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[pearlsoftheparticular]

notes on chapter 5

The opening quote (pg 41) by Narayan is from his work "The Guide".

"... tears her into pisces" (pg 41) - This mistake, "pisces" instead of "pieces" comes up multiple times after this. - Fish imagery - Water imagery. Also, if I remember right, the other times that this mistake is made is in Johnny's footnotes or the letters in the back. It is not made in Zampano's text again. Reminds me of pgs 12-16, when Johnny added "Water" to "Water heater" in the manuscript. Does this make the manuscript unreliable, because Johnny has been making edits to it? Should we take typos like "pisces" as Zampano's mistakes and misspellings, or Johnny's?

"Adonta ta Mele" - Her still singing limbs. Translation originates from actual myth. The symbol that follows it is the alchemical symbol for Earth, and is the first of many in this chapter.

"In both cases, unfulfilled love results in the total negation of Echo's body and near negation of her voice." pg 41. But the chapter continues by showing all of the different ways that Echo's voice lives on, in and through other things. Interesting that this is told alongside all of the alchemical symbols, because as stated HERE: "The principle, or underlying, intent of alchemy is then understood as one of making of the body a spirit and of the spirit a body through transmuting the bodily consciousness into spirit and through fixing the spirit in the body." Alchemy and reanimating the dead often go hand in hand, too.

References to Ovid's Metamorphoses - these stories are all about creatures/people/beings in the wrong bodies, being forced into different forms.

Echo quote: the trees/leaves hide a being (pg 42)

The symbol on pg 42 is the astronomical sign for Pluto, the combination of a P and L in honor of Percival Lowell, who published a work called "Memoir on a Trans-Neptunian Planet", after a 10 year search for an as yet unseen planet. (note Neptune, Roman name for Poseidon, more water imagery). Fourteen years after his death, Pluto was discovered.

"To repeat: her voice has life. It possesses a quality not present in the original, revealing how a nymph can return a different and more meaningful story, in spite of telling the same story." (pg 42) - This is followed by a Don Quixote quote in the notes, calling to mind the ref to Dulcinea on pg 17, and the ref to a mother in the quote itself which perhaps brings out Grendel's mother refs again (back to the Mead Hall on pg 21), and foreshadowing to his own. That same note also holds another ref to WWII.

"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" is a short story by Jorge Luis Borges. Menard wants to rewrite Cervantes' work by perfectly setting up his life in such a way that the exact same story line and text would come to him naturally, as it did to Cervantes. The fragments that Menard "comes up with" are verbatim to the original text, but he claims they are better, more subtle and inspired, than the original. It was supposed to be satirical, calling out stuck up critics. Funny that Zampano plays along with the joke, acting like Menard really has come up with something original. Though Johnny responds in aggravation, he is doing something similar, as his own living situation and mental state seem to be mirroring Zampano's in the end.

"...or better yet listening to a bitter curse, realizing a whole lot wrong's being ushered into the world but still missing the words,... both written out on brown leaves of paper..." (pg 42)

"This much though I'm sure of: I'm alone in hostile territories with no clue why they're hostile or how to get back to safe havens, an Old Haven, a lost haven, the temperature dropping, the hour heaving & pitching toward a profound darkness, while before me my idiotic amaurotic Guide laughs..." (pg 43) - Heaving & pitching are distinctly marine terms, calling up Rime of the Ancient Mariner again.

Zonules of Zinn (pg 43), otherwise known as ciliary zonules, are the elaborate systems of extra cellular fibers that center the lens of the eyes, bringing distant objects into focus. Named after Johann Gottfried Zinn.

Symbols: first symbol on pg 43 - planetary alchemical symbol for Mars

Second on pg 43 - Planetary alchemical symbol for Mercury

First symbol on pg 44 - Waning moon (pinpoints ebbs and tides, life and death, also known as the sickle of the moon)

Second symbol on pg 44 - Planetary alchemical symbol for Jupiter

Third on pg 44 - Infinity, or Lemniscate, which comes from the Greek word for Ribbons.

