Mark Z Danielewski

by House Of Leaves (pdf)

  When Diderot told the teenage Sophie Volland " You all die at fifteen" he could have been speaking to Karen Green who at fifteen did die.

  To behold Karen as a child is nearly as ghostly an experience as the house itself. Old family films capture her athletic zeal, her unguarded smiles, the tomboy spirit which sends her racing through the muddy flats of a recently drained pond. She's awkward, a little clumsy, but rarely self-conscious, even when covered in mud.

  Former teachers claim she frequently expressed a desire to be president, a nuclear physicist, a surgeon, even a professional hockey player. All her choices reflected unattenuated self-confidence—a remarkably healthy sign for a thirteen year old girl.

  Along with superb class work, she excelled in extra-curricular activities. She loved planning surprise parties, working on school productions, and even on occasion taking on a schoolyard bully with a bout of fists. Karen Green was exuberant, feisty, charming, independent, spontaneous, sweet, and most of all fearless.

  By the time she turned fifteen, all of that was gone. She hardly spoke in class. She refused to function in any sort of school event, and rather than discuss her feelings she deferred the world with a hard and perfectly practiced smile.

  Apparently—if her sister is to be believed — Karen spent every night of her fourteenth year composing that smile in front of a blue plastic handled mirror. Tragically her creation proved flawless and though her near aphonia should have alarmed any adept teacher or guidance counselor, it was invariably rewarded with the pyritic prize of high school popularity.

  Though Posah goes on to discuss the cultural aspects and consequences of beauty, these details in particular are most disturbing, especially in light of the fact that little of their history appears in the film.

  Considering the substantial coverage present in The Navidson Record, it is unsettling to discover such a glaring omission. In spite of the enormous quantity of home footage obviously available, for some reason calamities of the past still do not appear. Clearly Karen's personal life, to say nothing of his own life, caused Navidson too much anxiety to portray either one particularly well in his film. Rather than delve into the pathology

  of Karen's claustrophobia, Navidson chose instead to focus strictly on the

  house.69

  Of course by the following morning, Karen has already molded her desperation into a familiar pose of indifference.

  She does not seem to care when they discover the hallway has not vanished. She keeps her arms folded, no longer clinging to Navidson's hand or stroking her children.

  She removes herself from her family's company by saying very little, while at the same time maintaining a semblance of participation with a smile.

  Virginia Posah is right. Karen's smile is tragic because, in spite of its meaning, it succeeds in remaining so utterly beautiful.

  The Five and a Half Minute Hallway in The Navidson Record differs slightly from the bootleg copy which appeared in 1990. For one thing, in addition to the continuous circumambulating shot, a wider selection of shots has made the coverage of the sequence much more thorough and fluid. For another, the hallway has shrunk. This was impossible to see in the VHS copy because there was no point of comparison. Now, however, it is perfectly clear that the hallway which was well over sixty feet deep when the children entered it is now a little less than ten feet.

  Context also significantly alters "The Five and a Half Minute Hallway." A greater sense of the Navidsons and their friends and how they all interact with the house adds the greatest amount of depth to this quietly evolving enigma. Their personalities almost crowd that place and suddenly too, as an abrupt jump cut redelivers Tom from Massachusetts and Billy Reston from Charlottesville, the UVA professor once again wheeling around the periphery of the angle, unable to take his eyes off the strange, dark corridor.

  Unlike The Twilight Zone, however, or some other like cousin where understanding comes neat and fast (i.e. This is clearly a door to another dimension! or This is a passage to another world—with directions!) the hallway offers no answers. The monolith in 2001 seems the most appropriate cinematic analog, incontrovertibly there but virtually inviolate to interpretation.71 Similarly the hallway also remains meaningless, though it is most assuredly not without effect. As Navidson threatens to reenter it for a closer inspection, Karen reiterates her previous plea and injunction with a sharp and abrupt rise in pitch.

  The ensuing tension is more than temporary.

  Navidson has always been an adventurer willing to risk his personal safety in the name of achievement. Karen, on the other hand, remains the standard bearer of responsibility and is categorically against risks especially those which might endanger her family or her happiness. Tom also shies from danger, preferring to turn over a problem to someone else, ideally a police officer, fireman, or other state paid official. Without sound or movement but by presence alone, the hallway creates a serious rift in the Navidson household.

  Bazine Naodook suggests that the hallway exudes a "conflict creating force": "It's those oily walls radiating badness which maneuver Karen and Will into that nonsensical fight."[39] Naodook's argument reveals a rather tedious mind. She feels a need to invent some non-existent "dark- force" to account for all ill will instead of recognizing the dangerous influence the unknown naturally has on everyone.

