You

**You** are the intended adressee(s) of Johnny Truant's annotated copy of The Navidson Record by Zampanò. Grammatically, you functions as the singular and plural second-person pronoun in the Modern English language. Whom Truant addresses in his writings is the subject of fierce debate among researchers. The prevailing interpretation is that Truant uses *you* for two different persons: the first would be an unidentified person near to Truant, possibly his mother or someone else, and the second would be all other persons who might stumble upon this work.

## Instances of You.

* "This is not for you." - A message preceding Truant's Introduction. It resembles an "anti-dedication," where an author announces for whom the book is *not* dedicated.

### Warning You.

Two passages in Truant's Introduction pose Zampanò writings as a foreboding work of possibility and harm. (*See also* The Navidson Record as a problem. )

1. "I know a moment came when I felt certain its resolute blackness was capable of anything. Maybe even of slashing out, tearing up the floor, murdering Zampanò, murdering us, maybe even murdering you." -
2. "With a little luck, you'll dismiss this labor, react as Zampanò had hoped, call it needlessly complicated, pointlessly obtuse, prolix---your word---ridiculously conceived, and you'll believe all you've said, and then you'll put it aside---though even here, just that one word, 'aside', makes me shudder, for what is ever really just put aside?---and you'll carry on, eat, drink, be merry and most of all you'll sleep well. Then again there's a good chance you won't."

The second passage flags the Truant's *you* as someone close to him, someone he knows. When Truant writes that the word 'prolix' is *you's* word, he indicates they are both familiar and erudite; the shape and tone of Introduction immediately shifts from an impersonal preamble addressed to a generalized readership (*i.e.*, the public at large) to that of a letter addressed to an individual close to Truant.

## Interpretation.

### Single Person Theory

Adherents of Single Person Theory (SPT) view a single person as the object of Truant's *you*. Under SPT, all instances of *you* refer to a one individual. SPT takes Truant at his word, there is a *you* - the collective readership of Truant's work - and he did not write it for *you*. Under SPT, Truant acknowledges that the reader may continue to devour his book anyway and if the reader chooses to ignore his warnings and protestations, there is nothing more he can do to prevent it.

### Distinct Persons Theory

Proponents of Distinct Persons Theory (DPT) argue that Truant refers to no fewer than two different entities or persons in House of Leaves. Following Malcom Gladwell's informal meta-study of DPT research, most DPT analyses agree that the instance of *you* found in the anti-dedication is generally rationalized as being a different person than the *you*'s in the rest of the book. The anti-dedication warns the common reader not to read the book because the book was never written for them. On the other hand, the Introduction warns a singular person, perhaps someone near to Truant's heart, that the book may consume and destroy them. For them, their fate was already sealed, and Truant makes no effort to dissuade them from pressing on; that person is *fated* to attempt to unravel the labyrinthine mysteries, and Truant merely tells them what is in store.

## References

1. ↑ Johnny Truant, "Introduction" in House of Leaves xvii (2000).
2. ↑ Johnny Truant, "Introduction" in House of Leaves xxii (2000).
3. ↑ Jonah Bookman and Edgar Rodriguez, "Single Person Theory", 17 *Am. J. Postmodern Lit. & Crit.* 88 (2008).
4. ↑ *The Reader Who Wasn't*, Revisionist History Podcast (July 17, 2018). Gladwell mentions that he does not subscribe to DPT on (of all things) an episode of *Hot Ones!*. "Malcom Gladwell Hits the Tipping Point While Eating Spicy Wings", First We Feast (July 1, 2021), url at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAG\_WxMm\_8E.