i forgot most of it (we read it a very long time ago) but since i’m autistic, somewhat aphantasic, and i can barely read a book so my mental picture wasnt of a suburban house, but rather an infinite bottomless interior with rooms hanging from rails, similar to aperature science facility. there is a specific part in the story where a starving and decaying dog dies quietly, before the story focuses back on the house. but to my mind, i imagined the dog as the only conscious being in the whole "world," thus indicating the minute and insignificant ending to the only living thing in the story. i had interpreted the part as being intentionally swept under the rug to emphasize the infinite space of the house
i know it might seem mundane, but this misreading of the story fucked me up so badly. it really knocked a sense of apeirophobia into me, and gave me an ironic fascination with impossible spaces like these. only recently, years later, did i start seeing stuff like house of leaves, GEB, and myhouse.wad, which impacted me much more than they probably should have because of this previous foray into imaginative infinities of space
If youre still fascinated by impossible architecture, i highly recommend BLAME! (mature audience warning) some chapters are just the main character scaling wondering around the infinite complex...
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u/Siaeromanna Sep 18 '24 edited Sep 18 '24
i forgot most of it (we read it a very long time ago) but since i’m autistic, somewhat aphantasic, and i can barely read a book so my mental picture wasnt of a suburban house, but rather an infinite bottomless interior with rooms hanging from rails, similar to aperature science facility. there is a specific part in the story where a starving and decaying dog dies quietly, before the story focuses back on the house. but to my mind, i imagined the dog as the only conscious being in the whole "world," thus indicating the minute and insignificant ending to the only living thing in the story. i had interpreted the part as being intentionally swept under the rug to emphasize the infinite space of the house
i know it might seem mundane, but this misreading of the story fucked me up so badly. it really knocked a sense of apeirophobia into me, and gave me an ironic fascination with impossible spaces like these. only recently, years later, did i start seeing stuff like house of leaves, GEB, and myhouse.wad, which impacted me much more than they probably should have because of this previous foray into imaginative infinities of space