OMG Sunpocalypse! (and subtle horror)
Apr. 16th, 2009 12:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
melaniesuzanneHm. Doesn't have quite the same ring to it...
Anyway! The giant warmth- and life-giving orb in the sky is back. Glory, hallelujah! The kitties are excited by the return of smell-o-vision; the humans less so because it makes the four-legged carpet-dwellers that much more difficult to live with, but eh. Tomorrow the cats and I shall celebrate with opened windows and thrown-back sheers so that warmth and light can flood our home. If Hubbyfink doesn't work one of his usual "half days" which gets him home at 4pm*, he can celebrate, too.
I started reading House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, the brother of musician Poe. I had heard about the brother and sister cross-promoting his book and her album "Haunted" when both were released, but didn't realize how intertwined the two projects were until I read a passage in the book which is used in the spoken word remix of "Hey Pretty". The book was recommended as a favorite scary novel in another forum and I decided I had to give it a try. It's slow going, though. I started reading Monday night and I think I'm only a hundred pages in; and that's with reading at least two hours a night! Only another four hundred or so pages to go. Sheesh.
Anyway, the sense of bigness is supposed to be a frightening theme in this book. Bigness (and alieness) were also concepts in Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness. However, I don't find the idea of big objects or spaces eerie or unsettling. I mean, if I were actually physically presented with the spaces and objects Danielewski and Lovecraft describe in their books, I would probably be unsettled. I remember looking up at the skyscrapers in Manhattan many, many years ago and feeling a reverse vertigo. But since I have trouble thinking spatially, I can't empathize with the agony and disorientation the protagonists feel. I think I'm missing out on the subtle horror of these stories and that disappoints me.
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*Seriously. He's at work before 7am most days and usually has enough hours by Thursday so that Friday should be a half day. However, he invariably winds up working even longer on Friday. I don't get it. Maybe he doesn't want to be alone with the catfinks.
Anyway! The giant warmth- and life-giving orb in the sky is back. Glory, hallelujah! The kitties are excited by the return of smell-o-vision; the humans less so because it makes the four-legged carpet-dwellers that much more difficult to live with, but eh. Tomorrow the cats and I shall celebrate with opened windows and thrown-back sheers so that warmth and light can flood our home. If Hubbyfink doesn't work one of his usual "half days" which gets him home at 4pm*, he can celebrate, too.
I started reading House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, the brother of musician Poe. I had heard about the brother and sister cross-promoting his book and her album "Haunted" when both were released, but didn't realize how intertwined the two projects were until I read a passage in the book which is used in the spoken word remix of "Hey Pretty". The book was recommended as a favorite scary novel in another forum and I decided I had to give it a try. It's slow going, though. I started reading Monday night and I think I'm only a hundred pages in; and that's with reading at least two hours a night! Only another four hundred or so pages to go. Sheesh.
Anyway, the sense of bigness is supposed to be a frightening theme in this book. Bigness (and alieness) were also concepts in Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness. However, I don't find the idea of big objects or spaces eerie or unsettling. I mean, if I were actually physically presented with the spaces and objects Danielewski and Lovecraft describe in their books, I would probably be unsettled. I remember looking up at the skyscrapers in Manhattan many, many years ago and feeling a reverse vertigo. But since I have trouble thinking spatially, I can't empathize with the agony and disorientation the protagonists feel. I think I'm missing out on the subtle horror of these stories and that disappoints me.
-------
*Seriously. He's at work before 7am most days and usually has enough hours by Thursday so that Friday should be a half day. However, he invariably winds up working even longer on Friday. I don't get it. Maybe he doesn't want to be alone with the catfinks.
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no subject
Date: 2009-04-16 05:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-16 05:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-16 05:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-16 05:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-16 06:42 pm (UTC)That means she is likely to grab (or startel) me while she is reading and I am sleeping peacefully next to her. :-)
no subject
Date: 2009-04-16 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-17 03:41 am (UTC)Wait until you go through the book deciphering the codes...
Is it the novel the full color edition of House? Are there Minotaurs?
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Date: 2009-04-17 02:20 pm (UTC)Yes, it's the full color edition with all the bells and whistles and strikethroughs and weird arrangements.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 01:15 am (UTC)If so, congratulations. Put it away and read a less valuable copy :) (the end papers on one edition contain an AIFF file of a song by Poe... in hexadecimal.)
no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 02:16 am (UTC)