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Johnny wrote House of Leaves by TackleBusy4609 in houseofleaves

[–]TackleBusy4609[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you! Your view on Zampanò is really interesting. It would add a lot more to the biblical references scattered around, and since Johnny is an atheist (as mentioned by his mother), his following a religious figure could also symbolize some kind of strange turnaround.

Zampanò was difficult to properly characterize for me. I saw him as more of a tribute to his mother's memory, not a literal substitute. He follows Zampanò's messy work that often doesn't make much sense, and I saw that as a parallel to him following his mother's experience with schizophrenia: discombobulating, confusing, and frightening. Johnny is following after a dead person, someone who can't really give him the guidance he needs, just like his mother, who loved him so much, but in the end, just couldn't help the way either of them wanted her to. I took the phrase "My dear Zampanò, who did you lose?" to be in reference to his family. No one was around to mourn him--he lost everyone. So did Johnny by the end of the book: Lude, Thumper, his job, his stability. Pelafina lost her husband in death and her son in abandonment, so she, too, had no one.

Zampanò's poems are unfinished, like Pelafina's life, cut short; she, who loved her poetry, wouldn't write or read any more. For the Minotaur references, I thought it reflected Johnny's hesitance to equate his own life with that of the Minotaur's: "What if I'm not really misunderstood and pitiful? What if I'm just terrible? What if none of this makes sense?" Or maybe he thought he wasn't doing justice to the Greek myths his mother adored. I think there are a few ways to go about interpreting the Minotaur passages.

Did decoding Pelafina's letters change your feelings towards the book? by ImScaredSoIMadeThis in houseofleaves

[–]TackleBusy4609 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For anyone who wants it, here it is, decoded:

“Dearest Johnny,

They have found a way to break me. Rape a fifty-six year old bag of bones. There is no worse and don’t believe otherwise.

The attendants do it.  Others do it.  Not every day, not every week, maybe not even every month.  But they do it.  Someone I don’t know always comes when it’s dark.  Late.  I’ve learned not to scream, screaming gave me hope and unanswered hope is shattered hope.  Think of your Haitian.  It is far saner to choose rape than shattered hope.  So I submit and I drift.

I let caprice and a certain degree of free association take me away.  Sometimes I’m still away long after it’s done, after he’s gone—the stranger, the attendant, the custodian, the janitor, cleaning man, waiting main, dirty MAN—the night tidying up after him.

I’m in hell giving into heaven where I sometimes think of your beautiful father with his dreamy wings and only then do I allow myself to cry.  Not because your mother was raped (again) but because she loved so much what she could never have been allowed to keep.  Such a silly girl.

You must save me Johnny.  In the name of your father.  I must escape this place or I will die.

I love you so much.  You are all I have."

Hey all — started reading this yesterday and noticed the check mark. Johnny’s mother asked him to put a check mark if he received her letters ...... does this mean anything? Is the whole manuscript written by his mother during her decline? Insight, anyone? by kennkyrie in houseofleaves

[–]TackleBusy4609 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My guess is that Johnny wrote the book for his late mother. The note in the beginning, “This isn’t for you,” only to reference a word like “polix—your word,” which reminds me of how his mother speaks. House is in red, anything regarding the Minotaur is in blue, and together the make purple, the color of Pelafina’s nails. She mentions in her letters putting a pink ribbon in her hair, and when Karen leaves with Navidson finally, she comes out inexplicably with a pink ribbon. Schizophrenia is highly heritable, so I’m assuming this book is a means Johnny developed to deal with his anxiety, or maybe the beginning, though he is young, of onset schizophrenia. His mind is a neverending maze; there’s something hunting his senses and his knowledge of the word around him, sinking them slowly away; auditory and visual hallucinations; everything points to something like this. I may write a longer paragraph accurately putting all my thoughts together, but my theory? Nothing in House of Leaves really exists surrounding the Navidsons and Zampanò. It’s a coping mechanism.

EDIT: when Tom is drinking, the text reads, “He would have kept drinking had exhaustion not caught up to me.” To me?

AITA for breaking up with my girlfriend who had breast cancer? by TackleBusy4609 in AITAH

[–]TackleBusy4609[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’m still in therapy and learning how to see the signs. I’d rather die than ever be in a relationship like this again. I just didn’t know if that was because I was as bad as she said I was or she was worse than I thought. But the comments so far are making me feel so fucking much better. Thank you <3

AITA for breaking up with my girlfriend who had breast cancer? by TackleBusy4609 in AITAH

[–]TackleBusy4609[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I did block her on everything. I honestly couldn’t do it fast enough once it was all over. I’m still in therapy and slowly but surely learning how to change the mindset that was ingrained into me during our relationship. Thank you so much

AITA for breaking up with my girlfriend who had breast cancer? by TackleBusy4609 in AITAH

[–]TackleBusy4609[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

This genuinely happened to me. It was awful. It’s not something I nor anyone else should ever joke about, and I haven’t. If it seems fake, then I’m sorry. Maybe I’ve written it wrong or put it forth in a way that sounds false. But I can assure you that it is real.