Mark Z Danielewski

by House Of Leaves (pdf)

  The first thing she points the Hi 8 at are the infamous bookshelves upstairs. They are flush with the walls. Furthermore, as Reston also reported, the closet space has vanished. Finally, she goes back down to the living room, preparing to face the horror which we might imagine still reaches out of her past like a claw. She approaches the door on the north wall. Perhaps she hopes Reston has locked it and taken the keys, but as she discovers soon enough, the door opens effortlessly.

  Still, there is no infernal corridor. No lightless and lifeless place. There is only a closet barely a foot and a half deep with white walls, a strip of molding, and all of it slashed from ceiling to floor with daylight streaming in through the windows behind her.

  Karen actually laughs but her laughter comes up short. Her only hope of finding Navidson had been to confront what terrified her most. Now without a reason to be afraid, Karen suddenly finds herself without a reason to hope.

  After spending the first few nights at the Days Inn, Karen decides to move back into the house. Reston visits her periodically, and each time he comes they go over every alcove and comer looking for some sign of Navidson. They never find anything. Reston offers to stay there with her but Karen says she actually wants to be alone. He looks noticeably relieved when she insists on seeing him to his van.

  The following week, Alicia Rosenbaum starts bringing by prospective buyers. A couple of newlyweds seems especially taken by the place. "It's so cute" responds the pregnant wife."Small but especially charming," adds the husband. After they leave, Karen tells Rosenbaum she has changed her mind and will at least for the time being still hold onto the house.

  Every morning and evening, she calls Daisy and Chad on her cellular phone. At first they want to know if she is with their father, but soon they stop asking. Karen spends the rest of her day writing in a journal. As she has turned back on all the wall mounted Hi 8s and kept them resupplied with fresh tapes, there is ample footage of her hard at work at this task, filling page after page, just as she sometimes fills the house with peals of laughter or now and then the broken notes of a cry.

  Though she eventually uses up the entire volume, not one word is ever visible in The Navidson Record. To this day the contents of her journal remain a mystery. Professor Cora Minehart M.S., Ph.D. argues that the

  actual words are irrelevant: "process outweighs product."[196] Others, however, have gone to great lengths to suggest a miraculous and secret history enfolded within those pages.[197] Katherine Dunn is rumoured to have invented her own version of Karen's journal.

  Karen, however, does not restrict her activities to just writing. She frequently retreats outside where she works on the garden, weeding, clipping, and even planting. We often find her singing quietly to herself, anything from popular tunes, old Slavic lullabies, to a song about how many ways her life has changed and how she would like to get her feet back on the ground.

  It seems that the most significant observations concerning this segment concern Karen's smile. There is no question it has changed. Lester T. Ochs has traced its evolving shape from Karen's days as a cover girl, through the months spent living at the house, the prolonged separation in New York, to her eventual return to the house:

  Whether on the cover of Glamour or Vogue, Karen never failed to form her lips into those faultlessly symmetrical curves, parted just enough to coyly remark on her barely hidden teeth, so perfectly poised between shadow and light, always guaranteed to spark fantasies of further inferiority. No matter which magazine she appeared in, she always produced the same creation over and over again. Even after they moved to Ash Tree Lane, Karen still offered up the same art to whomever she encountered. The house, however, changed that. It deconstructed her smile until by the time they had escaped she had no smile at all.

  Then further on:

  By the time she returned to Virginia, some expression of joy and relief, albeit rare, was also returning. The big difference though was that now her smile was completely unmannered. The curve of each lip no longer mirrored the other. The interplay was harmonic, enacting a ceaseless dance of comment and compliment, revealing or entirely concealing her teeth, one smile often containing a hundred. Her expression was no longer a frozen structure but a melody which for the first time accurately reflected how she was feeling inside.[198]

  This of course responds to the extraordinary moment on the evening of May 4th, when surrounded by candles, Karen suddenly beams brighter than she has before, running her hands through her hair, almost laughing, only to

  cover her face a few moments later, her shoulders shaking as she starts to weep. Her reactions seem entirely unmotivated until the following morning when she offers a startling revelation.

  "He's still alive,' she tells Reston over the phone. "I heard him last night. I couldn't understand what he said. But I know I heard his voice."

  Reston arrives the next day and stays until midnight, never hearing a thing. He seems more than a little concerned about Karen's mental health.

  "If he is still in there Karen," Reston says quietly. "He's been there for over a month. I can't see how there's any way he could survive."

  But a few hours after Reston leaves, Karen smiles again, apparently catching somewhere inside her the faint voice of Navidson. This happens over and over again, whether late at night or in the middle of the day. Sometimes Karen calls out to him, sometimes she just wanders from room to room, pushing her ear against walls or floors. Then on the afternoon of May 10l", she finds in the children's bedroom, bom out of nowhere, Navidson's clothes, remnants of his pack and sleeping bag, and scattered across the floor, from comer to comer, cartridges of film, boxes of 16mm, and easily a dozen video tapes.

