#house of stairs

[aliceisathome]

OBVIOUSLY I read this title as House of Stairs and thought 'oooh, appropriate'.

And then I thought about how horrible that whole rose petals in the bath thing is when you're the one who has to clean the sodding thing. If someone does get pushed down The Stairs of Death it'll be the maid wot done it.

[unluckyxse7en]

Tell me about that book you read as a kid that made a strange and specific impression on your psyche?

(Sorry I didn't answer this sooner!! I was Stuck on it and then forgot 😭 )

(Edit: FUCKER GOT HIDDEN IN MY DRAFTS BASED ON WHEN I GOT THE ASK, NOT WHEN I SAVED IT SO I THOUGHT I LOST IT, SORRY IT'S EVEN LATER...)

I came up with a few books that might've qualified for this - "Freedom" by Angela Dorsey (one of many horse girl books, of the ghost horse variety) or "The Fire Within" by Chris D'Lacey (one of many dragon books - and I think my selection alone speaks volumes about me lmao)...

I think I've decided to talk about "House of Stairs" instead, by William Sleator. It might be an easy answer because it WAS strange and specific as books go, but it's one that's always consciously stuck with me whereas the other two books I think informed me on a creative subconscious level more than anything.

Full disclaimer - everything written from here on is based on dim recollection. I read it just once in middle school, a time I barely recall at all, and some elements are probably distorted/wrong based on how I envisioned things. But I'm writing it as is because it is SUCH a strong memory even if it's off in places, and I think that more precisely answers the heart of this question than if I pulled up a summary online and described it from that.

I'm also hoping to find a physical copy to own at some point, so part of this is because I'll be interested to come back to this and see how much I described poorly or entirely wrongly.

So that said. House of Stairs.

"House of Stairs" is, in essence, a story about sociological experimentation - the focus of the book is on several teens who get trapped in a labyrinthine space that lives up to the book's title, a reference to the M.C. Escher painting of the same name:

You can already see how this is the "easy" answer for a strange, specific impression.

The building they're trapped in is all white, stairs going up and down no matter how far you look - or go. They're trapped with no discernable exits and no resources, for unknown reasons and an indeterminable amount of time.

So then comes the actual experiments.

Aside from stairs, stairs, and more stairs, there ARE landings, here and there - and some of those landings have little stations with buttons on them. As the kids discover, if you push the button, you get food.

...Until suddenly, you don't.

Then the kids have to sort out, is it broken? Can they wait until it gets fixed? Should they try to fix it themselves or go elsewhere in search of the exit?

This leads to many things - heightened emotions, thoughts and theories, tension, arguments - until suddenly they're rewarded with food again.

Well. No one pushed the button, what happened this time?

And so it goes on, until it becomes clear - the stations are conditioning them, training them with rewards to silent tasks fulfilled. And as the book goes, the kids divide into camps - those who want to listen implicitly to the station, and those who don't. The station starts rewarding harmful behaviors to boot, to see just how far they're willing to go, so the focus of the book narrows to the protagonists who search for a way out.

The book is a YA novel so it ends with them finding the way out of course, being recognized for staying strong and finding a way out, and of course the innate reward of getting out despite the adversity. But the premise of this book itself stuck the strongest with me.

It raises questions like, what if that were to happen to me? What would it take? It's easy to claim you'd be strong-willed and find a way out, only because by knowing the book you know a way out exists. But in practice it's much harder, especially without that knowledge. How long would I last, would I immediately fall into the camp that follows the prompts? Would I resist but fall to its sway? Or, would I fall to the enemy camp, once it became clear they wouldn't get rewarded otherwise?

Sad thing is, as fantastical as the space itself sounds with its descriptions - almost akin to a white void with stairs stretching forever - the overall concept of a space being created for such a purpose doesn't even strike me as all that out there, and I think that suggests it's definitely left an impact on how I view the world.

It's just outlandish enough, and yet there's people all the time who would do such a horrendous thing, in the name of research... or perhaps even just their own amusement.

Honestly I barely remember the ending - how they got out, life after. In a manner of speaking, I think I too got trapped in the house of stairs - only unlike the characters I'm still stuck there, poking around the place and contemplating just how much - or little - it'd take for someone to create such a thing in reality.

Hopefully that answers the question in a satisfying way ^^; I was stuck on this for a bit since, as mentioned before, a lot of my childhood has been lost to memory issues - it was hard determining what books impacted me how, when I barely recall what I was like before reading it, you know?

[progeny-ex-machina]

Is it scientifically possible to train someone to become colorblind? Like, literally unable to tell the difference between red and green? Because I’m thinking about the ending of House of Stairs and how the characters couldn’t recognize the color of the light when prompted, because for so long it just didn’t matter — whether red or green, it was the light that meant it was time to dance for their food, and they stopped caring…but would they really stop being able to tell?

[ionomycin]

Grief

ref photo by @jawsstone

[floccinaucinihilipilificationa]

[booksc8pes]

House of Stairs

If Lois Duncan isn’t enough horror for you (see that post here), then William Sleator might be. Set in an indeterminate time, this story follows five 16-year-old orphans, all placed in a room full of stairs and platforms, but no walls, ceiling, or floors. There is a light that flashes indeterminately, and food- a vaguely meatlike pellet- is given to them at random intervals. Going off of the machine’s cues, the five end up choreographing a “dance”- an ever-shifting series of movements that they think is the key to getting out alive. 

This is not the case. One of the girls is blamed for starting rumors; as a response, the machine gives them more food than before. This starts a bitter competition between the teens to see which can do the most harm to the others. As the food gets scarcer, the stakes get higher, and the once amicable group devolves into two factions. For those who like the survivalist stakes of The Hunger Games or the psychological bent of Lord Of The Flies, House of Stairs is a gripping story that will have you on the edge of your seat. 

My song choices try to emulate this sense of confusion, hence why most of the songs are by Oingo Boingo. Call me crazy, but there's something about the synth noises that translates very easily to "dystopian horrorscape tries to sound upbeat and Completely Normal". Throw in some lyrically relevant stuff (Everybody Wants to Rule The World, Every Breath You Take), and you've got a slightly unsettling but very catchy group of songs.

Ready to enter the labyrinth? Check out this playlist or this board for more.

[livesunique]

Casa Nàvas, Reus, Catalonia, Spain,

Designed by the renowned architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner and decorated by Gaspar Homar between 1901 and 1908, it was originally the personal residence and "house shop" of the affluent textile merchant Joachim Nàvas.

@pierlaatelier

[vintagehomecollection]

Southern Interiors, 1988

[lionfloss]

Villa No. 12 in Iporanga, São Paulo

[novembermorgon]

aemon

[fuckyeahinteriordesigns]

[alexandraundone]

[chubbychiquita]

so who's gonna feed me until i can't get up out of bed on my own 🥺

[zegalba]

Kazuo Shinohara: House Under High Voltage Lines, Tokyo (1981)

[arc-hus]

Chi's House, Dalat, Vietnam - Tad.atelier

[alienssstufff]

Putting together an infodump headcanon sheet on Limited Life, the people and its world each week - WEEK 3!  

This week’s focus dedicated to: Team MEAN GILLS

week 1 - week 2 (bad boys)