Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Still Struggling

Despite my best intentions, I am still having a wicked time getting into House of Leaves. I suppose that I can appreciate its strangeness as an idea, but it is so far out of the realm of something that I would normally read.
            It still strikes me as pretentious, but I am pushing ahead. I sort of like the idea that the whole thing may just be a series of crazed recollections between Johnny’s highs. Maybe it is just Johnny’s mind creatively (or crazily) putting his psyche back together after a few too many rails or bong rips. I also certainly enjoy his strange narrative of life.    

If this is all it is I’m entirely not sure what to do with it. Is it a “don’t do drugs” kind of thing, or maybe a “if you do drugs at least do something cool with the craziness”? It obviously can’t be analyzed in the traditional “English major” way. My best guess is that we should just sort of read it for what it is (whatever that is) and try to untangle it as a group. It takes a lot to bewilder a class full of intelligent people, but House of Leaves is doing a great job so far.

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