Kastie Pavlik > Recent Status Updates

I'm on p 139 and I want something to start making sense. I have no idea what is going on. I mean, I have an idea, but I don't think it's right and there are so many little things not adding up. This isn't a complaint. I'm thoroughly confused and I don't like it (but I will if it pays off).

I'm facing a long and complicated surgery this year, and the year started off rough bc I was off all MS dmt and was struggling everyday, maybe with MCAS. SO. I didn't know where to set my reading goal. Opted to go low. 100. But I've been reading more lately, now on new MS dmt, & other med changes. I'm at 73 now. I'm going to increase my goal in 50 book increments throughout the year as I get closer to the goal.

I amended my 2024 Reading Goal 2x, so I'm starting low at 100 for this year. I got bad news on New Year's Eve from my doctors. This year is going to start off challenging and I may not able to read much. Hopefully, once surgeries and medication changes are done, I'll feel more like myself and be able to read more. 🤞 Here's to hope 🥂

Amended my Reading Challenge, again, amid another "not-good" clinical differential and being off all MS therapies while I wait for insurance to clear the new prescription. 2024 was the Year of the Dragon. Should've been a great year, but it was a hard year and it's going to stay that way. Here's hoping 2025 is brighter once all this gets figured out. Merry Christmas!

9/8/24 Dunwich Horror pg89-123. Wow. This story actually got my blood pressure up like the cosmic doom of fear and anxiety was leaping off the page. It didn't really read like it was written in 1928 and the pacing was fantastic for such a short story. Awesome. Lol - read this bc I'm about to do the Dunwich Borer quest in Fallout 4 and wanted to get the reference. Haha! I cannot believe I never read Lovecraft before.

Well, I fell into the hole that is Fallout 4 on PS5. So far, it's winning against everything in my life whether it's tv, reading, or eating. My tbr pile is teetering as comics pile up and manga piles up and novels pile up because I get deliveries multiple times a month. O_O I am also currently reading the Vault Dweller's Survival Guide because I'm old school like that, so hopefully that counts as a book. ;P

Over halfway. Went in on a reviewer rec not to focus on where they come from or why at age 22. It's boring. It'd be boring even asking where & why. Author "tells" so much more than she "shows" & I am regularly seeing words blurring on paper instead of seeing a story playing in my head like a movie. I really really really hope the long stringers end up facing a nuclear winter or something. Esp Anthony.

497 certainly sobers you up right quick.

Spoilers maybe...

I finished it! ✧\(>o<)ﾉ✧

But I have no idea what I just read. Was I right with any theory? Was it madness? Was it another dimension and time distortion? Did any of it happen at all? Was it the firing synapses of a dying brain? Did Johnny do that?? Lies and truths and myths. Wow. Lots to unpack. I'm not crazy. The book is.

P465 ... HOL w(°ｏ°)w

Potentially spoilerish thoughts as I read through this section (pausing on p412)

The Jamestown history provided correlates to the excursions in the house, esp. Holloway's finale. It's still like a dimension where all time exists and doesn't exist. And Johnny's notes with "f" "s" either further imply a time warp or his mind warping.

I think the poem on p563 sums up the book title nicely.

Spoilers...
Spoilers!!

Jonny's dream begin p402...he's the Minotaur cast into the maze. But then the morphing attacker - does this imply that Thumper is his mom and the "happiest place on earth" is the womb? What should be the safest house before being expelled into the cruel world?

Damn. Navy's letter is so sad. Way more Lovecraftian vibes, too. There a constant contradictory theme in addition to the bigger/smaller in/out/beyond space (literally) and/or time and the condition of being human and ashamed and loving with grief and regret and love and all the coulda, woulda, shouldas in the world. Yeah this tackkes a higher question, but really, can't we love our imperfect selves? Seems maybe not.

Reread and skimmed previously read pp347-382, and then hit the one page glossary on 383. I've heard there's a Lovecraftian element to HOL and I see it now. Even through the blanks and missing pages, it's also like experiencing all of time at once and the madness that ensues bc the human brain simply can't handle it. I can't remember now... Is there a Dr. Weir here? (Wink)

Mid-page. Just too tired to finish this section. I think about this book too much. Also, my cat's name is Jonny.