  A couple of weeks pass. Karen privately puzzles over the experience but says very little. The only indication that the hallway has in some way intruded on her thoughts is her newfound interest in Feng Shui. In the film,

  we can make out a number of books lying around the house, including The Elements of Feng Shui by Kwok Man-Ho and Joanne O'Brien (Element Books: Shaftesbury, 1991), Feng Shui Handbook: A Practical Guide to Chinese Geomancy and Environmental Harmony by Derek Walters (Aquarian Press, 1991), Interior Design with Feng Shui by Sarah Rosbach (Rider: London, 1987) and The 1 Ching or Book of Changes, 3rd Edition translated by Richard Wilhelm (Routledge Kegan Paul, 1968).

  There is a particularly tender moment as Chad sits with his mother in the kitchen. She is busily determining the Kua number (a calculation based on the year of birth) for everyone in the family, while he is carefully making a peanut butter and honey sandwich.

  "Mommy" Chad says quietly after a while.

  "Hmm?"

  "How do I get to become President when I grow up?"

  Karen looks up from her notebook. Quite unexpectedly, and with the simplest question, her son has managed to move her.

  "You study hard at school and keep doing what you're doing, then you can be whatever you want."

  Chad smiles.

  "When I'm President, can I make you Vice President?"

  Karen's eyes shine with affection. Putting aside her Feng Shui studies, she reaches over and gives Chad a big kiss on his forehead.

  "How about Secretary of Defense?"

  During all this, Tom earns his keep by installing a door to close off the hallway. First, he mounts a wood frame using some of the tools he brought from Lowell and a few more he rented from the local hardware store. Then he hangs a single door with 24-gauge hot-dipped, galvanized steel skins and an acoustical performance rating coded at ASTM E413-70T- STC 28. Last but not least, he puts in four Schlage dead bolts and colour codes the four separate keys: red, yellow, green, and blue.

  For a while Daisy keeps him company, though it remains hard to determine whether she is more transfixed by Tom or the hallway. At one point she walks up to the threshold and lets out a little yelp, but the cry just flattens and dies in the narrow corridor.

  Tom seems noticeably relieved when he finally shuts the door and turns over the four locks. Unfortunately as he twists the last key, the accompanying sound contains a familiar ring. He grips the red kye and tries it again. As the dead bolt glances the strike plate, the resulting click creates an unexpected and very unwelcome echo.

  Slowly, Tom unlocks the door and peers inside.

  Somehow, and for whatever reason, the thing has grown again.
>
  Intermittently, Navidson opens the door himself and stares down the hallway, sometimes using a flashlight, sometimes just studying the darkness itself.

  "What do you do with that?" Navidson asks his brother one evening.

  "Move," Tom replies.

  Sadly, even with the unnatural darkness now locked behind a steel door, Karen and Navidson still continue to say very little to each other, their own feelings seemingly as impossible for them to address as the meaning of the hallway itself.

  Chad accompanies his mother to town as she searches for various Feng Shui objects guaranteed to change the energy of the home, while Daisy follows her father around the house as he paces from room to room, talking vehemently on the phone with Reston, trying to come up with a feasible and acceptable way to investigate the phenomenon lurking in his living room, until finally, in the middle of all this, he lifts his daughter onto his shoulders. Unfortunately as soon as Karen returns, Navidson sets Daisy back down on the floor and retreats to the study to continue his discussions alone.

  With domestic tensions proving a little too much to stomach, Tom escapes to the garage where he works for a while on a doll house he has started to build for Daisy,73 until eventually he takes a break, drifting out to the backyard to get high and hot in the sun, pointedly walking around the patch of lawn the hallway should for all intents and purposes occupy. Before long, both Chad and Daisy are sidling up to this great bear snoring under a tree, and even though they start to tie his shoe laces together, tickle his nostrils with long blades of grass, or use a mirror to focus the sun on his nose, Tom remains remarkably patient. He almost seems to enjoy their mischief, growling, yawning, playing along, putting both of them in a headlock, Chad and Daisy laughing hysterically, until finally all three are exhausted and snoozing into dusk.

  Considering the complexity of Karen and Navidson's relationship, it is fortunate our understanding of their problems is not left entirely up to interpretation. Some of their respective views and feelings are revealed in their video journal entries.

  "Sex, sex, sex," Karen whispers into her camcorder. "It was like we just met when we got here. The kids would go out and we'd fuck in the kitchen, in the shower. We even did it in the garage. But ever since that closet thing appeared I can't. I don't know why. It terrifies me."

  On the same subject, Navidson offers a similar view: "When we first moved here, Karen was like a college co-ed. Anywhere, anytime. Now all of a sudden, she refuses to be touched. I kiss her, she practically starts to cry. And it all started when we got back from Seattle." Fj

  But the division between them is not just physical.

  Karen again: "Doesn't he see I don't want him going in there because I love him. You don't need to be a genius to realize there's something really bad about that place. Navy, don't you see that?"