Fourth on pg 44 - Planetary alchemical symbol for Omega, symbol for Death, or the End.

"Textual transfiguration" (pg 44)

"Literature's rocky caves" being marked by an omega.

Wordsworth poem ref'd on pg 44 is Ode to Duty.

"He becomes thence... an earthy, weake, worthlesse thing, and fit sacrifize for only eternal oblivion..." (pg 44)

Talaraia (pg 44) - "Of the ankle," referring to Mercury's winged sandals.

Occludes (pg 45): stop, close up, or obstruct (an opening, orifice, or passage).

Pgs 45-46 are spent discussing a typo in a poem: "cares" vs "caves" in relation to Echo.

""I beleive that sky opens & closes on certain periods..." (pg 46, footnote 59. Typo added by editor, not Johnny.

"Ironically, hollowness only increases the eerie quality of otherness inherent in any echo." (pg 46) This brings to mind Heidegger's unheimlich from previous chapter, the "uncanny", which also brings up Uncanny Valley vibes, especially in this context.

"Divinity seems defined by echo." (pg 46)

"...the hallowed always seems to abide in the province of the hollow." (pg 46)

The symbol that appears on pg 47 is the planetary alchemical symbol for the Sun. So, his formula reads:

(Sun) Sound + Time = Acoustic Light

"... his own creature darkness, taking me completely by surprise, a sudden protracting, and just so you understand where I'm coming from, I consider "... long past midnight" one claw and "empty hallways" another. (pg 48)

"Or even an ancient Samuel O'Reilly @ 1891..." (pg 48) Samuel O'Reilly patented the first electric tattoo machine on Dec. 8, 1891.

"Bars of an EKG" (pg 48) - EKG, Electrocardiogram. Records signals from the heart to check for different heart conditions.

"QRS complex" (pg 48) is the combination of 3 of the graphical deflections seen on a typical EKG.

"... The failure which began it all in the first place, probably right after one burning maze but still years ahead of the other loss, a horrible violence, before the coming of that great Whale... Spanish gold..." (pg 48)

"Sleep... that bloody handmaiden..." (pg 49)

Truant: A student who stays away from school without leave or explanation." from Middle English, referring to a person begging through choice rather than necessity. Or, Scottish Gaelic: wretched.

"...confined to the sharp oscillations of yellow and blue..." (pg 49) There is an uptick in color being noted from here through the rest of the chapter. Best guess on this one: Yellow = maize (corn/maze/land) Blue = water (pisces, Neptune, sea)

"Of course, Lude didn't see it. He was blind. Maybe even right." (pg 49) Further proof of Lude being Johnny's Virgil.

The entirety of footnote 62 is a doozy, but not much is written on it. General consensus seems to be that it is all about Johnny's traumas, which is definitely fleshed out in Appendix II-C and the Whalestoe letters later.

"At least the next step was clear.//Some act of violence would be necessary.// And so it was that before another synapse could fire within my bad-off labyrinthine brain, he was already lying on the floor." (pg 52) - Should we take these "visions"as daydreams, or hallucinations?

Colors from 51: Cinnabar: bright red mineral consisting of mercury sulfide. It is the only important ore of mercury and is sometimes used as a pigment.

Lemon.

Celadon: a willow-green

Indigo.

(red, yellow, green, blue, like the keys later on in the chapter).

"...Out of nowhere. Out of the blue." - pg 52

"I love how enthralled she remains by this festival of living." (pg 54)

"...always talking blue streak to my boss..." (pg 54)

"...For this year's ruling April fool." (pg 54) maybe no actual relation but calls to mind the Fool from the Tarot deck, who is seen as the "main character" on a journey of self enlightenment.

"...a goddamn spatial rape." (pg 55) Brings to mind Greek mythology, Zeus, especially Ovid's Metamorphoses.

