House of Leaves

I just finished reading House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski.

Tempting as it is to indulge in the kinds of odd typography layout used in the book in a review, it just doesn't seem worth the effort. The one indulgence I'll allow myself is the color blue applied to all occurrences of the word "house". The rest is just too much work to do here.

The book as a substantial work, at something like 700 pages. Some of those pages are crammed with text to the point of almost not fitting inside the trimmed size of the page, and some are nearly empty.

The story is told on three layers, two of which are physically present in the book. The first layer is a documentary film about the house on Ash Tree Lane, made by its owners during their occupancy of the property. Intended as documentary, it also functions as horror, and at some strange level as a love story. The film is presented as real, and as the subject of a substantial amount of critical review and analysis.

The second layer is a critical work about the film, written by an old, blind man, left unfinished when he died in somewhat mysterious circumstances. This is the main text of the published book, and takes an erudite approach to the subject of the film, and incidentally recounts the content of the film as it progresses. It is heavily footnoted both as citations to the source material quoted, and to provide translations of some of the many quotations presented in their original languages.

This text is set in unconventional ways in several of the chapters. It often gives the impression that just writing about the events of the film forces the text layout to reflect some of those events. This is most obvious as changes to the shape of the house are reflected in the page layouts, with claustrophobic sections trapped in a tiny section of an otherwise blank page, a maze represented by text and footnotes tangled and running all ways on the page, and so forth.

The third layer is provided in footnotes by the younger man who acquired the manuscript after its author's death, and has become obsessed with pulling it into form suitable for publication. He too is subject to the subject, and given that he has his own personal demons joining the party, it isn't entirely clear that he'll survive the work.

At times, the reader gets the distinct impression that the three layers are at war with each other, and the reader is playing the role of battlefield, or perhaps civilian collateral damage.

I picked up the book due to an XKCD cartoon titled House of Pancakes. I've since spotted it in several bookstores, but oddly shelved. It is usually in the horror section, but I've spotted with the graphic novels and manga as well.

Would I recommend it? Certainly not to everyone.

Would I seek out other books by the same author? I'm not sure.

What about music by the author's sister that was inspired by the book? I don't know, but it seemed to move the principle character in the third layer story when he happened on to a band playing music inspired by an internet bootleg copy of the book he hadn't published yet...

Having finished it, I have to wonder if it was worth the effort. I'm still not sure. From one point of view, the book is a self-indulgent waste of time and the paper it was printed on. However, it is probably the best researched and most complete hoax of its kind I've ever seen. It is reminiscent in some ways of the seminal volumes Why Paint Cats and Why Cats Paint which both produced some of the same reactions.

Coraline, now in theaters in 3D

We saw Coraline^[IMDB][wiki] the other day. It was shown in one of the new digitally projected 3D systems at our local multiplex.

Wow.

I was very taken with the book by Neil Gaiman, who is one of my favorite authors. It is a simple story about a young girl who feels neglected by her workaholic parents. They move to an old house that has been divided into flats, taking the large flat for their own. While exploring the house, Coraline (not Caroline!) finds a locked door in the parlor that appears at first to open onto a brick wall. Later, she finds it opens into another world where her "other" mother and father dote on her. They seem a little creepy, an effect enhanced by having large black buttons sewn in place of their eyes. She can stay, but only if she consents to have the buttons herself.... Read the book and you'll never look at buttons the same way again.

The movie actually extends the story beyond the book in several ways, and it does it without breaking it. In fact, the film's version of the story is better at least as handled on screen. The writers added an entire new character and improved the depth of the back story of the villainess. They even managed to fit a musical number in that was written (but not performed) by They Might be Giants.

Given that it was directed by Henry Selick (who directed Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach, and Monkey Bone) the stop-motion animation is as striking as could be expected. More striking is the delicate use of 3D projection. The 3D was used to give extra depth to the scenery without abusing the audience. It was not used as a gimmick. There is a hint of the effort expended on the animation in a short segment after the credit roll that shows a sequence shot from a wider angle and without any of the clamps or wires removed. There was some CGI used, but mostly for cleanups and wire removal.

In short, see this movie.

XKCD on Anathem

Today's XKCD is a review, of sorts, of Neal Stephenson's new novel Anathem. Randal seems concerned about the amount of invented vocabulary required for basic comprehension of the story.

While sympathetic to Randal's point, I suspect he hasn't devoted quite enough attention span to get what Stephenson is actually up to in this one. It is the sort of book where putting it down too soon will make it impossible to pick up. Being set in an entirely distinct culture it requires a fair amount of context and vocabulary to keep the alien flavor. Although, if you are well-read in the right topics, a lot of what is said will sound isomorphic to things you already know.

Read in the right frame of mind, it might even teach some hard to explain ideas about the nature of consciousness. There is an interesting riff relating the solving of an abstract problem to the collapsing of a wave function, and a different spin on the many-worlds explanation of quantum mechanics that almost made sense.

As I write this, I've read about 3/4 of Anathem, and it clearly is worth the attention I've paid it.

As proof that XKCD does get it in general, I present the previous comic, which demonstrates the power of a log scale to collapse the entire universe to a comprehensible size...

Comics that remind me of a certain someone

One art form that seems specifically designed for the world wide web is the comic strip. A daily three-panel strip at a legible resolution fits neatly on a page, and even a Sunday special rarely requires a scroll bar.

More importantly, the web permits an artist a degree of editorial freedom that can never be had from formal syndication. It also has a potentially world-wide audience, and with a loyal, multi-lingual fan base can even end up translated into multiple languages. This might be the earliest media product to demonstrate that self-publication is practical and that the old distribution channels may not keep their monopolies forever.

Independent music is following a similar path, podcasting has already had a visible effect on radio (although in that medium it seems like the old distributors are embracing the new channel from the outset), blogging has visibly impacted the traditional print media, and there have lately been several attempts at film and video production targeted specifically at online delivery.

Here are a few comic strips I've noticed, some of which have characters and settings that strongly remind me of people I know.

Specifically who these remind me of is left as an exercise for the reader...

Girl Genius

Adventure, Romance, Mad Science!

http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/

A steampunk manga written Phil and Kaja Foglio and drawn by Phil Foglio. You might recognize Phil as the artist behind the covers for the first editions of all of the Myth Adventures books. Many of the pages are full of background details and inside jokes that probably are best appreciated in the print editions. Six volumes are available as graphic novels, and volume seven is currently in progress.

Narbonic

The dreams that we have had
Are gonna prove that we're all mad
And that's okay

http://www.narbonic.com/

The story of Narbonic Labs by Shaenon K. Garrity ran from mid 2000 through the end of 2006. It is formatted as a three to five panel daily strip, and Sunday specials.

It is presently being rerun as a Director's Cut with commentary from the artist about each strip, and a weekly podcast. The entire run is also available without the commentary, and four print volumes were issued.

User Friendly

Impairing productivity since 1997.

"Tech support, ghost in the machine speaking."

http://www.userfriendly.org/

An inside view into the workings of a (fictional) small ISP called Columbia Internet. It is written and drawn by J.D. "Illiad" Frazer, and much beloved by working geeks. It is notable for its long run, with new strips appearing seven days a week (at midnight, Pacific time since Columbia Internet is located in Vancouver, B.C.).

xkcd

A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

http://www.xkcd.com/

Stick figures and geek humor written and drawn by Randall Munroe. It starts with scans of art drawn when he was supposed to be taking notes in classes, much of that early art is reminiscent of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and Le Petit Prince. Most of the later art is in a minimalist stick-figure form which allows the absurdity to shine without distraction.

From the site: "Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)."