Why do we keep going back into the house?

[dreamboat]

What if all these codes and secrets in the book are just a ploy to keep us going back into the house over, and over. Keep in mind that I am on page 404 now, and reading as fast as I can so I can get out.

I think the house likes to play games. Why didn't the house eat the tapes of Holloway's days alone? I think it wanted Navidson to find them. With them comes the driving obsession that Holloway had trying to find the answers. The house needs Navidson to be obsessed with it. Without Navidson, who will truely value the shifting deminsions of the house? It knows he will return to the house everyday of his life, at least in his mind. Why, too, does the house stop shifting when Navidson starts to go in after his brother? I think it wants him to come back inside. It has his brain, now it wants his body.

In the same vien, I think all the word games in the book are there to keep the reader coming back into the house. We all know what we will find, but we search again, and again for the meaning in the darkness. What if the darkness in the meaning? What if the true intent is to get you stuck in the house? I'm sure some of you are already there.

[cloudsurfer]

I definately am stuck in the House. This is only my second time reading it, but I think that was one of the point about HOL, it keeps you trapped in its clutches, and quite willingly we go, because our imagination is being fed wholesomely by Marks imagination and by whatever darkness stirs in our soul. Do you think you could ever just walk away from the house, as Johnny says:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR> With a little luck, you'll dismiss this labor, react as Zampano had hoped, call it needlessly complicated, pointlessly obtuse, prolix-your word-, reidiculously conceived, and you'll beleive all you've said, and then you'll put it aside...--and you'll carry on, eat, drink, be merry and most of all you'll sleep well.
Then again there's a good chance you won't. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[ June 26, 2001: Message edited by: Jeff ]

[Ardis_21]

I do agree that the word games are like a ploy to keep you in the house--but how do you get out? If you don't believe it, it's easy, and if you just don't care. But, if you do care, the obsession almost makes the house real. For me, it seems as though the house simply wants you to cope--to deal with your personal demons. The scary thing is, when I started reading this book, it dredged up my own personal demons. Now I'm stuck in the house. I don't think the book is real, but I do think, figuratively, that the house is real.

[zerolous]

everthing about HOl is just a reflection of the story itself. I think the final solution to the codes is meaningless, but the fact that there are all these codes fleshes out the story in a more three dimensional way than just words ever could.

does that make sense.

even the fact that we hang out at this bulletin board for months tells part of the story, coming here is like the epilogue. After the end, there was the underground movement that sprung up around the myth. We are a continuation of the story. We make it more real like all the codes and connections to characters and odd text arrangements. Just add underground movement to that list of things that turn HOL into more than just a book, then look in the mirror, because you are it.

[Farehamer]

Quite right Zerolous

[Synnmaster]

To add on to Dreamboat's post, Think also of the way the house interprets Jed's SOS signal. According to the Navidson Record, Jed's tapping does not resemble in any way the signal for SOS, and yet that is exactly what Navy hears resonating through the walls. It brings him back to the labrynth, just as the house wanted...

excellent eye concerning the matter of the tapes images/smiles/icon_smile.gif

[John Red]

I am usuped by the house and I find no way out. I keep coming back, to that place, over and over again.
But, come to think about the situation; I have no intentions of leaving the House of Leaves. There is always some puzzle, some game or some fiendish trick... I keep returning, to that place on Ash Tree Lane, keep going in circles down that spiral staircase and I keep running, running til I reach that minotaur, hiding in the deep, dark corners of the labyrith that is our own personal delusion.
I still keep returning to that place, because I like it. Just like you.

It is a strange book.

[Timothy Ferguson]

The reason the House doesn't eat the tapes is because a) the author needs them and b) because the house doesn't act maliciously.

The house is perfectly capable of eating all of the furniture in the House. It only eats the things someone wants it to eat. The feng shui objects Karen has lost faith in all vanish, for example. Holloway wants his markers to be damaged because he wants signs of enemy action. You'll note, though, that the supposed enemy never does the one thing which will ensure his death and loss of direction? It never removes all the markers. It never cuts his spool of thread. It just gives him what he wants.

[drydem]

As for the effect of the house on the reader, I found myself a few days after finishing the book, discarding my past, throwing away letters that I had saved since high school. It's odd but I think it is somewhat a result of the house's theories and effects.

[ninziestar]

Well put zerolous, anyone in the messageboard has not left the house. I'm taking a break from HOL and discovering other books, but I can't stop thinking or talking about it.

I think the book is structured just askew enough so you can parallel it to your own life and make your own minotaur and relate it.

Timoth Ferguson: The house DID act maliciously. How do you mean gives him what he wants? I am interested in what you have to say.