"Karen is upstairs, sitting on the bed playing with a deck of tarot cards..." (pg. 56) Not so off base with the Fool theory from pg 54 then?

"Karen spent every night of her fourteenth year composing that smile in front of a blue plastic handled mirror." (pg 58) Blue again

Aphonia: loss of ability to speak through disease of or damage to the larynx or mouth.

Pyritic - a brass colored mineral... also called Fool's Gold

pg 58-59 shows Navidson avoiding his and Karen's trauma. Perhaps their avoidance of their traumas and focus on the House simply transfers/gives power to those traumas, and the House reflects that.

"Karen's attacks, which I suspect stem from early adolescent betrayal, increase proportionally with the level of intimacy - or even the threat of potential intimacy - she experiences with Will Navidson or even her children." (pg 59)

"The ensuing tension is more than temporary." (pg 10)

"The bad bodhi wall." From footnote 72 on pg 60 - Bodhi is a fig tree considered sacred in Buddhist practice. Cont. tree imagery. Also, descriptions of the ill will exuding from the walls include the word "oily", which is not the last time in this chapter that word is used.

"Unfortunately, as he twists the last key, the accompanying sound contains a familiar ring. He grips the red kye and tries it again. As the dead bolt glances the strike plate, the resulting click creates an unexpected and very unwelcome echo." (pg 61) - could the typos be related to when the House gains strength, as it defies reason/structure such as proper language?

"Blue seracs" (pg 68) Blue again.

Margaretha Geertruida Zelle. (pg 69)She was a Dutch exotic dancer and courtesan who was convicted of being a spy for Germany during WWI and executed by firing squad in France. Her name has become synonymous of the seductive female spy. Also went by Mata Hari.

Moither: (Yorkshire) bother or harass (UK) toil, labour, perplex, confuse. (70)

Black and purple (pg 70). Reference back to pg 26, list of colors includes lilac, mauve (purples), and pelican black (pelicans will come significant later), in addition to rootbeer (will come significant later), midnight blue, south sea green, maize (yellow), and cochineal (red)

"Dis(as)embling...." (pg 71) Odd phrasing.

"What wail embattled break." (pg 71) - Whale.

"Another Maldon or no Maldon at all" - The Battle of Maldon in Essex, in 991 AD

"... The already foreseen dissolution of the self." (pg 72) - Reference to his mother?

"My face has been splattered with purple... preserving me." (pg 72)

"...in the spirit of the dark; in the spirit of the staircase - "Known some call is air am." Which is to say - "I am not what I used to be." (pg 72)

We have hit a significant moment. The monster from the story seemed able to physically mar Johnny in the present. He has seemingly changed moving into the future. And we are invited now into his past.

"...Daisy, wearing a red and gold dress, barges in and begins tugging on her father's sleeve." (pg 73) Red and Gold significance?

Neologism: newly coined word or expression.

Selah.

[pearlsoftheparticular]

notes on chapter 4

Chapter begins with a quote by Diedrich Knickerbocker, who was a fictional character (persona) used by Washington Irving to narrate the burlesque "A History of New York" in 1809.

Troubles in the house begin after a wedding. The first time the family had left since moving in, they expected to come home (marriage usually acts as culmination to stories, should have been the end).

"Quite the contrary, the horror was atypical." (pg 24)

"... strange spatial violation (pg 24) and first reference to Heidegger's idea of "unheimlich".

Another reference to existentialism on pg 25.

On pg 25, he splits up the word nonsense so it reads non-sense. Interesting emphasis.

The colors of ink Johnny sees on pg 26:

Rootbeer

Midnight Blue

Cochineal

Mauve

Light Doe

Lilac

South sea green (Rime of the Ancient Mariner)

Maize (corn/maize is important to native myths, important considering Amber Rightacre from later on is part Native. Also a reference to corn mazes/labyrinths.

