Francesca Danielle > Recent Status Updates

As the rescue team traverses the house and goes down the staircase, the passages also mirror where they are relative to depths.

Footnotes 165-167 just goes to show that the book IS the House… a House made of Leaves (the pages). I’m beginning to see just how literal some of the book begins to be if you interpret the winding formatting of footnotes 165-167 as the labyrinth of going back-and-forth in the darkness of the unknown.

Or how the formatting of page 134 reflects taking steps deeper into the house, down a staircase.

Long-ass paragraph that goes backwards and forwards like a spiral staircase, footnotes making me jump to the end of the book and then back and forth between the beginning and then making me decipher incomprehensible sentences…. So this is home….

Physically went Awwww at footnotes 367:) about love stories only being a code that can be deciphered by your one true love:) Awwww

I’ve been trying to read this chapter for days but it’s literally leading me around like a labyrinth. Amazing stuff

Here comes the start of the Minotaur and Labyrinth themes! The myth of the Minotaur being a deformed and unwanted child makes me think of the troubled childhood that Navy had and how the Minos play probably has the “happiest” ending out of all the narratives present in the book.

Subtle foreshadowing about how the monster wasn’t what killed the Athenians, but the Labyrinth itself.

Navy: Going through the horrors
Zampano: Going through the horrors
Johnny: Jacking my shit crazy styleeeeee

Something about grief hollowing you out and hardening you from the inside. Interesting how broken people flock to finding the meaning between the gaps yet still find fear in exploring the dark unknown.

Well, that was a heavy chapter. No notes so far, outside of the permeating paranoia that the house seems to incite in everyone, including the exploration crew.

Exploration #4 was briefly mentioned in the beginning, I guess this is the context for that. The exploraiton team somehow gets lost and Navy follows after him. Only Holloway and Navy make it back (so it seems). Also why is there a checkmark...? Huh.

Approaching the end of the first 100 pages which means that the prologue is almost done… and the real horror begins. Not sure if I like the old creature horror angle it’s building up towards but given how everyone is paranoid and hallucinating, I will (begrudgingly) Take it.

Post-Whalestoe Letters: Unreliable narrators are hit-or-miss, but the depiction of despairing schizophrenia, troubled love, and anxious delusion was enough to bore a hole in my gut at the sheer dread that the section elicited in me. Not only was the encoded letter horrible, but it left me wondering if it was all a hallucination in the end. I suppose it doesn't really matter in the end, anyway.

Reading the Whalestone Letters really brings into consideration how Truant has such a high regard for himself while still being a paranoid asshole who thinks everyone is out to get him. Having a narcissistic, self-absorbed, and cruelly ill mother laid down the bricks of who he is, as a person. Not only did he have a troubled childhood shuttled around by foster parents, but he was also abused. Jesus.

New rules: the growing hallway doesn’t exist in a single straight line, instead it grows like a labyrinth. It reminds me of the Labyrinth of the Minotaur, an endless maze meant to trap a monster. The monster in HoL remains to be seen though. It is also capable of creating doorways.

Karen is beginning to become paranoid for good reason, but it's interesting to see the effects of the House even after they have (presumedly) moved out of it. Now I understand why echoes were discussed in full, the context of the kid's voices echoing inside their house is haunting.

At first, the whole passages about echoes and how they only permeate spaces devoid of objects seemed irrelevant until Truant contextualizes it to the growing hallway in the depths of his soul and how Zampano had seen the echoes through the long, dark hallway in his apartment -- never mind that there was no actual proof or physical observation of this hallway when Truant and Lude visited. All so eerie and foreboding.

The jabs at needlessly long academic writing with many footnotes crammed in between may seem like an innocent nudge at the reader meta-fiction style but this echoes the growing, winding space that seems to grow Inside the House, but not Outside of it. Navy and Karen take two different approaches — hunting the reason vs. accepting the unknown, but ultimately this doesn’t matter. The House is still expanding.