  She immediately calls Reston and tells him what has happened, asking him to drive over as soon as he can. Then she locates an AC adapter, plugs in a Hi 8 and begins rewinding one of the newly discovered tapes.

  The angle from the room mounted camcorder does not provide a view of her Hi 8 screen. Only Karen's face is visible. Unfortunately, for some reason, she is also slightly out of focus. In fact the only thing in focus is the wall behind her where some of Daisy and Chad's drawings still hang. The shot lasts an uncomfortable fifteen seconds, until abruptly that immutable surface disappears. In less than a blink, the white wall along with the drawings secured with yellowing scotch tape vanishes into an inky black.

  Since Karen faces the opposite direction, she fails to notice the change. Instead her attention remains fixed on the Hi 8 which has just finished rewinding the tape. But even as she pushes play, the yawn of dark does not waver. In fact it almost seems to be waiting for her, for the moment when she will finally divert her attention from the tiny screen and catch sight of the horror looming up behind her, which of course is exactly what she does do when she finds out that the video tape shows

  Contrary to what Weston asserts, the habit of photographic seeing—of looking at reality as an array of potential photographs—creates estrangement from, rather than union with, nature.

  — Susan Sontag On Photography

  "Nothing of consequence" was how Navidson described the quality of the film and tapes rescued from the house.

  "That was early on," Reston adds." When he had just started staying with me in Charlottesville. He reviewed every piece of footage there was, edited some parts of it and then just shipped everything off to Karen. He was really unsatisfied."[199]

  In the eyes of many, the footage from Exploration A offered an exemplary first-look at what lay down the hallway. To Navidson, however, the venture was spoiled by the limited resolution of the Hi 8 and "ridiculous lighting." Film taken during Exploration #4 was much more successful in capturing the size of that place, though due to the urgency of the mission Navidson only had time for a few shots.

  One of the things The Kellog-Antwerk Claim, The Bister-Frieden- Josephson Criteria, and The Haven-Slocum Theory never consider is Navidson's aesthetic dissatisfaction. Granted all three schools of thought would say Navidson's eye for perfect
ion was directly influenced by his internal struggles, whether possession, self-obliteration, or the social good implicit in any deeply pursued venture. But as Deacon Lookner smugly commented: "We mustn't forget the most obvious reason Navidson went back to the house: he wanted to get a better picture."410

  While the narrative events up till now have proved an easy enough thread to follow, they have also usurped the focus of the film. Until Exploration #5 there was never a true visual meditation on the house itself, its terrifying proportions and the palpable darkness inhabiting it. The few fragments of usable 16mm and video tape incensed Navidson. In his opinion, very few of the images—even those he was personally responsible for—retained any of those fantastic dimensions intrinsic to that place. All of which begins to explain why in February and March Navidson began to order high speed film, magnesium flares, powerful flashes, and even arranged to rent a thermal video camera. He intentionally kept Reston in the dark, assuming his friend would try to stop him or endanger himself by insisting on going along.

  Throughout his career, Navidson had almost without exception worked alone. He was used to entering areas of conflict by himself. He preferred the dictates of survival when, faced with enthralling danger, he was forced to rely on nothing else but his own keenly tuned instincts. Under those conditions, he consistently produced his best work.

  Photojournalism has frequently been lambasted for being the product of circumstance. In fact rarely are any of these images considered in terms of their composition and semantic intent. They are merely news, a happy intersection of event and opportunity. It hardly helps that photographs in general also take only a fraction of a second to acquire.

  It is incredible how so many people can constantly misread speed to mean ease. This is certainly most common where photography is concerned. However simply because anyone can buy a camera, shutter away, and then with a slightly prejudiced eye justify the product does not validate the achievement. Shooting a target with a rifle is accomplished with similar speed and yet because the results are so objective no one suggests that marksmanship is easy.

  In photojournalism the celerity with which a moment of history is seized testifies to the extraordinary skill required. Even with the help of computerized settings and high-speed films, an enormous amount of technical information must still be accounted for in very little time in order to take a successful shot.

  A photojournalist is very much like an athlete. Similar to hockey players or bodyboarders, they have learned and practiced over and over again very specific movements. But great photographers must not only commit to reflex those physical demands crucial to handling a camera, they must also refine and internalize aesthetic sensibilities. There is no time to think through what is valuable to a frame and what is not. Their actions must be entirely instinctual, immediate, and the result of years and years of study, hard work and of course talent.

  As New York City gallery owner Timothy K. Thuan once said:

  Will Navidson is one of this century's finest photographers, but because his work defines him as a "photojournalist" he suffers to this day that most lamentable of critical denunciations: "Hey, he just shoots what happens. Anyone can do that, if they're there." And so it goes. Buy that guy a beer and sock him in the eye.[200]

  Only very recently has the detection of a formidable understanding and use of frame balance inherent in all of Navidson's work begun to breach the bias against his profession.