It's a little nuts (a little?) That the book's madness and quirky formatting make complete sense with the scenes portrayed in the Navidson Record as they pay out, and somehow - maybe I've thought this before, or it was said previously in the book (it has been a few years since I read back that far) - that The Navidson Record has to be much longer than it was stated. Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought it wasn't too long.

Ok. Looks like I continue from here and will hit pp 312-322, which were read through a footnote in p.82. and then p323 to the end of the Minotaur chapters p.346.

After that, have read 347-382 of Karen's chapters. Start new 383.

Does not appear any of ch XXI - XXIII has been read.

Numerous exhibits and apps read as referenced.

Karen: Navidson Record Chapters XIV - XVII (pp. 347-407)
House of Leaves: Navidson Record Chapter XVIII - XX (pp. 408-490)
A Strange Light: Navidson Record Chapters XXI - XXIII (491-528)
Exhibits and Appendices I - III (pp. 529-709)

Muss Es Sein: Navidson Record Chapters I - IV (pp. 3-40)
Echoes: Navidson Record Chapter V (pp. 41-73)
Appendix II-D, II-E/The Whalestoe Letters (pp. 584-644)
Worse, It Knows Nothing of Whim: Chapters VI - VIII (pp. 74-106)
The Labyrinth: Navidson Record Chapter IX (pp. 107-152)
Rescues: Navidson Record Chapters X - XI (pp. 153-274)
The Minotaur: Navidson Record Chapters XII - XIII (pp. 275-346)

Since I am genuinely lost, I looked up a page reading order and found this on the book's Fandom page:

House of Leaves is a notoriously difficult book to read. Many people begin it and never finish it. Mark Z. Danielewski was, for a while, organizing reading groups on Facebook which featured an out-of-order reading list.

This is not for You: Johnny Truant Introduction (pp. xi-xxiii)

I'm on p270 and all of this was feeling familiar (Tom's transcript and the Pekinese story) so I looked over my reading activity and found a note: February 19, 2022 – page 86
12.13% "P. 86 diverted me too XI, so I've read ps 246-274"

So I have read all this before. I don't know where I should be. I'm lost!

Really clever formatting to punctuate some of those notations. Man at the centre.

...of similarly duped & mind-fucked readers who discovered, as did I, that the film isn't real (relieved honestly). For the record! And to the book's point... Ernest Shackleton's expedition sounds like a fictional horror story but it's all true and it's miraculous and amazing. The Endurance sits on the Antarctic seafloor preserved by the icy depths and seemingly untouched by time. Okay, back to crazy. (☞ ಠ_ಠ)☞

I mean, I came upon the footnote that made the argument that you can't go by visuals to determine what's real and what's not. It lists a "fictitious" film of the murder of a little girl that was later revealed to be a sick snuff film. So... Since other footnotes including real things - like Shackleton and his ship The Endurance - my curiosity got the better of me and I googled the film only to find a reddit page...

Finally hit p152. Not that that means anything. This book is such a mind fuck. The fictional and non-fictional stylings loop and swing and mix and lead you on an entertaining journey or on a forking path of footnotes and things that may or not be real as you read a book about a found footage film that may or may not be real while reading the ramblings of a man whose reality may or may not be real. Is this book real?

Got through footnote 180 and an at the top of p139.

And now as I struggle to stay awake, I've finished Appendix II B, The Pelican Poems, p. 573-580. The final poem references a house and tapping, and all these footnotes came amid Jed's knocking. And then to Appendix B. P. 541-547. I need to get to a good stopping point, which seems impossible. No wonder I put this down in 2022.

Omg I'm actually reading this again. Started on p.122 to 137 including footnotes, which also led to appendix E, p. 555-556. I don't have a mirror handy, so I couldn't check the mirrored text boxes on the even pages. Continuing on.

Just finished 2/9/24 00:20