the weird and unsafe; it is overwhelming, too much or too big. Thus that which is uncanny or unheimlich is neither homey nor protective, nor comforting nor familiar. It is alien, exposed, and unsettling, or in other words, the perfect description of the house on Ash Tree Lane.

  In their absence, the Navidsons' home had become something else, and while not exactly sinister or even threatening, the change still destroyed any sense of security or well-being.

  Upstairs, in the master bedroom, we discover along with Will and Karen a plain, white door with a glass knob. It does not, however, open into the children's room but into a space resembling a walk-in closet. However unlike other closets in the house, this one lacks outlets, sockets, switches, shelves, a rod on which to hang things, or even some decorative molding. Instead, the walls are perfectly smooth and almost pure black—'almost' because there is a slightly grey quality to the surface. The space cannot be more than five feet wide and at most four feet long. On the opposite end, a second door, identical to the first one opens up into the children's bedroom.

  Navidson immediately asks whether or not they overlooked the room. This seems ridiculous at first until one considers how the impact of such an implausible piece of reality could force anyone to question their own perceptions. Karen, however, manages to dig up some photos which clearly show a bedroom wall without a door.

  The next question is whether or not someone could have broken in and in four days constructed the peculiar addition. Improbable, to say the least.

  Their final thought is that someone came in and uncovered it. Just installed two doors. But why? And for that matter, to quote Rilke, Wer?34

  Navidson does check the Hi 8s but discovers that the motion sensors were never triggered. Only their exit and re-entrance exists on tape. Virtually a week seamlessly elided, showing us the family as they depart from a house without that strange interior space present only to return a fraction of a second later to find it already in place, almost as if it had been there all along.

  Since the discovery occurred in the evening, the Navidsons' inquiry must wait until morning. And so while Chad and Daisy sleep, we watch Karen and Will suffer through a restless night. Hillary, their one year old Siberian husky, and Mallory, their tabby cat, lie on either side of the 24" Sony television unperturbed by the new closet or the flicker from the tube or the drone from the speakers—Letterman, new revelations regarding the Iran-Contra affair, reruns, the traffic of information assuring everyone that the rest of the world is still out there, continuing on as usual, even if two new doors now stand open, providing a view across a new space of darkness, from parent's room to children's room, where a tiny nightlight of the Star Ship Enterprise burns like some North Star.

  It is a beautiful shot. In fact, the composition and elegant balance of colours, not to mention the lush contrast of lights and darks, are so exquisite they temporarily distract us from any questions concerning the house or events unfolding there. It seems a perfect example of Navidson's unparalleled talent and illustrates why few, if any, could have accomplished what he did, especially toward the end.

  The following day both Karen and Will pursue the most rational course: they acquire the architectural blueprints from their local real estate office. As might have been expected, these blueprints are not actual building plans but were drawn up in 1981 when former owners sought permission from the town's zoning board to construct an ell. The ell, however, was ultimately never built as the owners soon sold the property, claiming they needed something "a little smaller." Though the designs, as they appear on screen, do not show a room or closet, they do confirm the existence of a strange crawl space, roughly four feet wide, running between both bedrooms.[20]

  Alicia Rosenbaum, the real estate agent responsible for selling the Navidsons the house, gives the camera a bewildered shrug when Karen asks if she has any idea who could be responsible for "this outrage." Unable to say anything useful, Mrs. Rosenbaum finally asks if they want to call the police, which amusingly enough they do.

  That afternoon, two officers arrive, examine the closet and try to hide the fact that this has to be the weirdest call they have ever made. As Sheriff Axnard says, "We'll file a report but other than that, well I don't know what more we can do. Better I guess t'have been a victim of a crazy carpenter than some robber" which even strikes Karen and Navidson as a little funny.

  With all obvious options exhausted, Navidson returns to the building plans. At first this seems pretty innocent until he gets out a measuring tape. Idly at first, he starts comparing the dimensions indicated in the plans with those he personally takes. Very soon he realizes not everything adds up. Something, in fact, is very wrong. Navidson repeatedly tacks back and forth from his 25' Stanley Power Lock to the cold blue pages spread out on his bed, until he finally mutters al
oud: "This better be a case gf bad math."

  An incongruous cut presents us with the title card: V4

  Outside the house, Navidson climbs up a ladder to the second story. Not an easy ascent he casually confesses to us, explaining how a troublesome skin condition he has had since childhood has recently begun to flare up around his toes. Wincing slightly at what we can assume is at least moderate pain, he reaches the top rung where using a 100' Empire

  fiberglass tape with a hand crank, he proceeds to measure the distance from the far end of the master bedroom to the far end of the children's bedroom. The total comes to 32' 9 3/4" which the house plans corroborate—plus or minus an inch. The puzzling part comes when Navidson measures the internal space. He carefully notes the length of the new area, the length of both bedrooms and then factors in the width of all the walls. The result is anything but comforting. In fact it is impossible.

  32'10" exactly.

  The width of the house inside would appear to exceed the width of the house as measured from the outside by 1/4".