Chet Reads & Writes*

This post may contain information that people who haven’t finished the book don’t want to know.

Last time I set out to write about House of Leaves I had intended to finish off everything I had to say. Then I had banged out almost 500 words about Johnny Truant and decided that if I expected anyone to read these, then Navidson should probably get his own write-up as well. For the sake of brevity, here we go!

Will Navidson and Karen Green lived within a rather tumultuous love affair. Karen, a former model, and Navy, a globetrotting photojournalist, have a semi-happy life, with two children, but they wanted more. They wanted a house to call their own, a home where they would be together and their children could grow up happily with both parents around. A few weeks of happiness, then a strange hallway between two rooms and an extra quarter inch. Then a trip across the country, and upon return a mysterious, ashen hallway has appeared. That was a quick rehash of the events that led to Navidson’s final decent into the house alone.

As much pain as the shifting house caused this family, the chain of events eventually comes full circle to help Navidson understand where his love and attention belongs. The house leads to a reconciliation between Navy and Tom, his twin brother. Navidson also began to see that the house was causing him to lose so much in his life, and that it needed to be ended. His last adventure into the house was to find finality. To see what happened at the end. He wanted the darkness to overtake him, and leave his family alone.

I feel that there’s a lot that can be said on this subject, how much do I personally want to write about it and analyze it? Not much more at all. I’ve just about crossed the line of too much analyzing , and I’ll start ruining the book for myself. So to circumvent that I’ll jump to my conclusion, too bad I don’t have a mat.

Karen Green, no matter how much she disapproved of Navy’s actions, she loved him absolutely. The ultimate proof of this was her willingness to not only enter the house alone, but to walk into the darkness within. She turned her back on everything in life in hopes of finding Will Navidson a final time. That my friends, is love.