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Monday 24 January 2011

House of Leaves - The Navidson Record - Part VIII

Hey guys, sorry for the wait, I had a bit of a weird, out-of-it kind of weekend where I wanted to get things like this done but just felt like time was going faster than usual somehow. I think staying up until ridiculous hours of the morning might have had something to do with it. Oh well, not important now. On to part 8 of the Navidson Record, where presumably Exploration 4 will be looked at and my suspicions that they should've gotten out when the cupboard appeared will probably be confirmed.
The chapter starts with a definition of SOS. I knew it.
We first have Reston keeping check on the radio equipment and other signs of the team's progress. Looking at the page now, I've just noticed the paragraphs are being separated by the morse code for SOS (...---... for anyone curious); I'm not sure whether to consider it a clever little touch by the author, to see if the reader is paying attention, or creepy, to make you wonder what else you've missed. Or it might just be the paranoia speaking.
The focus of the film seems to be entirely on Reston and the other still in the reletively normal part of the house at the moment, building the anticipation as it were. Hell, I'm getting tense and there's nothing to jump at. Everyone's getting more and more tense, especially when the exploration team end up spending longer than 5 days in there. On the 8th day, someone or something (most likely Holloway or whatever remains of his team) knocks SOS in morse code. So everything has gone horribly wrong, just not in the way I thought it would; unfortunately no Cthulu bursting through the floorboards or Holloway coming through the door shooting everyone in sight.
Navidson and the others decide to go in and rescue them, again bringing up this Delial person, who I admit I'd completely forgotten about until s/he was mentioned just now. There's a little mention of Navidson's editing, ordering the shots in bursts of 3, in the pattern of morse code; I'm sure the irony hasn't escaped you either. Except that the second SOS he goes to do is missing the last letter, leaving it as SO. It's an interesting word to use, considering the context. This leads on to Johnny ending the chapter with him having a semi-date with Thumper, which is really kind of sweet. It's a nice note to end on, even if it jars a bit with the tenseness that's been building up for the past few pages. Lull the reader into a false sense of security maybe? Anyway, regardless of the purpose, it's nice to get a bit of relief there.

Signing off,
Nisa.

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