Mark Z. Danielewski, 2000 — Chapter XXIII
Zampanò describes the last sequence of The Navidson Record: the Navidsons' new life, Karen's illness, and the final shot of the empty road.
The epigraph names a photograph by Diane Cook, a real American photographer of landscape and nature. Kalapana was a village in Hawaii mostly buried by lava from the Kīlauea volcano in 1990.
A “surviving house” standing amid the lava fits a book about a house that outlasts everything around it.
XXIII “Surviving House, Kalapana, Hawaii, 1993” — Diane Cook In Passion For Pity and Other Recipes For Disaster (London: Greenhill Books, 1996) Helmut Muir cried: “They both live.
An invented critic and book (Greenhill Books, a real publisher). Muir calls the ending happy because the couple live and marry.
Zampanò answers that a “happy ending” is hard to claim over Navidson's ruined face, lost hand and eye, and crutch, and the unseen wound of memory.
XXIII “Surviving House, Kalapana, Hawaii, 1993” — Diane Cook In Passion For Pity and Other Recipes For Disaster (London: Greenhill Books, 1996) Helmut Muir cried: “They both live.
A long, painful or difficult experience.
Both Karen and Will Navidson survive their ordeal and they do exchange conjugal vows in Vermont.
Relating to marriage or to husband and wife.
Both Karen and Will Navidson survive their ordeal and they do exchange conjugal vows in Vermont.
The Navidsons marry and settle in Vermont, a New England state. Daisy believes faeries live in the countryside and spirits fill her toys, one red and gold. Chad now builds endlessly with Lego and says he wants to be an architect.
Both Karen and Will Navidson survive their ordeal and they do exchange conjugal vows in Vermont.
Badly damaged or destroyed.
Of course, is it really possible to look at Navidson’s ravaged face, the patch covering his left eye, the absence of a hand, the crutch wedged under his armpit, and call it a “happy” ending?
A deep and lasting shock or wound, of the body or the mind.
Even putting aside the physical cost, what about the unseen emotional trauma which Muir so casually dismisses?
In a firm way that will not change.
Daisy adamantly believes faeries inhabit the countryside and spirits possess her collection of stuffed animals and dolls, in particular a red and gold one.
An old spelling of fairies: small magical beings.
Daisy adamantly believes faeries inhabit the countryside and spirits possess her collection of stuffed animals and dolls, in particular a red and gold one.
Of a tumour: dangerous and able to spread; cancerous.
Only recently she was diagnosed with malignant breast cancer.
Karen is diagnosed with malignant breast cancer. She has a mastectomy (removal of the breast) and chemotherapy, which cost her hair and leave her gaunt.
Navidson films her tenderly; her “will-o'-the-wisp” smiles seem to resist the disease.
Only recently she was diagnosed with malignant breast cancer.
An operation to remove a breast.
The mastectomy was considered “successful” and subsequent chemotherapy 526
Treatment of cancer with strong drugs.
The mastectomy was considered “successful” and subsequent chemotherapy 526
The forming of open sores (ulcers) in the body.
Nevertheless hair loss and severe stomach ulceration have left Karen gaunt and grey.
Very thin and worn-looking, as from illness.
Nevertheless hair loss and severe stomach ulceration have left Karen gaunt and grey.
A faint, flickering light over marshland; something faint and hard to hold.
Still, as Navidson tenderly shows us, her will-o’-the-wisp smiles seem impervious to the ravaging effects of disease and whenever she laughs the notes sing a call to Victory.
Not affected by something; unable to be harmed by it.
Still, as Navidson tenderly shows us, her will-o’-the-wisp smiles seem impervious to the ravaging effects of disease and whenever she laughs the notes sing a call to Victory.
Reddish-brown (of hair).
Navidson captures all this in simple, warmly lit shots: simmering milk, roasted walnuts and against a backdrop of black ash and pine, Karen's graceful fingers braiding her daughter’s long auburn hair.
A warm, glowing brightness.
Despite Karen’s infrequently removed woolen hat, she and Daisy still both share a remarkable radiance.
An invented critic in the real left-wing magazine Z. Laughton's phrase “a kind of beautiful mischief” describes the shared radiance of Karen and Daisy.