Pelican black. Pelican will have increasing significance (see Pelican poems on pg 573)

Camera lucida: an instrument in which rays of light are reflected by a prism to produce on a sheet of paper an image, from which a drawing can be made (pg 27)

"The phone has been ringing. Nine times and counting, my boss announces." (pg 27)

Does the monster appear to Johnny before Will?

Pgs 27-28, when Johnny tries to remember the monster once he is out of the hallway, he tries to remember a woman and her perfume. Reference to his mother, but also Grendel's mother? (Grendel/Beowulf reference from last chapter) Directly referencing Eurydice as well, in the following footnote.

"Maybe it had just brushed past me, like someone easing by in a dark room, the face lost in shadow, my thoughts lost in another conversation, though something in her movement or perfume is disturbingly familiar, though how familiar is impossible to tell because by the time I realize she's someone I should know she's already gone, deep into the din, beyond the bar, taking with her any chance of recognition. Thought she hasn't left. She's still there. Embracing shadows.//Is that it?//Had I been thinking about a woman?//I don't know.// I hope it doesn't matter.// I have a terrifying feeling it does." (pg 28)

"... the impact of such an implausible piece of reality could force anyone to question their own perceptions." (pg 28)

"But why? And for that matter, to quote Rilke, Wer?" (pg 28) The above quotation from pg 28 mirrors Orpheus's own experience after he glances back at Eurydice on the road out of Hades. Find the poem HERE

Quote from poem: "She was already loosened like long hair// and surrendered like rain//and issued like massive provisions.//She was already root."

Elided (pg 28): ommitted when speaking.

Ell (pg 29): a former measure of length (equivalent to 6 hand breadths) used mainly for textiles, locally variable but typically about 45 inches. Origin: Old English, of Germanic origin: from Indo-European root shared by Latin ulna. Compare w/ elbow and also w/ cubit. (The measure was originally linked to the length of the human arm or forearm). These measurements are referenced on pg. 571, in the sketches Johnny makes on the back of an envelope.

Navidson has a skin condition flaring up on his feet? (pg 29)

"Karen refuses the knowledge. A reluctant Even who prefers tangerines to apples. "I don't care," She tells Navidson. "Stop drilling holes in my walls." (pg 30)

"...now a Nile of caffeine wending past glass and politics until there is nothing more than a brown blot on the morning paper." (30-31) after Will has been experimenting w/ surface tension. In the corresponding note, Johnny misspells it "mourning paper". Calls back to mind Rilke's poem, lines 47-56:

"This woman who was loved so much, that from one lyre more mourning came than from women in mourning; that a whole world was made from mourning, where everything was present once again: forest and valley and road and village, field, river and animal; and that around this mourning-world, just as around the other earth, a sun and a silent star-filled sky wheeled, a mourning-sky with displaced constellations–: this woman who was loved so much . . ."

Also, this is significant that it happens at the kitchen table with his family - in a quintessentially domestic scene. Johnny wants to cut this, but saves it in order to preserve the voice of the narrator (Zampano). A point where the authors are interacting with themselves (perhaps a call0back to Knickerbocker at the beginning) (pg 31)

"... more and more these days, I'm struck by the fact that everything Zampano had is really gone, including the bowl of betel nuts left on his mantle or the battered shotgun bearing the initials RLB under the bed..." (pg 31) - Betel nuts are a stimulant drug, which means it speeds up the messages travelling between the brain and body. Chewing these is a cultural practice in some regions of south and southeast Asia. While benefits include - feeling relaxed and happy, - feeling alert, bad side effects include - tremors - dizziness - upset stomach, vomiting - psychosis.

RLB Initials: Forum consensus was Roy L. Bowlin, WWII Lt. Col of the Rochester Ordinance District. Some theories suggest he is Zampano.

