The Navidson Record

**The Navidson Record** is an unfinished book by Zampanò, written over the span of an unknown number of years until his death in January 1997. The manuscript pages were discovered by Johnny Truant and Lude a week later. Much of the text has been destroyed or edited, either intentionally or accidentally, by Zampanò, Truant, and possibly others.

Truant painstakingly assembled and organized the manuscript into a single text known as The Navidson Record and added an Introduction, extensive footnotes, and additional commentary. Unfortunately, Truant's mental health sharply declined over the next few years, so the text remained unpublished until it re-surfaced through the efforts of Mark Z. Danielewski. Numerous editors, not all of them identified, provided additional footnotes, endnotes, exhibits, and attachments. The Navidson Record was published as House of Leaves in 2000.

The Navidson Record can also refer to the collection of home-made videos by the Navidson family in the early 1990s documenting the House.

## History of the Text.

Zampanò worked on The Navidson Record, which he regarded as his masterpiece, for much of his late life. Even the day before his death, the man was busy dictating to volunteers "long discursive passages, amending previously written pages and restructuring an entire chapter."

At the time of its discovery next to the corpse of Zampanò, the pages were found as a disorganized mess at the side of the room where his body lay, as if "shoved" there. A warning note was left with the pages, composed by Zampanò the day before his death.

While most enthusiasts mistakenly believe Johnny Truant to have been the discoverer of The Navidson Record, it was in fact Lude who first spotted the disassembled pages while checking on the deceased author. In fact, even after Lude brought Truant to the apartment a week later, Truant was more interested in four long gouges in the wood floor until Lude convinced him to examine the pages.

By Truant's description of coming across the text, the pages were disorganized to the point of frustration, occasionally leading from writing paper to the backs of napkins, envelopes, and even a postage stamp. (Jumping off Truant's vivid portrait, armchair psychologists often diagnose Zampanò with hypergraphia or even graphomania.) The writing itself was "twisting" in meaning, as many years of editing and re-editing had left the text with myriad marks, marginalia, cross-outs, footnotes, and non sequiturs. Worse, many sections suffered serious physical damage to the pages, sometimes intentionally committed by Zampanò, which altered meanings or eliminated whole passages. At one point, Truant describes "scrap[s]" of paper as "mauled," a description both animal and violent, and reminiscent of the Minotaur.

Many writers and celebrities who have been quoted in The Navidson Record now disavow their statements, frustrating our study of the work. Worse, many of the works cited in the footnotes are notoriously difficult or impossible to locate, having disappeared or having never existed at all.

## History of the Films.

Writers and researchers sometimes refer to the Navidson family's amateur production of short films as Five and a Half Minute Hallway, Exploration #4, and The Navidson Record, not to be confused with Zampanò's written study. The films are notoriously difficult to find. "You can look, I have, but no matter how long you search you will never find The Navidson Record in theaters or video stores," writes editor Johnny Truant.

## The Navidson Record as a problem.

When confronted with the graphic mess of The Navidson Record, Lude and Truant believed it represented a vague, unstated "question." They both recognized its "heaviness," heard its "silence," and "sensed something horrifying in its proportions," but they had two very different interior responses: Lude had no motivation to make sense to the text, but Truant "need[ed]" to find an "answer" to the question.

Further, the men realized a quiet danger lurking in the question. "I know a moment came when I felt certain its resolute blackness was capable of anything," Truant later wrote in his Introduction to The Navidson Record. "Maybe even of slashing out, tearing up the floor, murdering Zampanò, murdering us, maybe even murdering you." (*See also* This is not for you.; You.)

## Chapter details

* Chapter I
* Chapter II
* Chapter III
* Chapter IV
* Chapter V
* Chapter VI
* Chapter VII
* Chapter VIII
* Chapter IX
* Chapter X

## References

1. ↑ Johnny Truant, "Introduction" in House of Leaves xxii (2000).
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Johnny Truant, "Introduction" in House of Leaves xvii (2000).
3. ↑ Johnny Truant, "Introduction" in House of Leaves xix (2000).
4. ↑ *See* Johnny Truant, "Introduction" in House of Leaves xiv-xvii (2000).
5. ↑ *See* Johnny Truant, "Introduction" in House of Leaves xxii (2000). *See also, e.g.*, /u/ColdSnickersBar, comment on Reddit (2020), url at https://www.reddit.com/r/houseofleaves/comments/gx2i95/are\_you\_meant\_to\_understand\_everything\_in\_the\_book/.
6. ↑ Minotaur (Mythical Character)
7. ↑ Johnny Truant, "Introduction" in House of Leaves xviii (2000).
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Johnny Truant, "Introduction" in House of Leaves xix-xx (2000).
9. ↑ Johnny Truant, "Introduction" in House of Leaves xvii (2000).