I don't even know. canon is House of Leaves

[footnotes]

Not a fucking clue what you're doing. I guess some things stay constant. That part's good. Constancy's good. Even if the rest of it's a shithouse mess. Even if you're stumbling blind like the rest of us, even if you're trying so very hard to convince yourself you've got this shit. It's almost funny in a dry way. Like Zampanò shambling to his feet for one last go at a spiraling charge up the hill.

For your sake--hell, for mine--you should've just put the book down, and walked away.

I fucking warned you. This is not for you.

And now look at yourself. The damn thing's already snatched you up and torn in with its teeth, claws, whatever the hell it has, but it doesn't matter. Never did, never will, it's all academic now. But that's the damned problem, isn't it?

You keep getting drawn back to it. Studying it. Writing. Going back, always, constantly, maybe for minutes at a time but others for hours, editing, rewriting, shifting passages around, scrapping sections, adding new ones, forming new connections, winding a clew through the whole thing for you and whoever you're insane enough to show it to to follow.

Trails can be followed both ways.


Can't be helped now. Nothing you or I or her or the old man or anyone can do. Maybe there never was.

If you're going to do this, do it right, man.

Comments

screech

[redandloud]

We're all stumbling blind.

and then rp collapsed into a singularity of postmodernism

[footnotes]

Good to see someone gets it.

as it should be?

[redandloud]

Especially them. At least we're less deluded.

i see no problem here.

[footnotes]

In some ways, sure. We see how it really is, but what's the cost?

[redandloud]

Death, or freedom. Or both.

[footnotes]

I found my way out eventually.

Regardless, the book's not something to fuck around with. This guy's learned that already.

I tried to warn him.

[redandloud]

Warning doesn't do any good if the only way out is through, or that's what I've heard. It's hard to help the temptation of - learning? Seeing? Falling into traps, anyway. There's always traps. Things that become other things.

[footnotes]

So I've heard. Books that become labyrinths.

Or labyrinths that become books?

Great trees that become houses.

Sure, curiosity killed the cat, and even if satisfaction brought it back,the problem remains that myth is the Minotaur, myth is Redwood, or is it ash wood? Suffering through that beast, that gnawer at the roots of the world.

What a terrible thought.

[redandloud]

It's not that books become labyrinths, it's that people create labyrinths and - and sometimes, perhaps, they create books that are labyrinths, but it's menace, it's intention, it's not natural! Synthetic. Men who become other men and become each other and are, in the end, only part of the same construct.

Everything falls apart in the end when you break through, though, that's the beauty of it, that's the only hope. Certainly not suffering, certainly not love.

A+

[scaretaker]

Trouble with the bookshelf?

[footnotes]

Putting it mildly.

But is that it?

It's not a book, it's a house. A house of leaves.

It's not a house.

It's a maze.

It's a mazing.

We're amazed, and these hallways keep on changing.

[scaretaker]

You're a real piece of work, ain't ya? Sounds like you could use a vacation. Somewhere up in the mountains, maybe, nice blanket of fresh pure snow.

[footnotes]

I think I'll pass.

The cold's not really my thing.

[scaretaker]

There's a hotel I know, though...it ain't always cold, come spring and summer...but it's got a maze. Real nice one, you can see everything if you're in the right place at the right time.

[flewallover]

That sounds like a real problem, man.

oh hell yes

[footnotes]

You're telling me.

Wish I'd never found the damn thing, but it's too late now. Far, far too late.

:D

[flewallover]

What? You can't just put the damn thing down?

[footnotes]

Already did.

Done with it. Left one hell of a mark, though.

Just dragged out into this idiot's head--guy can barely "play" me right to begin with, fucking hell--because he fell into it the same as I did.

[flewallover]

You didn't put it down if you're still thinkin' about it, though, didja?

[footnotes]

It crawls into your head and doesn't let go. I should know better than anyone, I wrote it.

Well. Helped write it Found it, annotated it. Published it. The old man who wrote the core's dead, was dead. Left a note saying whoever found his work had full rights.

[flewallover]

Dead or was dead?

Cuz if he was dead that sounds like some freaky vampire shit.

[footnotes]

I mean he was dead when I found it. Still was after, still is.

[flewallover]

Ahhh, I gotcha. I was just jerkin' your chain anyway.

Never met an author before.

[herr_niemand]

Do it wrong and you get captioned with an edited dog photo!

[footnotes]

Who's to say the edit wasn't always part of the photo? Can anything be trusted as the original or as a later spin? Can you really trust the lens you see something through?

No.

We see the world through broken Glas.

16 would love that book so fucking much

[ghostintheanimus]

It's the space between the writing that tells you what it really says. Nobody ever looks, they don't have the right eyes!

25 2 20 2 6 34 15 15 3 17 15 11 13 16 3 2 2 ?

^{look to your own}

[footnotes]

The walls are the lines, the paths are the spaces. Either you get lost as you read, or if you're damn lucky you manage to find your way.