White rose bud preserved in Zampano's nightstand drawer? (pg 31)

"His body's... reduced to ash." (pg 31)

"I've come to believe errors, especially written errors, are often the only markers left by a solitary life: to sacrifice them is to lose the angles of personality, the riddle of a soul. In this case, a very old soul. A very old riddle." (pg 31, bold/italics added by me for emphasis)

Navidson being estranged from his twin - Should suggest an estrangement from himself, rooted in childhood and even earlier? - Also, mirror effects, uncanny nature of things being almost the same but not quite, and relationship (the house should be a home, the twins should be close)

"Hey, at least I'm an acquaintance of Bill's now." (pg 32) "A friend of Bill W.'s" is a common phrase in the Alcoholic's Anonymous circles. Bill W. (Williams Griffith Wilson) was one of the founders of AA.

"I keep cornering myself with questions: did I really experience some sort of decapacitating seizure, I mean in - ?" (pg 35) What is this pause?

Latin phrase from pg 34: "Tum vero omne mihi visum considere in ignis Ilium: Delenda Est Carthago." Up to the colon, this is a quote from book II of the Aeneid (as is stated in footnote 42). The full passage is as follows:

"She hid herself in the deep gloom of the night,//And now the dire forms appeared to me//Of great immortals, enemies of Troy.//I knew the end then: Ilium was going down//In fire, the Troy of Neptune going down,//As in high mountains when the countrymen//Have notched an ancient ash, then make their axes//Ring with might and main, chopping away//To fell the tree - ever on the point of falling,//Shaken through all its foliage, and the treetop//Nodding; bit by bit the strokes prevail//Until it gives a final groan at last//And crashes down in ruin from the height." (Bold/italicized portion is the translation of the phrase) HERE are multiple translations.

"'Of course, you're all my children.' Which was strange, since I was the only one there." (pg 35)

"...burning off distant plateaus of bistre & sage..." (pg 36, in reference to Johnny's father. Only references that I could find were to old stamps in France. Sage was in reference to the artist who designed these particular stamps which were sold between 1876 and 1900, and Bistre referred to the color, which was a dark brown. They depict Peace and Commerce standing on either side of a post.

"Karen's project is one mechanism against the uncanny or that which is "un-home-like". She remains watchful and willing to let the bizarre dimensions of her house gestate within her." (pg 37)

Gestate: Carry a fetus in the womb from conception to birth. Or, develop over a long period.

"Les jeux sont fait. Nous sommes fucked." (pg 38) - The writing is on the wall. We're fucked."

Selah.

[pearlsoftheparticular]

notes on chapter 3

Another Dante reference at the very beginning - "The Great Florentine" (Dante) mourning his having been chosen for this journey.

"He's the kind of guy who thinks sublime is something you choke on after a shot of tequila." Sublime: of such excellence, grandeur, or beauty as to inspire great admiration or awe. Also, elevate to a high degree of moral or spiritual purity or excellence.

Lude's real name is Harry. Significance in the name? Or in that he is not known by his real name?

"Lude knows every bar, club, and gatekeeper at every bar and club. Hollywood has always been mother's milk to Lude. Mother's tongue. Whatever. Unlike me, he never needs to translate, interpret or learn in LA. He knows." - Setting up Lude as Johnny's Virgil (guide)? (pg 19) ('hell's cartographer' (pg 21))

"Despite a nose that others have described as "a bee-battered..." (19) odd phrasing. Potentially a reference to the fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. There was an article from 1974 on the fight, a quote from which read "Under an African moon in the darkness before dawn today, a bee battered a lion." Article was called "Rumble in the Jungle". Also a call back to the Lange quote at the beginning, referencing 'lion tamers'.

"... Lude just wants more money, better parties and prettier girls and I want something else. I'm not even sure what to call it anymore except I know it feels roomy and it's drenched in sunlight and it's weightless and I know it's not cheap. // Probably not even real." (20)

First reference to his parents - his "Shakespearean mother" on pg 21.

