Well written, excellent narration (of course), and a tight through line about Cumming finding out from his father that they may not be actually related, and his subsequent journey to situate himself in his family while investigating what happened to his grandfather, make this a really enjoyable and great memoir.

Cumming sure went through it growing up, so it also becomes, somewhat, about the subjectivity of memory in unexpected and interesting ways. About trauma and motivated thinking, and about mental health, in general.

I found this to be such an interesting take on time travel. It’s invented, but the byproduct of using it takes a psychological impact. Makes sense, right? But I actually had never thought about that aspect at all, previously.

Three women invent the technology (Helpfully, the furthest point back is when the tech was invented) but one has a mental breakdown and is subsequently jettisoned by the others to maintain confidence in their work and, well, product, essentially.

Some time later an unidentifiable dead body is found, and things get a lot more complicated. How can you find a killer that could be anyone and in any time, practically?

Structurally, the book jumps around a lot. Different times, different characters. Generations from the initial setup. It can be slightly overwhelming until you get your feet wet. But it is so rewarding to engage with it and the mystery as presented. The psychological aspects were just so interesting to me and I love a good mystery. Absolutely recommend it.

I’d resolved to give this a solid 4 until the final chapter, which managed to tie together a lot of stuff in a way I didn’t really see coming.

Ella, a PhD candidate, presumably, since she’s going to be a doctor if she ever completes her thesis (but I don’t think is ever described that way?) is our primary narrator. Through her we see a veritable constellation of memories concerning her hyper anxieties, all of which associate with one kind of sickness or another. There are chapters that solidify different characters, and they do characterize the primary components of the narrative, but they are very much only coloured by Ella’s memory of these events. And synapses, as we learn, are tricky things.

This—it must be said—is a heavy book. Deceptively so. Because the prose are absolutely electric and incredible in flow, specificity, construction, verbiage. Basically perfect. And this is a translated work. A friend reminded me of this as I was reading and it flabbergasted me. It’s incredible just that this reads the way it does in a completely different language. It’s a divergent story to tell, told in a divergent prose style. Ella constantly makes associations with words; sometimes etymologically, other times lyrically. It may be the only rr so barometer we have for her stating her feelings outright.

Which is odd, because boy is this packed with feeling. Mostly anxiety and shame and guilt. Negative feelings one almost always had around family. Which is why, strangely, in a juxtaposition of nearly everything conveyed in the text, my take away is: It is okay to fail. Even when pain is the only relationship to a task or person or event. And it may be inherently negative in connotation. It ultimately is the only sensory organ you have to understand it and process it. People error all the time, in a multitude of ways.

Somehow the knot that this book provokes under your skin in often uncomfortable ways, is exercised somewhat in its completion. Another hat trick to go along with the prose. Astrophysics wise, I’m not sure I got the metaphor or analogy in this. Are we all the same stuff out there that is colliding, bringing about changes and new forms? It makes sense in a literal way perhaps… but it’s also lifeless bodies that come together there. But why then is everything Ella relates to seems to be, more-or-less, from her father’s (a doctor) perspective? Pain, medication; the dance of disease and recovery. Or is the question the point?

Liked it. A tad overhyped, tbh. But I’ll sleep on it and let it percolate before codifying a review.

the promised review:
This is the story of a complicated family, very much, to my mind, embodying a quintessential contemporary black culture. We begin all the way back, briefly, to their ancestors' enslavement, and proceed to establish the generations of come. The book dwells primarily with Ailey Pearl Garfield, though it is so long that it actually takes a while to get a bead on her. And just when we do, the narrative structure can pull us away, reinforcing that Ailey is a product of her direct rearing as well as the past. We spend time with her mother only after we see what kind of person Ailey grows to be, for instance. We know more about her mother's mother than she herself. And just when you have a grip on it, the book proceeds to draw a more complex web that makes the themes, characters, and family very contemporary, as mentioned.