I enjoy books that toy with permanence and how art, whether written or in photographs, can be imprints of the soul and how tampering with these would be akin to slicing off angles of a person’s preserved being. Truant’s mounting anxiety making him see figures in the shadows mirroring Zampano’s paranoia and Navidson’s frustration. A museum of broken people who are “missing” something that makes them human.

The lengths the Philippine government will take to eliminate political enemies just goes to show how corrupt and rotten the entire system is — it’s worse knowing that this book was released post-mortem of Joma’s death and that we continue to live in a world that is still wrought with terror and destruction.

It was also interesting how Beltran compares the CCP as a dynamic living organism, as well.

Faith and the responsibility to do what is right being interchangeable, especially when facing the insurmountable wall that was Martial Law in the Philippines

Seeking asylum is such a deeply inhumane and humiliating process. One quote I liked about Dennis’s account is how he and his family may have seemingly evaded the previous crackdown of communists in the Philippines, only to be blacklisted in the Netherlands and facing a new war of Terror.

Some things I liked from Luningning and Jun’s story:
- Missing the Philippines being compared to the pain of a phantom limb
- The association of smells to memory

Being Filipino and wishing for a home away from the Philippines is horrifically, painfully human, that it's easy to forget that some can forget to see you as people just because of a difference in political belief and ideology.

There is a unique longing that both Joma and Julie face as refugees that can no longer enter the Philippines -- they will never be able to taste a Filipino mango, they are forever resigned to the Netherlands until their death and it's either prolonged imprisonment in Europe or torture in the Philippines.

One of my favorite quotes ever (abridged): There is great pleasure that can be derived when an imperialist power like America considers you a threat. Joma's existence outside of the terrorist list of the United States after fighting to be removed proves one thing: revolution is not terrorism.

The last chapter is a dream and reads like a farewell and an apology to Chizuru. This chapter was most likely added after the first manuscript which means that this is not a "real event" but rather the ending that Chizuko wished they both had -- baring their hearts to one another, being honest with each other and sharing one final meal together knowing that there were no longer any walls between them. How sad :(

This is when the official transcript ends and I enjoy how Chizuru haunts the narrative and nestles into Chizuko's bones, boring into her stomach like guilt after realizing just how many mistakes she's made. Not only that but Mishima! Way to tell her. I was cheering for him the whole time while he lectured Chizuko about her self-righteousness and arrogance. I loved this chapter so much -- the guilt, yearning and pain.

How fitting that their final meal together was a whole banquet. It hurts even more knowing that they were special to one another, all without ever mentioning love or belonging. Because they would never be able to have each other in a way that mattered. For Chizuko, she had longed for O Chizuru, and not the real person behind the Noh mask, Ông Tshian-hóh.

God... Chizuko meaning well and inisting that she will be Chizuru's sponsor, that she wants her to elope and that she'll take care of her -- normally, this would be incredibly romantic because who doesn't love a forbidden romance -- but all I can feel is dread and pain knowing that Chizuko is only causing Chizuru more grief all because she sees her as an equal when that's not the case at all.

Food as a universal language of love when Chizuru is unable to communicate why she has to put a wall between her and Chizuko, how she genuinely cannot become her friend when she and Chizuko consider each other as "special". Chizuko arguing from a place of privilege and even offering to whisk Chizuru away not knowing that this would make the disparity even more glaring T_T "You'll only need me?" Okay man...

My favorite chapter in terms of unravelling the dynamic between the two women. In the end, no matter how much Chizuko preaches about their seeming equality against all odds, it seems as though she still reinforces Chizuru's lower status by insisting on "protecting her" by gifting her a kimono -- the cultural outfit of her oppressor. Painful, isn't it?

I just realized how a translator can only rely on the words of others to create something, whereas a novelist has a wealth of ideas and opportunities to create. Inherent dichotomy between the Mainlander Chizuko, who can do anything she wants, and Chizuru, who can only derive happiness from others....