What Massel Laughton once described as “a kind of beautiful mischief.”’427 Nor is this the only shot of mother and child.
Hundreds of family photographs cover the walls: Karen, the children, Tom, Reston, relatives, and even the dogs Mallory and Hillary (named after the Everest climbers George Mallory and Edmund Hillary).
Navidson knows he cannot end on these warm images, because what they promise “rings false”: the house is still there.
Every room, stairway, and corridor supports pictures of Karen, Daisy, Chad, and Navidson as well as Tom, Reston, Karen’s mother, their friends, distant relatives, ancient relatives, even Mallory and Hillary.
A picture made by fixing many separate images together.
Though this collage is immensely appealing, Navidson is wise enough to know he cannot close on such images.
An invented critic and book (Ecco Press, a real publisher). Kaplan's real point: “passion” and “patience” share the Latin root pati, “to suffer”. Passion is not joy but endurance.
Zampanò uses it to explain why Navidson keeps working through his pain.
Mercifully, in her captivating book on art, culture, and politics, in which she includes The Navidson Record in the spire of her analysis, Daphne Kaplan reminds the reader what it means to be passionate: Passion has little to do with euphoria and everything to do with patience.
A strong feeling of joy or excitement.
… art, culture, and politics, in which she includes The Navidson Record in the spire of her analysis, Daphne Kaplan reminds the reader what it means to be passionate: Passion has little to do with euphoria and everything to do with patience.
Lively, overflowing high spirits.
It does not mean to flow with exuberance.
Always; without exception.
In those final shots, Navidson gives a wink to the genre his work will always resist but invariably join.
An evil spirit; here, a child in a scary costume.
A whole slew of eight year old ghouls haunting the streets of Dorset, plundering its homes for apples and MilkyWays, all while tossing up high-pitched screams into the sparkling blackness forever closing in above them.
Robbing or taking goods by force; here, playful for trick-or-treating.
A whole slew of eight year old ghouls haunting the streets of Dorset, plundering its homes for apples and MilkyWays, all while tossing up high-pitched screams into the sparkling blackness forever closing in above them.
A show acted with gestures and no words; here, the Halloween play-acting.
Tongues of grey ice cover the roads, candles flicker unevenly, and grownups gulp hot cider from styrofoam cups, always keeping watch over their sheep in wolves’ clothing lest something disturb their pantomime.
The last shots follow the children trick-or-treating in Dorset, Vermont, on Halloween: jack-o'-lanterns, costumes, apples and Milky Way bars. Casper the Friendly Ghost is a real cartoon character.
Navidson nods to the horror genre his film both resists and joins, then lets the parade pass.
Navidson does not close with the caramel covered face of a Casper the friendly ghost.
Going slowly along a winding way.
immediately seek out these tiny forms wending their way from porch to porch across great lakes of shadow.
Navidson ends not on a child's happy face but on the empty road curving into the woods, where a street lamp flickers and goes out and “darkness sweeps in like a hand.”
The film is dated December 25, 1996 — Christmas Day. The comfort is refused; the dark has the last frame.
Letting the parade pass from sight, he focuses on the empty road beyond, a pale curve vanishing into the woods where nothing moves and a street lamp flickers on and off until at last it flickers out and darkness sweeps in like a hand.
Johnny notes that Zampanò left instructions for a set of illustrated plates he never finished. Six numbered exhibits list what each plate should show. Several point to material the Editors mark “Missing.”
The first plate would show building styles from early Egyptian, Mycenaean, Greek and Roman through Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassical to today, with floor plans, doorways, pediments, gables, columns, capitals, entablatures and windows.
It ties the endless, styleless house to the whole story of human building. See the glossary for the terms.
ONE Instructions: § Provide pictorial examples of architecture ranging from early Egyptian, Mycenaean, Greek, and Roman to Gothic, early Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassical, and the present.
Of the early Greek culture centred on Mycenae (about 1600–1100 BC).
ONE Instructions: § Provide pictorial examples of architecture ranging from early Egyptian, Mycenaean, Greek, and Roman to Gothic, early Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassical, and the present.
A medieval building style with pointed arches and tall windows.