Interestingly, though the book tackles some really oppressive and dark themes, its arrangement is its biggest strength, even as it causes the larger story to be somewhat opaque until a significant portion in. As far as I can tell the themes cascade. Especially when important. When underage and pedophilic physical and emotional abuse comes up for one family member, we then proceed through the web of the family further to see its roots and its contemporary nature. When Ailey sees the ramifications of marriage and tying herself to a man has gotten her mother and her grandmother--we proceed, again, to see the history behind that decision and witness the lack of agency the women had in making that choice. Consciously or otherwise, depending on the time period. By the end, this is the most compelling aspect of the book. The nuance and complexity are presented in an easily digestible manner and are built up methodically and slowly.

The pacing and the way in which many of the themes are not being struck as a chord until later was the number one challenging aspect of the book. To begin to see dividends from time and effort, you have to be around 400+ pages in the book. You just have to trust that you will get there--unless you enjoy the prose very much and it doesn't become a slog. Some of the time periods were exactly the style I like: lyrical, complex sentence structure, and high degrees of specificity. Probably because those aspects are very indicative of historical fiction. Whereas the contemporary prose, the "primary" narrative, is Hemingwayesque, but lacking the punch of full stop arrests and descriptive, evocative specificity that I, myself, prefer. On audio, the simple prose feels called out. And, later, when Ailey is more grown, they don't reflect her intellectual level. They only skate when she is a child and teenager.

The book does succeed at what it's trying to do, which is very ambitious. It's accessible and deceptively easy to consume, while being nuanced and layered, and not too overwhelming with the very heavy subject matter it endeavors to portray in a similarly nuanced but realistic and unflinching manner. The arrangement is by far the most impressive aspect. But if you can't get on with the narrative voice of the text, I imagine this book will feel interminable and opaque, and you'll have to force yourself through. In which case, do as I did and pick up the audiobook so you can still consume this accomplishment of a book.

A mirror to the reader that presents the simulacrum of multiple stories, House of Leaves is probably the most subjective book I've ever read. I loved the experience of reading this book. And make no mistake: you must choose how to read it. More questions than answers or perhaps even a narrative, the book presents a multilayered facsimile of a few different kinds of fiction. So my review is as the book intends. Merely my own reading and far more reflective of what I saw of myself while consuming it, than of anything else. This book makes space for a plethora of different kinds of readings. And I studied the text as much as I was able, tabbing and underlining and making marginalia to see if it does support my reading. And it does, I think. I'm going to be brief because I'm doing a video review on my Youtube that will be much more in-depth.

Borgesque in its "main" narrative, The Navidson Tapes presents itself as academic criticism of a cult film that does not exist. In its granularity, this reader found that there was a very meaningful difference between consuming a film and reading the piece about the film that retreads every shot composition and feeling, every visual perception, endowing it with something beyond the film could hope to convey in a viewing. As a visual thinker, the film was even richer and textured and my comprehension of it so augmented, that I think it's a far superior experience. If watching it even were such an option.

We follow the Navidson's, Will and Karen, children: Chad and Daisy, put down "roots" in Virginia. Only their colonization of the property is inverted, and the house colonizers Will, the patriarch and famous war-time photographer that sets aside his exploration to be with his family. Only, after the family is settled, the house changes, given new space--altering its dimensions in a literal sense--growing to accommodate Will's primordial self. His maze. Or labyrinth. The journey is literalized just as he believes he's completed every journey and there is nothing left but to conquer being a father. The family finds a door to a hallway to a great foyer to a spiral staircase to a maze. This causes a rift in the couple Karen, who has claustrophobia and is too afraid to enter it, and Will, who sees the next adventure and finds it irresistible. What follows is the horror of a space reflective of the people traversing it, ostensibly, but I believe more of Will's internal selfhood, and by extension humanity. And from the wreckage of the horror of trying to navigate this maze, a movie is (fictitiously) created.

The movie's critical evaluation is done by a man named Zampano, who dies at an old age after becoming obsessed with the film. Researching every thematic linkage and creating his own reading. Another horror that reflects himself, driving him literally mad, or so it would seem.

Because the actual person who compiled Zampano's work is Johnny Truant. A fake name, fake person, steeped in fiction that obfuscates his own trauma hidden in the footnotes in the critical analysis Zampano had written. Literally interrupting and resisting the spiral of Navidson's narrative into the maze, as well as Zampano's dark and turbulent thoughts that similarly spiraled. Johnny's story is mostly of self-aggrandizement and sexual exploits and chemical debauchery. Generally interceding when we reach points in the Navidson narrative that trigger his trauma, though he is only aware of the metaphor he has created which haunts and dogs him, as he becomes more like Zampano. Reclusive and colonized by the reading of the Navidson story. Rather than process their trauma, see only darkness and are ultimately consumed by it.

