---
id: 2026-05-04T06:36:50-0400
title: 2026-05-04 06:36:50
tags: []
daily: "[[2026-05-04]]"
---
# 2026-05-04 06:36:50

Yesterday I finished [[danielewski_2000_house]]
after two and half years of picking it up only sporadically.
(Physical books are too much responsibility)

I am unsatisfied with most of the speculation about the story that exists online.
Most of all I am not compelled by the popular idea
that Zampanò invented _The Navidson Record_.
Evidence for the theory seems to come down to two points:

* **_The Navidson Record_ and most of Zampanò's sources do not exist,**
    **even in Johnny Truant and the Editors' reality.**
    I consider this point non-serious.
    The face-value horror of the book is an entity with command of reality.
    While it only appears to mess with space in the book,
    it didn't feel like a stretch at all
    to imagine that the entity had moved Zampanò from a different timeline,
    or better yet, deleted all evidence of its own existence
    (present in _The Navidson Record_ and Zampanò's sources).

* **Zampanò is personally invested in _The Navidson Record_.**
    It is widely understood that _House of Leaves_
    (by Zampanò, not by Danielewski,
    also not the fictional book Navy reads in the _Record_)
    is allegorical for Zampanò's blindness.
    At times, Zampanò refers to Navy in the first person.
    These do not prove he invented the narrative,
    they only explain his motive for writing.
