It took me a long time to get through the first half of the book. The writing style is "one of a kind" and was difficult for me to grasp and follow. Once I did figure it out (or maybe it finally warped my mind as intended), I did enjoy the book and ending.

and the crowd is overwhelmingly confused!!!!!!

ok i wrote that the minute i finished the book. i’ve let it sit, looked at some video essays (im not good at text analysis without some direction) & realised….. holy shit. Yeah. this was good. i can feel the hyperfixation brewing. 

it’s been a while since a book has gripped me this much. it did take me a good while to get into this, simply because i was going into this that every word was important, that i should know what everything meant, that i should try and solve what everything meant then and there. after a while i realised “im not going to get this on my first go.” and after that i just. read. and after that point did i have a good time. i think for the first 20% of this book i had the mindset that i had to try and create theories and find patterns, etc. but after a while i realised that wasn’t happening… and ugh the experience became so much better. i think if i kept having that mindset i would’ve fuckjng hated my first read of this. i became addicted. before i would fall asleep i would think where the story had gone to, where the story could go, everything about every layer. not even trying to solve shit i was just recalling the plot as i snoozed. after a bit i fully felt like i was Consumed by this story. it’s all i could think about. i HAD to know what happened next. honestly after a while i felt like truant. (random lore dump but i promise it’ll make sense) but in 2022 i had short-term psychosis spurned from stress. i’m so serious when i say reading this book felt like i was back at that point mentally. not that i was hallucinating or paranoid in my daily life, but whilst reading the story, i felt like my emotions were mirroring truant’s descent, and honestly a book that can affect me THAT much???? props.

i adore books that play with formatting. books with mixed medias or books that really do anything out of the norm have my heart. but this? yeah this takes “playing with formatting” to a new level. to begin with i was super confused as to *why* for instance, i had to put the book up to a fucking mirror, or turn it upside down, but once i realised the formatting is mirroring what’s going on in the hallway….. same as the aircraft footnotes…. CHEFS KISS!!!!! i felt like i was a fucking genius simply reading through danielewski’s genius book. holy shit.

as you probably know because i mention it all the fucking time, but i am autistic. and holy shit is this book like crack to an autistic. it is prime for overanalysis. it is prime for conducting theories. it is prime for obsessing over to find patterns. it is prime for looking at the text for the umpteenth time and somehow finding something new every single time. i mean hell the fact there isn’t even a solid answer to the “true” fate/identity of zampano, truant, etc. is crazy to me!!! (in a good way). the ways to analyse this book are endless, and seriously that makes me so excited to read this again in the future. i’ve never been this excited to have the possibility of rereading a book. THAYS how good this book was.

i don’t think i can properly articulate just how fucking fantastic this book is. not only is the play with ergodic aspects so good, but even just the story following the navidson record is brilliant. the analyses in this book itself are brilliant. truant’s slow sanity slippage is brilliant. this book is brilliant.

i have no final comment because i don’t think i can ever have a final thought on this. there’s too many things in this book. holy shit go read this please