Depending on what you believe "actually" happens in the narrative, anyway.

I think the key themes in the book are trauma and colonization. They're hit on the head the most, in every prose craft fashion. Metaphor, allegory, symbolism. Everything seems to me, to point to the idea of patterns colonizing minds doomed to trace the same doomed lines on every layer of the fiction, regardless of whoever and however they consumed them. Everyone needs other people to feed them information outside of their own darkroom to truly see themselves. And without outside intercession, I think we all wander our own internal maze, whether we are aware of it or not. More so for people who carry trauma, who seem to have more darkness and less light to navigate the labyrinth.

Endearing but a little too silly and fanservicey at times, for me.

Some aspects of this, such as the stark juxtaposition between the author and her father, lit (criticism), and queer stories—both explicit and reading—work incredibly well. They become entirely convincing and engrossing, and when this story is at its best.

The structure, however, kind of undermines the fact that the author clearly knows this is the heart of the story. Remixing beats and going on digressions in order for it to serve two masters; the lesser being so much less interesting it becomes not much more than a stop gap to the “good stuff”. Even the paneling, line work; heck maybe all of the visual craft is not as good as when we get to the heart of things. It goes from a busy body (literally), to an impeccable, almost flawless piece of auto memoir.

Or whatever this is. Personally, as I grow older and memory affects me differently, I find that there is only ever fiction. But I do understand people need their lies, as this story itself shows.

What begins as a pretty straight forward retelling of one myth manages to trace a fairly subversive through line through a number of others; most of which I would wager are the most well known in the cultural consciousness.

We follow Ariadne and her sister to their ends. Which. If you know, then you know. In a way these are very faithful to the original stories. But the further context of framing them solely from the sisters’ perspectives, as the myths unravel in familiar ways, is the degree in which there is latitude for the interpretation of why those events unfolded. The well known misogynistic framing of each story reframes and gives voice to the marginalized instead.

In true feminist fashion, I think this humanizes the women, especially when the myth is especially dehumanizing of a particular female character—but it also humanizes the men. And holds them to greater account at the same time. More so than the unknowable machinations of the gods that are responsible for teaching men lessons by way of punishing the things they care about (ostensibly): their women women, is the toxic qualities the gods embody and the men emulate to be god-like. Even as the seek to appease their immortal parents, both literal and figurative for some, they are doomed to repeat the same patterns that mostly end up harming women, perpetuating a gender roles and society as suited.

It can feel close to revelatory giving a slant to the myths from women. Of course Perseus Plays the sisters off one another and lies. Of course the madness that grips some famed women comes from someplace. And of course the gods change and grow and twist in one way; even if their appearance is immutable for all time, time alters every relationship. Myths would have us believe gods simply do as they please and are mercurial at best. But what do men who write stories about the gods know of them, when their object of desire, women, are consistently and consistently opaque to them? It only makes sense Ariadne’s truth would be more layered and interesting, and reflective of the way society actually works.

This is about an indigenous man named M who works as a bylaw officer. He discovers a Davenport style red chesterfield. Admiring it, wondering why it is in the ditch, he then discovers a severed foot inside of it. He then proceeds to have his life radically altered as he becomes a suspect, the neighbour goes missing, his brother his up to no good, and his girlfriend is unimpressed with his choices.

It is heavily leaning into absurdism and more-or-less feels like it’s commenting on how some people—based on how it’s written, I am guessing a neurodivergent person in this particular case—require rules, regulations. In short: structure. It not simply there for no reason. Both at a governmental level and a human level. Trying to become something your not serves no purpose but perhaps your ego. And change always comes with a cost, and therefor a loss, of one kind or another.

Really fantastic reimagining and connection to the original Eternals, coupled with an uneven and odd execution. Internal consistences issues are pretty apparent and it has a bit of a phoned in feel after about the halfway part. But it really does have some interesting ideas when it isn’t silly. I far prefer the movie version.