Amaurotic: Total loss of vision, especially when occurring without pathological changes to the eye. (pg. 21)

"If the house were indeed the product of psychological agonies, it would have to be the collective product of every inhabitant's agonies." (pg 21)

"It is no great coincidence that eventually someone... would show up at this Mead Hall and confront the terror at the door." (pg 21-22) Beowulf reference. Grendel is the monster terrorizing the Mead Hall.

"Because the enormous narcissism of their parents deprived Will and Tom of suitable role models, both brothers learned to identify with absence... treated it as temporary... discontinuous lifestyle... threats of abandonment..." liminality, also referencing the Israelites' wandering in the wilderness that was introduced at the end of chapter 2 (Succoth) and the quote from Exodus at the beginning of this chapter.

Laconic (pg 23): (of a person, speech, or style of writing) using very few words.

Selah.

[pearlsoftheparticular]

1977: Orson Welles reads “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (originally written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1798). Images by Gustav Dore.

[pearlsoftheparticular]

notes on chapter 2

Tree imagery is strong on pg 9: "I just thought it would be nice to see how people move into a place and start to inhabit it. Settle in. Maybe put down roots," and later, "He is merely expressing anxieties natural for a boy his age who has just been uprooted from his home in the city..."

Impetus: the force or energy with which a body moves. (pg 10)

Valences: 1. A length of decorative drapery attached to the canopy or frame of a bed in order to screen the structure or space beneath it. 2. A whole number that represents the ability of an atom or a group of atoms to combine w/ other atoms or groups of atoms. 3. Psychological term: the subjective value of an event, object, person, or other entity in the life space of the individual. Also, the pleasantness or unpleasantness of an emotional stimulus.

""This is nice," He says, removing a big clump of her blonde hair from the tines and tossing it into the wastebasket." (pg 11) Oddly, not the last time that hair seems to be a focus in this chapter?

"Nevertheless, despite their purely confessional content, it is not a journal entry but rather an unguarded moment captured on on eof the house Hi 8s that demonstrates Karen's almost bewildering dependence on Navidson." (pg 11) "In that peculiar contradiction that serves as connective tissue in so many relationships, it is possible to see that she loves Navidson almost as much as she has no room for him." (pg 12) [italics added by me for emphasis]

Second reference to hair: "I think Lude started giving one of them a trim, whipping out his scissors which he always has on hand, like old gunslingers I guess always had a hand on their Colts - there he goes, snipping locks & bangs... fingers & steel clicking away, tiny bits of hair spitting off into the surrounding turmoil..." (pg 12)

Galveston is a city in Texas (pg 12, footnote 18)

"The devil's ear" pg 15 - Devil's Ear Spring in Gilchrist County, Florida.

A thought: often, the notes here are used to prove, or at least point out, themes of Navidson's story. Should these be taken seriously? Or dismissed as part of the Fiction, even as red herrings?

"Don't forget to tell them about the birds." (pg 13) - Significant? Foreshadowing of his mother? Pelicans. Esp. considering how he works the tooth/eyebrow scar into the story too.

After the boxing/Birds of Paradise/Russian barge story: "... just looking at this story makes me feel a little queasy all of a sudden. I mean how fake it is. Just sorta doesn't sit right with me. It's like there's something beyond it all, a greater story still looming in the twilight, which for some reason I'm unable to see." (pg 15) Could be another reference to the way he used evidence of his abuse in the story (will come up later), also another nod to "authenticity"/existentialism, possibly proof that Story is starting to effect him. Especially considering how the note began when Karen mentioned the water heater, and Johnny seems to attribute that to his own water heater going out.

Vituperative: bitter and abusive. (pg 16)

"...as of late, many have called into question the accuracy of this self portrait, observing that Navidson may have gone too far out of his way to cast himself in a less than favorable light." (pg 17) This chapter begins with a Mary Shelley quote. Does Davidson consider himself Frankenstein, and the House (or the portrait which comes up later), Frankenstein's monster? It seems he carries plenty of blame/guilt on himself. Especially considering, later on that page, ",.. he also, by way of the film, admits to carrying around his own alienating and intensely private obsessions."