  Navidson: "The only thing I want to do is go in there but she's adamant that I don't and I love her so I won't but, well, it's just killing me. Maybe because I know this is all about her, her fears, her anxieties. She hasn't even given a thought to what I care about."

  Until finally the lack of physical intimacy and emotional understanding leads both of them to make privately voiced ultimatums.

  Karen: "But I will say this, if he goes in there, I'm outta here. Kids and all."

  Navidson: "If she keeps up this cold front, you bet I'm going in

  there."

  Then one night in early August_______________[40] and the equally

  famous __________ drop in for dinner. It is a complete coincidence that

  they happened to be in D.C. at the same time, but neither one seems to mind

  the presence of the other. As ___________ said, "Any friend of Navy's is a

  friend of mine." Navidson and Karen have known both of them for quite a few years, so the evening is light hearted and filled with plenty of amusing stories. Clearly Karen and Navidson relish the chance to reminisce a little about some good times when things seemed a lot less complicated.

  Perhaps a little star struck, Tom says very little. There is plenty of opportunity for a glass of wine but he proves himself by keeping to water, though he does excuse himself from the table once to smoke a joint outside. (Much to Tom's surprise and delight, ________________________________________ joins him.)

  As the evening progresses, ____________ harps a little on Navidson's new found domesticity: "No more Crazy Navy, eh? Are those days gone for good? I remember when you'd party all night, shoot all morning, and then spend the rest of the day developing your film—in a closet with just a bucket and a bulb if you had to. I'm willing to bet you don't even have a darkroom here." Which is just a little too much for Navidson to bear:

  "Here__________ , you wanna see a darkroom, I'll show you a darkroom."

  "Don't you dare, Navy!" Karen immediately cries. "Come on Karen, they're our friends," Navidson says, leading the two celebrities into the living room where he instructs them to look out the window so they can see for themselves his ordinary backyard. Satisfied that they understand nothing but trees and lawn could possibly lie on the other side of the wall, he retrieves the four coloured keys hidden in the antique basinet in the foyer. Everyone is pretty tipsy and the general mood is so friendly and easy it seems impossible to disturb. Which of course all changes when Navidson unlocks the door and reveals the hallway.

  ______ takes one look at that dark place and retreats into the

  kitchen. Ten minutes later ____________ is gone. _____________ steps up

  to the threshold, points Navidson's flashlight at the walls and floor and then retires to the bathroom. A little later is also gone.

  Karen is so enraged by the whole incident, she makes Navidson sleep on the couch with his "beloved hallway."

  No surprise, Navidson fails to fall asleep.

  He tosses around for an hour until he finally gets up and goes off in search of his camera.

  A title card reads: Exploration A

  The time stamp on Navidson's camcorder indicates that it is exactly 3:19 A.M.

  "Call me impetuous or just curious," we hear him mutter as he shoves his sore feet into a pair of boots. "But a little look around isn't going to hurt."

  Without ceremony, he unlocks the door and slips across the threshold, taking with him only a Hi 8, a MagLite, and his 35mm Nikon. The commentary he provides us with remains very spare: "Cold. Wow, really cold! Walls are dark. Similar to the closet space upstairs." Within a few

  seconds he reaches the end. The hallway cannot be more than seventy feet long. "That's it. Nothing else. No big deal. Over this Karen and I have been fighting." Except as Navidson swings around, he suddenly discovers a new doorway to the right. It was not there before.

  "What the . . . ?"

  Navidson carefully nudges his flashlight into this new darkness and discovers an even longer corridor. "This one's easily ... I'd say a hundred feet." A few seconds later, he comes across a still larger corridor branching off to the left. It is at least fifteen feet wide with a ceiling well over ten feet high. The length of this one, however, is impossible to estimate as Navidson's flashlight proves useless against the darkness ahead, dying long before it can ever come close to determining an end.

  Navidson pushes ahead, moving deeper and deeper into the house, eventually passing a number of doorways leading off into alternate passageways or chambers. "Here's a door. No lock. Hmmm ... a room, not very big. Empty. No windows. No switches. No outlets. Heading back to the corridor. Leaving the room. It seems colder now. Maybe I'm just getting colder. Here's another door. Unlocked. Another room. Again no windows. Continuing on."

  Flashlight and camera skitter across ceiling and floor in loose harmony, stabbing into small rooms, alcoves, or spaces reminiscent of closets, though no shirts hang there. Still, no matter how far Navidson proceeds down this particular passageway, his light never comes close to touching the punctuation point promised by the converging perspective lines, sliding on and on and on, spawning one space after another, a cons
tant stream of corners and walls, all of them unreadable and perfectly smooth.

  Finally, Navidson stops in front of an entrance much larger than the rest. It arcs high above his head and yawns into an undisturbed blackness. His flashlight finds the floor but no walls and, for the first time, no ceiling.