Nian Liu

House of Leaves: Chapters XVII-XX

The story only gets more attention and more interesting from this point. Navidson returns to the house for what people think is because of the past events that has happened in Navidson's life for instance his regret from not being able to save that dying young girl. Deep into his own mental debates and his self pity, Will Navidson reenters house the second time testing his fate once again trying to get "the better picture". What I really enjoyed reading was Navidson's goodbye letter to Karen and how his last words were how he missed Karen and how he loved her and everyone. It really made me see how Navidson had to go back, and it also made me angry at the house. The house literally tore Will and Karen apart from each other, even though all these scholars say that the reason for the endless darkness and the strange appearances maybe started because of the complexity of the human mind, I still think the house is wrong and should be destroyed. Now we read about how Karen starts to show signs of mental unstability as her smiles begin to change from sweet to sour, and even though Navidson's voice was never heard by Reston at the house, Karen often hears Navidson and his reassuring voice that he's still alive. Back to the story, Navidson explores the hallway and finds out even more weird things about the hallway and how its behavior has changed radically.

Questions
1) What did the video tape show!! on page 417? The text just stopped out of nowhere.
2) Does Karen get swallowed up by the darkness also? What happens to her?
3) Is Navidson still alive?
4) By Navidson seeing a light in the end of the chapter, does this mean he's reached an end to the fall?