First mention of Delial on pg 17. The name itself could potentially be a mix up of a number of things, purposefully misspelled, purposefully carrying multiple meanings, purposefully vague. Delilah (Samson) seems most clear at the beginning, as seeming competition to Karen. Then misspelling of Belial, which is Hebrew for 'worthless', and the name of a demon in Scripture. Some also point out the similarity to the word denial, which makes sense when this individual is revealed. Someone on an MZD forum back in 2001 once suggested that it was an anagram for "L'ideal", referring to the poem by Charles Baudelaire. Here is a LINK to different translations of the poem. The poem is from Baudelaire's collection, "Les Fleurs du mal".

The "L'ideal" interpretation seems most correct, considering note 23, and the reference to the fake work "Jennifer Caps' Delial, Beatrice, and Dulcinea (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Thumos Inc., 1996)". Delial is Davidson's muse, hauntress, and ideal, just as Beatrice was to Dante, and Dulcinea was to Don Quijote.

Albatross (pg 17) - another bird reference. It is sometimes used metaphorically to mean a psychological burden that feels like a curse. Alludes to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."

This poem, and throw-away reference to the albatross, seem significant, because of this:

In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Robert Wealton mentions the poem by name and says of an upcoming journey that "I shall kill no albatross". Coleridge and Shelley were close acquaintances, as well.

Charles Baudelaire's collection of poems "Les Fleurs du mal" also contains poem called "L'Albatros", about men on ships who catch the albatrosses for sport.

SOURCE

"... the house itself, an indefinite shimmer, sitting quietly on the corner of Succoth and Ash Tree Lane, bathed in afternoon light." (pg 18). Succoth: Genesis 33:17, Jacob builds a house at Succoth after his estrangement from Esau. Exodus 12:37 and 13:20, Israel's first camp out of Egypt.

Succoth word meaning: Boothes, to weave protection, weaving.

Succoth is also another name for the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles, or Feast of Booths, where Jewish people stay in temporary dwellings, specifically made out of branches with a roof of leaves, reflecting their wandering and the impermanence of their dwellings.

Impermanence (Succoth) vs Permanence (Ash Tree). Exile. Estrangement.

Not to jump ahead, but Chapter 3 begins with a quote from Exodus.

Selah.

[pearlsoftheparticular]

notes on chapter 1

"I saw a film today, oh boy..." These lyrics continue, "The English army had just won the war...", Another reference to WWII.

Pg 3, first paragraph, on authenticity. Existentialism? The "Every day" is inauthentic, and self deceiving. - Sartre. Heidegger, unheimlich. Unheimlich as "uncanny", but also "unhomely" (Freud expands on this, but is a common interpretation of unheimlich as an idea)

"...the house on Ash Tree Lane." (pg 3). Ash trees have mythological and literary significance. They can symbolize immortality, protection, 'both the world and ourselves... the inner and the outer..." The World Tree in Viking mythology is an Ash Tree (its name is Yggdrasil). - Yggdrasil is also known as "Odin's Horse", or "Odin's Gallows", as Odin sacrifices himself by hanging from the tree. "Ygg" is one of Odin's names. Makes you wonder if the House on Ash Tree Lane (The World House, as it were) also demands a sacrifice.

Paroxysm: a sudden attack or violent expression of a particular emotion or activity. (pg 3)

Pg 4, another reference to Dante, specifically Inferno, both in the original Latin quotation, and in the translation in footnote 4.

Another reference to existentialism on pg 4: "Even today many people still feel The Navidson Record, in spite of all its existential refinements and contemporary allusions, continues to reflect those exact sentiments." (referencing the quote from Dante)

"There's nothing there. Beware." - pg 4

Circumambulation: walk all the way around (something). pg 4

Dissemination: the action or fact of spreading something, especially information, widely. (pg 5)

Aberrant: departing from an accepted standard. (biology term as well: diverging from the normal type.) (pg 6)

Garrulous: excessively talkative, especially on trivial matters. (pg 7)

Reticent: not revealing one's thoughts or feelings readily. (pg 8)

On the last two definitions: the House makes people act in ways contrary to their nature.

