u/pigeonwithinternet

Last night I dreamt that I was an eagle and I was protecting a nest of eggs. I’ve never had a dream like that before (it was just one small part of the dream, as my dreams tend to have layers and can sometimes be kinda strange, but still) but it was really interesting. The affection I felt towards the eggs was pretty strong, too. I felt really protective over them and was very focused on keeping them warm and safe. I don’t tend to have a lot of shifting dreams (the last one I had was several months ago, and before that I can’t even remember) so when I do it’s really cool! I only wish I’d also been able to fly in the dream. I was so preoccupied with my nest that I didn’t get up and fly around. I LOVE flying dreams, but I just didn’t think to in the dream.

I just finished the book and am really wondering about everything that happened with Johnny Truant. I cannot make sense of how much of chapter 21 is true, how much is lies, and how much is just complete hallucinations. I’ll put an outline of what happens and what I made of it below. I just wanna hear other people’s thoughts and interpretations. Oh and also, obvious spoilers ahead; duh.

1. Johnny tells us what happened to Lude after getting out of the hospital. I have no reason to believe this isn’t all true. There’s also a lot of (at this point typical) crazed ramblings. I never could make sense of anything Johnny is saying when he starts lapsing into these endless run-on sentences/poems(?) about nothing. I also don’t get the idea that it’s really supposed to make sense though, so eh.

2. Johnny tells us about leaving his hotel and coming across Gdansk Man and beating the shit out of him. I believed this up until the end of the entry, when I started wondering (hoping?) if it was hallucinated, and now that I’ve read everything I’m pretty sure it was entirely hallucinated. Not even sure why I believed it in the first place cuz Johnny has described himself multiple times as “weak” from not eating or going outside for months.

3. The next day, Johnny says he has no memory of what happened the day before, further lending to the idea that it was all a dream or a hallucination. Probably he scribbled it down directly after experiencing it. Later he says he found a stack of Polaroids, which are very likely the same ones in appendix II A. So judging by that, at least the Polaroids have to be real. I’m really curious where they came from though? Like, was Johnny just wandering around taking photos of people’s houses LMAO?

4. After this we get a bunch of entries entailing Johnny’s travels. I don’t have any reason to believe most of this is untrue either (obviously until he starts going on about staying with an “old friend” until revealing it was made up, which got a good laugh from me lolll. More on that later!) His memory of that accident with the hot oil when he was 4, though keeps confounding me. Do we think his mother did that by mistake? But then why do we keep coming back to it? It could easily be another thing like when she supposedly tried to strange him. I just wonder why it keeps coming up so often in the story rather than just coming up once. It makes me think there’s gotta be some other significance other than just being another example of childhood trauma.

5. Okay now things get confused to me. Johnny goes back to LA, calls Thumper, finds out about Lude, and we’re finally caught up to where he left us off on Oct. 25th. Then he goes off about saying a last farewell to Thumper, even finding out her real name (though not sharing it; why? Because he wants to protect her privacy despite not doing that for any other woman in the book, or because he’s lying??). And after that we get this nice, optimistic ending where he goes into a bar and finds out about House of Leaves being published without his knowledge, goes to sleep in a park, and wakes up the next morning feeling weirdly optimistic, which honestly just doesn’t seem right to me. I’d love to believe all this, but it feels too happy to be true, if that makes sense loll. Of course, House of Leaves being real in the universe of the book is something footnotes from the editors have already made us privy to, so this bit does explain that. The inclusion of The House of Leaves being published is why I continue to thing of this as the “real” ending (and also because I want there to be a happy ending) but I’d like to hear what other people think too. Do yall think this is the true ending of the story for Johnny, or does it feel too optimistic for a story this dark?

6. After that, then it jumps back in time to October. When I was first reading this, I assumed at first that all that stuff with Thumper and the band in that bar was made up just like the thing with the doctor was. But it could also be that it’s just jumping back because Johnny’s entries are out of order and all over the place. Anyways, a lot of this is just crazy ramblings and then ends with that really dark story about the woman giving birth to the sick baby. There’s an interesting revelation that it’s possible Johnny’s mother never actually strangled him, though, which intrigues me. He claims here that it’s just a lie told to him to make it “easier to dismiss her”. For some reason I’m inclined to believe that, but at this point it’s a game of he said she said; who is lying, Johnny or his mother? Neither of them are super credible sources. I’m also curious about that story—what does it mean? The doctor in the story is called Dr. Nowell, tying into the entry from September 7th where Johnny’s made up friend tells him “the story of Dr. Nowell”. So… this is a made up story from a made up story? (Sounds kinda familiar actually, doesn’t it?) The only other thread I can think of tying these two stories together is that both Johnny’s made up doctor friend and Dr. Nowell are pediatricians. There’s also that weird ass footnote (footnote 418) in the September 2 entry after “Staying with an old friend.” that just leads to a bunch of lines. I swear to god, somewhere else in the story Johnny also mentioned something about “an old friend” and we got a very similar footnote just leading to a bunch of lines—I cannot remember when that was though, sorry. But like… who is this made up friend, and why does Johnny keep bringing him up? What does it have to do with this weird ass story about the woman and the baby?? So many questions!

In conclusion, sorry if this is longwinded and hard to follow (I’d recommend rereading chapter XXI; or at least I myself would reread it cuz my memory is kinda terrible, so feel free to ignore me if yours is better) but I’m just putting down all my thoughts! I suppose if you made your way through all of House of Leaves, my ramblings won’t be too confusing in comparison. I just have so many questions and I need answers!