  Consider for the last time the image that won him the Pulitzer Prize. Not even taking into account the courage necessary to travel to Sudan, walk the violent, disease-infested streets, and finally discover this child on some rocky patch of earth—all of which some consider a major part of photography and even art[201]—Navidson also had to contend with the infinite number of ways he could photograph her (angles, filters, exposure, focus, framing, lighting etc., etc.) He could have used up a dozen rolls exploring these possibilities, but he did not. He shot her once and in only one way.

  In the photograph, the vulture sits behind Delial, frame left, slightly out of focus, primary feathers beginning to feel the air as it prepares for flight. Near the centre, in crisp focus, squats Delial, bone dangling in her tawny almost inhuman fingers, her lips a crawl of insects, her eyes swollen with sand. Illness and hunger are on her but Death is still a few paces behind, perched on a rocky mound, talons fully extended, black eyes focused on Famine's daughter.

  Had Delial been framed far right with the vulture far left, the photographer as well as the viewer would feel as if they were sitting on a sofa chair. Or as associate UCLA professor Rudy Snyder speculated: "We would be turned into an impartial audience plunked down in front of history's glass covered proscenium."413 Instead Navidson kept the vulture to the left and Delial toward the middle, thus purposefully leaving the entire right portion of the frame empty.

  When Rouhollah W. Leffler reacquainted himself with Navidson's picture in a recent retrospective, he wistfully commented:

  It seems people should complain more about this empty space but to my knowl-

  There are seven incarnations (and six correlates) necessary to becoming an Artist: 1. Explorer (Courage) 2. Surveyor (Vision) 3. Miner (Strength) 4. Refiner (Patience) 5. Designer (Intelligence) 6. Maker (Experience) 7. Artist. 5 First, you must leave the safety of your home and go into the dangers of the world, whether to an actual territory or some unexamined aspect of the psyche. This is what is meant by 'Explorer.' f Next, you must have the vision to recognize your destination once you arrive there. Note that a destination may sometimes also be the journey. This is what is meant by 'Surveyor.' 5 Third, you must be strong enough to dig up facts, follow veins of history, unearth telling details. This is what is meant by 'Miner.' S Fourth, you must have the patience to winnow and process your material into something rare. This may take months or even years. And this is what is meant by 'Refiner.' 5 Fifth, you must use your intellect to conceive of your material as something meaning more than its origins. This is what is meant by "Designer.' S Six, you must fashion a work independent of everything that has gone before it including yourself. This is accomplished through experience and is what is meant by 'Maker.' 5 At this stage, the work is acceptable. You will be fortunate to have progressed so far. It is unlikely, however, that you will go any farther. Most do not. But let us assume you are exceptional. Let us assume you are rare. What then does it mean to reach the final incarnation? Only this: at every stage, from 1 thru 6, you will risk more, see more, gather more, process more, fashion more, consider more, love more, suffer more, imagine more and in the end know why less means more and leave what doesn't and keep what implies and create what matters. This is what is meant by 'Artist.'

  It is interesting to note that despite the appeal of this description and the wide-spread popularity of The Architecture of Art, especially during the 70s and early 80s, out of all of LaRue's followers not one has produced anything of consequence let alone merit. In his article "Where have all the children gone?" in American Heritage, v. 17, January 1994, p. 43, Evan Sharp snapped: "LaRue fanatics would do well to trade in their seven stages for twelve steps."

  413Rudy Snyder's "In Accordance With Limited Space" in Art News, v. 93, October 1994, p. 24-27.

  edge no one ever has. I think there's a very simple reason too: people understand, consciously or unconsciously, that it really isn't empty at all.[202]

  Leffler's point is simply that while Navidson does not physically appear in the frame he still occupies the right side of the photograph. The emptiness there is merely a gnomonic representation of both his presence and influence, challenging the predator for a helpless prize epitomized by the flightless wings of a dying child's shoulder blades.

  Perhaps this is why any observer will feel a slight adrenal rush when pondering the picture. Though they probably assume subject matter is the key to their reaction, the real cause is the way the balance of objects within the frame involves the beholder. It instantly makes a participant out of any witness.r />
  Though this is still all dark work, at least one aspect of the photograph's composition may have had direct political consequences: Delial is not exactly in the centre. She is closer to Navidson, and hence to the observer, by a hair. Many experts attribute this slight imbalance to the large outpouring of national support and the creation of several relief programs which followed the publication of the photograph. As Susan Sontag sadly mused many years later: "Her proximity suggested to us that Delial was still within our reach."[203]

  See diagram:

  416

  Opposing mortality is a theme which persists throughout Navidson's work. As photo critic M. G. Cafiso maintained back in 1985:

  Navidson's all consuming interest in people—and usually people caught in terrible circumstances—always puts him in direct conflict with death.417

  As previously mentioned in Chapter XV, Navidson never photographed scenery, but he also never photographed the threat of death without interposing someone else between himself and it.