[pearlsoftheparticular]

References a Beethoven motif from his 16th string quartet, Op. 135, in F major. Meaning: "Must it be?" In the motif, it is answered directly with "It must be!"

Interesting that Beethoven was a deaf composer, coupled with Zampanó, the blind writer. Could be coincidental.

Selah.

[pearlsoftheparticular]

notes from intro

First reference to World War II: "I'd been in the throes of looking for an apartment after a little difficulty with a landlord who woke up one morning convinced he was Charles de Gaulle... I was promptly evicted. I could have put up a fight but the place was a nuthouse anyway and I was glad to leave. As it turned out Chuckie de Gaulle burnt the place to the ground a week later. Told the police a 757 had crashed into it." - xi • Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French army officer and statesman who led Free France against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government of the French Republic from 1944 to 1946 in order to restore democracy in France.

Nom de Guerre (xii): an assumed name under which a person engages in combat or some other activity or enterprise.

"Whatever orders the path of all my yesterdays was strong enough that night to draw me past all those sleepers kept safely at bay from the living, locked behind their sturdy doors, until I stood at the end of the hall facing the last door on the left, an unremarkable door too, but still a door to the dead." - xiv-xv

First mention of cats: "The first peculiar thing," Lude told me, leading the way around a short flight of stairs. "Were the cats." Apparently in the months preceding the old man's death, the cats had begun to disappear. By the time he died they were all gone. "I saw one with its head ripped off and another with its guts strewn all over the sidewalk. Mostly though, they just vanished." (xv)

Deracinated (xvi): uprooted from one's natural geographical, social, or cultural environment.

Second mention of cats: "Of course curiosity killed the cat, and even if satisfaction supposedly brought it back, there's still that little problem with the man on the radio telling me more and more about some useless information. But I didn't care. I just turned the radio off." (xviii)

"...lost metal roods" (xviii): "Rood" is "a figure of the cross in wood or metal, as a religious object. The roods at certain places are frequently mentioned as special objects of pilgrimage or worship. In some cases, 'rood' denotes especially the image of Christ as distinct from the cross itself."

First (?) mention of Measurement: "I wanted a closed, inviolate and most of all immutable space. At least the measuring tapes should have helped. They didn't. Nothing did." Second mention: "Of course, I have only my own immeasurable stupidity to blame for winding up here." (xix)

"I was the fool to disregard them. Or was it the reverse: did I secretly enjoy them?" (xix) Potential Tarot reference?

"Carrion dawn for vultures." (xx)

Second reference to World War II: "Irony? Irony can never be more than our own personal Maginot Line; the drawing of it, for the most part, purely arbitrary." (xx) Maginot Line: An array of defenses that France built along its border w/ Germany in the 1930s, was designed to prevent an invasion.

First references to Dante's Divine Comedy: Zampanó was blind (xxi) (Virgil the Blind Guide led Dante through Hell and part of the way through Purgatory before Beatrice takes over as his guide). The first of the 7 names that Zampanó would reference was Béatrice (xxii).

Beyond the Dante reference, there is a big emphasis on blindness vs sight. "Zampanó writes constantly about seeing." (xxi) "You might try then, as I did, to find a sky so full of stars it will blind you again. Only no sky can blind you now... You'll care only about the darkness and you'll watch it for hours, for days, maybe even for years, trying in vain to believe you're some kind of indispensable, universe-appointed sentinel..." Perhaps this points to the references on this same page about shadows being deeper (something is in the darkness), and that Zampanó was consumed by it, so that his blindness was due to being overwhelmed by the darkness.

Selah.

[pearlsoftheparticular]

Second time through HoL... Needed a place to rant while this book consumes me again - Follow along if you'd like!