ONE Instructions: § Provide pictorial examples of architecture ranging from early Egyptian, Mycenaean, Greek, and Roman to Gothic, early Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassical, and the present.
A rich, highly decorated style of the 1600s and 1700s.
ONE Instructions: § Provide pictorial examples of architecture ranging from early Egyptian, Mycenaean, Greek, and Roman to Gothic, early Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassical, and the present.
A later style that copies ancient Greek and Roman forms.
ONE Instructions: § Provide pictorial examples of architecture ranging from early Egyptian, Mycenaean, Greek, and Roman to Gothic, early Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassical, and the present.
The triangular part above the front of a classical building.
ONE Instructions: § Provide pictorial examples of architecture ranging from early Egyptian, Mycenaean, Greek, and Roman to Gothic, early Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassical, and the present. § Emphasize floor plans, doorways, pediments, gables, columns, capitals, entablatures, and windows.
The triangular upper part of a wall under a sloping roof.
ONE Instructions: § Provide pictorial examples of architecture ranging from early Egyptian, Mycenaean, Greek, and Roman to Gothic, early Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassical, and the present. § Emphasize floor plans, doorways, pediments, gables, columns, capitals, entablatures, and windows.
The decorated top of a column.
ONE Instructions: § Provide pictorial examples of architecture ranging from early Egyptian, Mycenaean, Greek, and Roman to Gothic, early Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassical, and the present. § Emphasize floor plans, doorways, pediments, gables, columns, capitals, entablatures, and windows.
The horizontal band resting on the columns of a classical building.
ONE Instructions: § Provide pictorial examples of architecture ranging from early Egyptian, Mycenaean, Greek, and Roman to Gothic, early Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassical, and the present. § Emphasize floor plans, doorways, pediments, gables, columns, capitals, entablatures, and windows.
The second plate would show hand-shadow figures, from crabs and rabbits to dragons and tigers. It names two real how-to books: The Little Book of Hand Shadows by Phila H. Webb and Jane Corby, and Fun With Hand Shadows by Sati Achath and Bala Chandran.
Shadows made by hands in front of a light echo the book's play of light and dark.
TWO Instructions: § Provide examples of hand shadows ranging from crabs, snails, rabbits, and turtles to dragons, panthers, tigers, and kangaroos.
A form of a chemical element with a different number of neutrons.
THREE Instructions: § Illustrate date determination techniques utilizing potassium-40/argon40, rubidium-87/strontium-87, and samarium-147/neodymium-143. § Provide table for uranium-235 and -238 found in lead isotopes.
The third plate would explain how scientists date rock by measuring radioactive decay: potassium–argon, rubidium–strontium, samarium–neodymium and uranium–lead. This links to earlier attempts to date the ash and walls of the house.
The data was to come from a “Zero Folder”, which the Editors mark Missing.
THREE Instructions: § Illustrate date determination techniques utilizing potassium-40/argon40, rubidium-87/strontium-87, and samarium-147/neodymium-143. § Provide table for uranium-235 and -238 found in lead isotopes. § Include all data in Zero Folder.428 428Missing.
An exact copy of a document or picture.
FOUR Instructions: § Reproduce all facsimiles of The Reston Interview and The Last Interview.429 429Missing.
Exhibit Four would reproduce The Reston Interview and The Last Interview (both marked Missing). Exhibit Five would copy a page of the real U.S. Air Force survival manual AFM 64-5 (1969); the Editors point to Appendix II-C.
FIVE Instructions: § Duplicate page 2-33 in Air Force Manual 64-5 (15 August 1969).49° 430See Appendix II-C.
A strong, unreasonable fear of a thing or situation.
SIX Instructions: § Reproduce Karen’s completed Sheehan Clinician Rated Anxiety Scale as well as her Marks and Mathews Phobia Scale.43!
The last plate would show Karen's filled-in Sheehan anxiety scale and the Marks–Mathews phobia scale, real psychology questionnaires. Isaac M. Marks was a real British psychiatrist who wrote key books on fear and phobia, such as Living with Fear.
The exhibit points to Appendix II-C for Karen's results.
Date of Birth: July 24¢, Patient ID: 002700 § For interpretation and examples see Isaac M. Marks’ Living with Fear (McGraw-Hill, 1978); Isaac M.