I Finished the Book in 9 Days

I finished House of Leaves. Jesus. The book was amazing. The ending was perfect. Wow.

Need I say any more?

My First Time Buying an ACTUAL Book In a Long Time... And I'm Thinking of Returning It

Right now, it is 4:18 AM. I haven't slept at all. Perhaps I should start with my trip to the bookstore.

I wanted to get the WWU Bookstore's quarterly coupon book. I rarely use many of the coupons, but I usually use a few. However, I needed to buy something. Rather than just get a pencil, I instead browsed the books. I considered getting Fight Club or 1984 or Stephen Colbert's I Am America, and So Can You! I started reading a book called (quite ironically, looking back now) The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had To, but it failed to retain my interest. Then I remembered a book I had been considering reading for awhile now... Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves.

I had heard about the book via an xkcd strip that parodied the book. I read the product descriptions and review on the Amazon page that followed and was very intrigued. I think I read the book in a chair in the bookstore for about half an hour, maybe more, before deciding to buy it. I bought some MSG-ified lunch, ate it, and continued reading for another hour. I went to class earlier. Read some more. Took notes in class. Walked to band. Read more. Played percussion in band. Read more. Came home. Read a LOT more. For those of you that don't know me... this isn't something I usually do.

Or maybe it is, and maybe this book is constructed specifically for people like me, who can't pay attention to one thing for too long? I was thinking about this today; I tend to get very caught up in stories (more on that later...), but if a story stays stagnant too long, I lose interest (I probably have undiagnosed ADD of some sort). It's the same reason [good] video games appeal to me I think; the gameplay gives my ADD a break from the storyline and vice versa; the way it's constructed allows my brain to follow it more easily. Maybe that's [part of] why I was so initially enraptured by the book.

I stopped reading at about 11 o'clock, I think. I won't get into the book's subject at all, but it didn't settle well with me. The supernatural and the unknown tend not to. There was definitely something not natural about the book's subject and contents, even though I suspect that even the book's characters are fabricating the events that they're relating to me, the reader. After avoiding sleepiness for a long time, I finally caved in and decided it was time to hit the sack.

Kind of.

Only I kept stalling. As a rare occurrence, I had my desk light on. It made me feel a little more comfortable. I didn't want to turn it off. I haven't turned any lights off yet since the sun's gone down. I was afraid to turn the light off. I AM afraid to turn the light off. I keep thinking of a few key passages in the book about how the characters' perceptions of darkness started changing, and how something was in it, something never seen, but always lurking, always just beyond their field of vision (I just heard a sound outside [wind against a flagpole] and just about pissed myself). It's not that I think that something actually exists, but... I'm afraid that when I turn the lights off and get lost within my thoughts, I will think that.

I actually did manage to get into bed (though I kept my [very bright] desk lamp on). I tried listening to music. But I had a hard time even closing my eyes. The wind outside hasn't been helping. I'm very anxious. And this is why I'm considering returning the book. But how embarrassing would that be? Returning a recreational book? Because it scared me?!

Horror stories have fascinated me for years, somehow. And yet every time I come to them, they incapacitate me with unnatural and irrational fear. I think it revolves around how I just get sucked into stories; I find myself really relating to characters in stories as if they were nearly-real (never actually real; never real enough to be seen with my eyes, standing in front of me). I find myself anxious to see or hear what happens next in a story, almost as anxious as I am to see or hear what happens next in my life. I spend a lot of time daydreaming in my head, just "spacing out." This, too, likely has a connection to the experiences I have with stories of all kinds. It's not like I think the stories are real... but often in my daydreaming I will quickly alternate between thoughts of actual events, hypothetical events, and fictional events; that is to say, things that have happened already or are happening, things that might happen in the future or that I wish would happen or wouldn't happen etc, and the made-up stories I read, hear, and see. Sometimes they interplay with each other more than they should I think. Again, I'm not a schizophrenic; I never believe that untrue events become true. Sometimes I just get lost in my thoughts.

And this is probably why scary stories so truly scare me, especially at night, when I have nothing but my own thoughts and darkness (or even with the lights on, my small room and the endless darkness outside). When my daydreams are all I have, they get that much closer to reality, becoming the dreams and nightmares that I have when I sleep, which, often when I am having them, are very real to my perceptions.

Does this mean that something is wrong with me? Wrong is probably the wrong word. Not usual might be more appropriate. Thought it could become wrong if more nights come without sleep. It's not like this is a developing case; this is how I've been for some time. I remember how deeply terrified I was after watching The Ring for the first time, or when I played Silent Hill, or when I was a child, watched Child's Play, Halloween... I'm sure there were others. They scared me, but I was somehow intrigued by them. Now, these movies and games seem mostly silly, especially when real life constitutes my day.

If I avoid the stories that stir such fear in me, as I have been for the past couple of years, does that make me a coward? Maybe I have too much downtime, too much time to sit and think. But surely, people read, people watch movies. People read scary books and watch scary movies. It's not as simple as just staying busy and ignoring the things that scare me. Perhaps just this once, I'll confront my fears and read this book in its entirety. Perhaps afterwards, I'll give the book to someone else, purge it from my life, and henceforth go on with my life without wandering into the distractions of these fear-inducing tales.

We'll see how I hold up. I don't think I'd mind being a coward.

--Jon

p.s., I am confident that when they day begins, I will feel fine again (aside from the sleep deprivation, of course). If I leave the book, things will get back into the same regular flow they were in. Maybe my life needs some interruption? Maybe not. In my current very-very-tired state, everything get jumbled, especially when I'm alone. The daylight will shine more than a little light on everything.