From the beginning of House of Leaves, Johnny Truant displays problems with intimacy. This problem is shown through the opposition of his myriad of sexual relationships to his lack of meaningful and loving relationships with women, even when women seem to be interested in him. Though this lack of meaningful relationships could be Johnny’s choice, it is clear that he wants something more when he expresses his desire to have a family and a lifelong love with Ashley and in his love letter to Thumper. This lewd behavior could also be attributed to Johnny’s close friendship with Lude, whose sexual conquests are detailed by Johnny at may points throughout the novel, but Johnny’s experiences with Zampanò’s notes for House of Leaves have a more prominent effect on Johnny’s love life. These notes deteriorate Johnny psychologically, make him extremely paranoid, and lead to the destruction of his closest relationships.  This effect seems to be limited to Johnny in terms of the people who have interacted with the house since in the end, the house leads Karen Green and Navidson to resolve the problems in their relationship and become closer than ever. Since the house is said to reflect the psyche of anyone who enters it, it effects Johnny differently than it effects Karen and Navidson. Just as the house forces Karen and Navidson to confront the problems  within themselves to repair their relationship, Johnny  must confront his inner demons. In their interactions with the house, Karen and Navidson view the house as the monster because it is what seems to be keeping them apart, but for Johnny the monster is himself. Johnny’s reading of Zampanò’s House of Leaves leads him to viewing himself as a monster, and by extension make him incapable of love through his isolation from the rest of the world, much like the minotaur.

The act of reading Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves requires the reader to abandon any certainty in the idea of certainty. The degrees of separation between the house found in the Navidson Record and the reader creates a sense of skepticism in the ability to effectively communicate anything meaningful about the house. From the very beginning we understand the impossibility of reaching an absolute truth, as the entire novel is centered on a film adaptation of a fictional movie dictated by a blind man. Yet even when one accepts these certain impossibilities, our understanding of the House of Leaves isn’t truly our own, as it is inextricably bounded to the other voices in the Navidson Record, be it Zampano, Johnny, or the score of footnoted authors. In this way the reader is asked to make sense of a giant game of telephone, or more accurately a conference call, but the source itself (the house) may not even be something that can be coherently defined or understood.

Even in this mess of impossibility and ambiguity, the reader continues in his attempt to understand. The act of reading implies an intention to seek order, or at least a sense of closure. And so the various interpretations of the voices presented to us in the Navidson Record begin to take on a new meaning, as each can be seen as an individual’s attempt to define the emptiness of the house. As the house stubbornly refuses to offer up anything concrete, each interpretation of that darkness can be seen as a manifestation of the interpreter. In this way the interpretations are more revealing of the interpreter than the object being interpreted. As Zampano himself says, the house acts as a sort of Rorschach test, with each voice filling that empty space with their unique context.

In House of Leaves, the characters of Tom, Daisy, and Johnny can be connected through their childhood innocence. Poe’s album Haunted directly helps us find a link with the characters with her songs Dear Johnny, Lemon Meringue, and Spanish Doll. Each song helps us understand each character better than how they are just represented in the book. For example, Dear Johnny is a short song with only the lyrics “Johnny dear don’t be afraid. I will keep your secret safe. Bring me to the blind man who, lost you in his house of blue”. The lyrics have a motherly tone to them, with the use of Johnny instead of John and with the reassurance that there is no need to be afraid. It also makes a direct reference to Zampano with the blind man lyric. Tom’s mention of lemon meringue in House of Leaves is mirrored in the song Lemon Meringue by Poe, which talks about life as being bitter and how there must be a way to make is sweeter. Tom gets along especially well with Daisy and Chad in House of Leaves and always is at odds with his brother. Tom talks about how he would love some lemon meringue and he also performs shadow puppets with his hands on the walls for the children. Daisy, in House of Leaves, is not afraid of the house. Her and Chad run through it and play hide and seek, but she does have a Spanish doll which helps her feel safe. Beginning with the first line of Poe’s song Spanish Doll, she sings of Daisy from her perspective. The line is “this place feels so unfamiliar, and yet I know it well”. This is about the house and ever since the phenomena of the closet and hallway, the house is beginning to change into something Daisy considers foreign to her understanding. Although Johnny, Tom, and Daisy all exist in either a different time or are of a different age, they are all connected through the house and their childlike innocence.