I was planning on double majoring in English and History. Then in the winter quarter, I got back from a trip from the Middle East and an hour after leaving the airport found myself sitting in one of the core introduction courses for English. The professor, who had too much energy for my jet-lagged haze, went deep and enthusiastically about transportation in "A Tale of Two Cities." Which I did not understand.
This kind of inadaptability to academia made me become an English minor in an instant. It's the same kind of inadaptability that lets me appreciate House of Leaves so much more. I hate citations too (I'm a law student and scored 50% on them, so maybe that's a sore point to my lack of diligence though). I found it both fascinating and incredulous how people try to dredge so much meaning and analysis (from their lens) into something. But it's what we want to do naturally, with Freudian, critical theory, and so on. But I don't think I was a good English student since a lot of the time I did not know what I was writing about. :000
Someone on the internet called HoL an "essay about writing books." Yes, in the physical- Zamano had lots of ideas behind creating materials- and also in the responsive- its fans remain debating the last page, for example, 23 years after release. Even if it was "not for you."
I'm not sure what to make of the "meaning" of the book so far. So many layers, of mythology, and pop culture embedded. I really enjoyed it even with the deliberate frusrations. Johnny's story was the most interesting part for me but also the most frustrating!