Through the front door
I just read the introduction of House of Leaves, and I'm already a little freaked out. Also interesting is the fact that the book is Danielewski writing about Johnny Truant who found a book by Zampano about a film by Will Navidson. Lolita ain't got nothin' on the House.
Updated: It gets better. Turn to page 24 in your hymnals, and you'll see that chapter IV starts with a quote from Diedrich Knickerbocker. That is, of course, the famous pseudonym of Washington Irving. The quoted line is the last sentence of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, spoken by the narrator of the story, who was allegedly some guy at a public house that told the story to Irving (a fabrication designed to give Irving's stories a sense of authenticity). So, the quote is from a fictional narrator invented by an author under a pseudonym. And it's tucked inside a story being told by a guy about a movie that doesn't exist even in this fictional world, said story being discovered and conveyed by a narrator who his own (fictional) editors aren't sure exists, and every word is being written by the actual, we assume, Mark Z. Danielewski.
This is an element of deconstructionism: the author of the work is irrelevant, as are his opinions, and we may treat the work as an artifact, viewing it how we will. Do you disagree with that? And if you do, how can you approach works like Sleepy Hollow, Lolita, or House of Leaves, where we are so distanced from the author that his "message" is muddled at best?
Updated: It gets better. Turn to page 24 in your hymnals, and you'll see that chapter IV starts with a quote from Diedrich Knickerbocker. That is, of course, the famous pseudonym of Washington Irving. The quoted line is the last sentence of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, spoken by the narrator of the story, who was allegedly some guy at a public house that told the story to Irving (a fabrication designed to give Irving's stories a sense of authenticity). So, the quote is from a fictional narrator invented by an author under a pseudonym. And it's tucked inside a story being told by a guy about a movie that doesn't exist even in this fictional world, said story being discovered and conveyed by a narrator who his own (fictional) editors aren't sure exists, and every word is being written by the actual, we assume, Mark Z. Danielewski.
This is an element of deconstructionism: the author of the work is irrelevant, as are his opinions, and we may treat the work as an artifact, viewing it how we will. Do you disagree with that? And if you do, how can you approach works like Sleepy Hollow, Lolita, or House of Leaves, where we are so distanced from the author that his "message" is muddled at best?
posted by Andy at 6:39 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home