The Syndicate

I enjoyed it a lot. I'm not sure I could read a bunch of books written like that but it was an interesting experiment with voice, visual layout and style as well as fact vs fiction, sanity v madness. It had a bunch going on. Trying to pick it all apart makes me feel like I'm in my own version of the house.

I finally finished house of leaves a few days ago.

I would be ok with re-reading The Corrections. Is good stuff!

to clear up that last comment (I was getting excited to post lol) -

I could see the interviews happening for real if D. was a more established writer. But as far as I know this is his first (only?) novel.

No - I think that's kinda one of the points of the book llama. There's all sorts of questions about "authenticity" and how easy it is to fake it.

There was a whole big section about how easy digital image manipulation is and how you can't always trust what you see in pictures and film these days.

There are multipule instances where Truent says that Zambino often made up sources, articles and texts etc.

There are times when both Truent and Zamino have it wrong and the editors "fix" it.

I think part of the main theme of the book is just how far each person who reads it will jump down the rabbit hole. (Which in my mind actually makes it a much more interactive novel than most novels put out these days) Part of me wants desperately to track down which articles and sources are real and which ones are made up. Part of me knows that's a big huge waste of time to spend on a work of fiction when the amount of knowledge I'm going to get is basically an easter egg anyway. (Also - I can see it as a comment on academic writing as well. Who ever really looks up those sources? )

I think it was set up though so that as a reader we are always not sure what to take as "fact" and what to take as "fiction."

linki - lol goosey - see above - I've never actually looked up the books/magazine articles. - I know the dante stuff and the bible stuff and the mythology stuff is pretty accurate. it's the comments *about* those things that get all trickstery.

linki - I could see it if it was a more established writer llama. I just can't see someone like Harold Bloom saying "oh yes, I'll give a fake interview for this book I know very little about." Hunter....maybe...King...maybe.... but I Bloom just feels a bit too ivory tower to go for it ya know?

Yes! Hunter's wasn't over the top enough tbh. but it caught the essance pretty well. Also it was funny to read him tell people to not do drugs.

Hit the halfway point in House of Leaves - it right creaped me out about the time the house started attacking everyone, but I loved the chapter "what others have thought." the riffs on the styles of famous people cracked me up. especially Bloom and Thompson.

Mongoose wrote:Does this mean you like the main story but not the Johnny Truant story? I didn't really like him much.

That's funny - I found his story easier to get into than the main one at first.

Vompi - I thought it was difficult reading in the beginning ('m a little more than 100 pages ahead of you) - but I'm all sorts of intruged with the layout and style and formatting. There was the dense every space of the page was filled with writing upon writing upon writing, now there's big light airy pages that have like only a paragraph or a couple lines on them. It's almost like they are compelling me to pick up a pen and start jotting notes in the open spaces.

@ goosey - I'm sure that is a mirror and an echo of something. A pimple - it's an obsticale...

@ lama - I thought the first one was ok - are you saying - I really don't want to jump down that rabbit hole? because he's hecka expecting me to be all in bc he and I like GOT so much...

also - this whole thread started with you saying "I want to talk about this book with someone."

So - I hope I'm providing the discussion you were hoping to find.

My work friend is hecka mad at me becuase I put off "the wheel of time book 2" to read this.

that said -it's not a big deal at all and I've been wanting to read this one.

no - and when I went out to smoke - I got the truent footnote that's now encompassing those pages, but tbh, I'm no longer in any shape to read them. What I've learned is that - captain and coke might be a near = to rum and root beer.

I don't think that truent was the narrator here either except when he's forcibly broken into it. But still - who decided on the squares? and the backwards printing?

Who made the decision to do that? and right here at this part of the book?

Was that the editors then?

it's obviously not part of the navison record. is it zambino rambling more? and why that way? and why with the backwards texts on the subsequent pages? I will ultimately question every narrative decision while I run down the rabbit hole.

yes rabbit hole I will follow you. I'm happy I'm only reading and don't have a gun.

