(NOTE: This posting was previously posted on a separate blog entitled “Literary Introductions”. For several reasons, I have decided to combine my multiple blogs into one and use the categories instead of having separate blogs. The following blog posting was originally posted on June 17, 2009)
Right now, I am smack in the middle of my week-long vacation. I have also recently moved. Both of these tidbits of information are entirely relevant.
Because I have recently moved, I haven’t had Internet access until this past Monday morning. I anxiously waited for the Comcast technician–fidgeting, pacing, cleaning. I am not a fan of having strange people in my home (strange in the unfamiliar sense). Finally, I sat myself down and picked up a book that my boyfriend is borrowing from a friend of his: House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski.
Now, you have to understand something about me: I am an impatient reader. I want the action to start right away and keep moving until the very end, which is probably why I almost always fall asleep when reading text books.
But this time, for no reason at all, I felt compelled to read the introduction. I wanted to read the introduction.
Good thing I did.
I have to say, this is by far the strangest book I have ever picked up. Ever. For reasons I can hardly even explain. That being said, if I hadn’t read the introduction to this book, I would not have understood much–if anything–of what I was reading. The reason? The book is written in a sort of extended essay form with footnotes and citations. But the book is fiction and many of the footnotes are bogus. Strange, right?
Well, a man named Johnny Truant wrote the introduction. And throughout the book, he acts as an editor of sorts, trying to get the book ready to be published (though he has not written the story–the story is said to be written by a man named Zampanò). Truant adds footnotes in an attempt to offer some explanation and perspective to the story (because he supposedly knew of the strange man who wrote this tale about a house that was physically bigger on the inside than on the outside–a true paradox).
Did I mention that Truant is a fictitious character in the story? Yup. A fictitious character wrote the introduction to this book.
The thing about Truant’s footnotes… they go on for several pages and often have little to do with the base story of this family in this shape-shifting house. In fact, Truant discusses aspects of his life that seem so irrelevant to the story you can’t help but wonder, “What the hell?”
But here’s the thing: Even when Truant is talking about his sexual venture with a woman he met in a bar and how throughout that sexual venture he fantasized about a stripper he calls Thumper, it is relevant to the story. In the strangest way, it is completely relevant to the story.
How do I know? Because in the introduction he talks about how in reading this book–a book that was passed around but not really published before now–he found that it changed him. He begins to go a little mad (or a lot mad) and these footnotes are not just explanations of the text, but an example of the effect this story has.
And thus, my fascination with book introductions has evolved.
The goal of this blog is that each week I will read the introduction to a new book. I can’t say that I’ll be able to read the entire book, however. I realize that it is now summer and as a student that should mean I get a break, but I have decided to pursue summer courses. Because of this, reading a book a week on top of working and going to school just isn’t quite an option for me.
At the same time, what good is a discussion about an introduction with no context? In addition to the introduction, I am going to read the first few chapters (as much as I can) and then post a new blog about what I have discovered (or haven’t discovered) in reading the introduction. Call it my literary exploration, if you will.
Disclaimer: I am not a literary guru. In fact, I’m sort of deficient in terms of great literature. So, I have a secondary goal. In addition to writing about introductions to books, I am seeking feedback and interactive discussion that will help develop my knowledge. My training is in journalism, not literature–a fact that I am sure will seep through in the writing style of my blog.
In general, at the end of each blog I will post the book that I will be reading an introduction to next, but because I haven’t yet thought that far ahead, for now I will leave that little detail open until next time.