And - somehow - the creapy is how the fact that things just do parallel to other things. so easily. My rl and truent's discoveries are near mirrors. it's so funny how i relate to him. I recognize a motif and he get's a paranoid vision about said motif....

also - your comment about the hallway is an echo of halloway.... Imma just sayin'

echos and labyrinths....

ok - so now I'm at the part where there are lists of buildings down one side of the page and lists of architects up the other side of the page and the little square that reads as a list of home supplies and is backwards printed on each consecutive page.

The footnotes get thin and Truent's voice is lost here.

And Halloway shoots one of his team members while they are trying to get back out of the maze! (and all of the talk of labyrinths before in the red crossed out stuffs. wowo. )

And the odd thing here, is I'm having a difficult time trying to find the Voice of the narrative. I've accepted that there are at least 4 narrators. Zambino, Truent, the Editors, and well - the Navison project. It seems interesting to me that we are as far as the house goes, in the deepest depths of the Navison project and the other three narrators have either fallen aside or have started listing things while it's going down as a way to not deal with what is going on in the Navison report. I can't cotton out which narrators are listing which things. And the fact that Truent seems the most absent, feels the most disturbing to me. He is the one I most identify with.

(also - fwiw - I tried like 5 blue font colors before I found one that would make house easily read on this forum)


All of the lists feel like Zambino.

Is Truent being the narrator by the way the pages are being laid out? Is that his voice? or is that the Editors voice?

Which madness are we watching develop where? And it's all going to echo each other. I think the fact that I'm lost in Voice is echoing the lost feeling all the narrators and characters are feeling. IDK what to think right now.

It's like the Shakespearean Mirroring of characters. I see so many mirrors. I can't find the original or the copies. They all blend together.

I have a page on library thing, but I don't think i have one for good reads....

I got farther along yesterday in House of Leaves while I was at the ER. It finally hit some creepy for me as they started exploring the hallway.

Mongoose wrote:Is it not intense? Are you finding it eerie?

I definitely did not always know where to go. Vompers, did you start reading yet?

I'm roughly at page 50 now. IDK if it's all the footnotes, but I'm reading it more slowly like I would an academic text. I'm not finding it eerie so much as fascinating. My current thing is play back and forth between the story in the footnotes and what is going on in the description of the Record. The bit about echo and the fact that the stories are "echoing" each other is rather inspired.

I'm at page 33 and I want to say we gave 3 narrators,

this is the most complex thing I've read in ages,

Mongoose wrote:

thellama73 wrote:I have read both House of Leaves and Jonathan Strange. I have a very definite and different interpretation of the former than anyone else I know. I did not view it as a "scary" story at all, but rather as a satire of academic writing. I thought the whole book was one big send up of the conventions and pretensions of academia and the way they approach communication. Just my opinion, but I've never heard anyone else echo it, so I thought it worth mentioning.

I really liked Jonathan Strange, but it did bog down a bit at the end. It's been a long time since I read either of them.

Hmm. I think I can see that. The hallway is a foil for the Ivory Tower in a way.

I love love love that I'm on this random awesome site of smart people and I just got to read this bolded thing.
I love love love you guys so much.

Academic satire sounds like fun. Given that I'm odd enough to read literary criticism for the heck of it...

I will hold off for a bit then. I tend to read fast when I'm not over loaded with work so it prolly wouldn't be good for me to jump in and start ahead of everyone anyway. Also - it will give me some time to finish the book I'm reading. heh.

I have procured my copy of House of Leaves. Shall I wait to start reading it till more people have a copy or just jump in?

nutella wrote:Oh man that book is also on my (super long) reading list. I've heard a lot about it and even looked at a (full color) copy of it once -- SO crazy!! I remember looking at the index and there were words listed that weren't anywhere, lol.

I remember someone on HV told me about it like forever ago and I've always meant to read it as it sounded cool. I forever in my head had thought that person was you LA. Apparently that was not the case. Maybe it was Lent then? IDK - I associate most fiction recommendations with you or Illy. heh.

Payday is friday - so I could conceivably go to the book store and get me a nice color copy of it..... I'd love to do the online book club thingie.