How many raindrops?

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

Okay, I'm barely into it, but already, kinda, like, more than a little kinda, more like lots of lots of kinds of kindas, this is the best thing I have ever read, maybe. I mean possibly better than MZD's two other major prior books. And at least HOL was probably the best book I feel I've ever read before.

But these damn RAINDROP pages... It was something else, reading those last night. Alone, in a quiet and cozily lit room. I spaced out and then in to the text, and even though I know this calligram has been done before MZD did it, this guy did it so effing well that, well, it's the thing. Like all the page numbers too are slanted like little raindrops, and the whole book is called ONE RAINY DAY IN MAY. The only other work of fiction I can think of off the top of my head that used a particular day of broadcast/distribution to actually represent something about the interior of the work, was LOST. And it used a certain day in May (the 23rd, though this was a Sunday; all other episodes that season were aired on Tuesdays, but to invoke the semiotics of the number 23 in the show, this pattern was altered for the series finale) for this purpose. And this book now is to TV shows what HOL was to cinema and ONLY REVOLUTIONS was to music.

Maybe MZD has transcendent powers, or human art is capable in itself of transcendence, but, yeah.

[Linna Heartbooger]

This sounds interesting, but... who's the author? (the mysterious "MZD"?)
A quick amazon search didn't yield up any answers.

HOL is short for another book by him?

[Savor Dam]

MZD is Mark Z. Danielewski. The book title to search for is "One Rainy Day In May" (kinda buried in the original post). HOL is Danielewski's 2000 debut novel, "House of Leaves."

Never read any of these. Just insatiably curious, ADD enough to do internet research rather than work...and well-trained by our Gracious Concierge to share what is learned.

[Linna Heartbooger]

Just insatiably curious, ADD enough to do internet research rather than work...and well-trained by our Gracious Concierge to share what is learned.

Thanks.. yeah, spending time reading stuff on the internet does often seem more appealing than work at times...

[I'm Murrin]

You'll find it more as The Familiar Part 1. It's projected to be a total of 27 volumes - Danielewski's thinking of it as a TV series in novel form.

And yeah, this post really should have been more clear what it was about...

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

My apologies but I am confident that I was fairly drunk when I OP'ed the OP. Also still in a daze from the splendor of the text in question...

[I'm Murrin]

I really want to talk about this book, if only to try and puzzle out what's going on in it. I'm almost finished. There's a lot to it, and because of the 27 volume thing, it doesn't explain a lot in this opening "episode".

Current thoughts:

Spoiler

What's the deal with the " narrative constructs"? Is this meant to suggest that what's happening in the book is just a simulation? Or that there's some kind of outside observers with impossibly accurate modelling of literally everything going on?
There seem to be three distinct NarCons, each with a distinct voice and purpose. The one telling the story, which introduces itself. One that relays facts and translations (providing details on pop culture references, for example). And a third that talks in poetic language. TF-NarCon9 says they can't be aware of each other, but the second reacts to things NC9 says, and all three have a habit of commenting at the same points in the narrative that sometimes seem to be reacting to each other.

What the hell is the Orb, and how does it show them Anwar and Xanther? There seem hints that it's somehow predicting the future.

What's the significance that almost all the main characters are to some degree technologically proficient? Since one thread seems to be computer scientists working on the Orbs (computer precognition?Simulated reality?) on the run from mysterious forces (rogue AI?), is this going to turn into a techno-thriller?

What's the deal with the familiar? How did 9 different people from all over the world hear it, and why is Xanther the only one who could find it? What does this apparently fantastical being have to do with this technology-focused story?

Edit:
I forgot:

What was the significance of the "crackle" effect in the join of every page, and of it sometimes turning pink (the Familiar's colour)?
edit:

Spoiler

The "crackles" also turn blue sometimes when a NarCon is speaking.

What the hell was with the 2-page comic of the guy in Italy, which had nothing to do with the rest of the book?

[I'm Murrin]

I just finished the book! There's one more thing, something pretty big that I'm embarrassed to have missed for so long:

Spoiler

Tian Li, in the Singapore chapters, is an old woman thought of as a witch by her neighbours, who has a mysterious white cat. Jingjing mentions in the first chapter that people don't talk about the cat, and that he sees its shadow moving at night while it is still.

Tian Li has a seizure (Xanther is epileptic) within seconds of Xanther finally getting hold of the kitten. In Jingjing's final chapter, Tian Li's behaviour changes, the cat, apparently, has left for good, and all the windows and doors in her room were open.

On the first night after finding the mysterious tiny white kitten, Xanther wakes up and finds her doors and windows are all open.

The obvious implication is that the cats are somehow the same cat, and whatever power it was that Tian Li had, has passed on to Xanther now.

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

The comic-book section is probably mega-foreshadowing, like the pirate story between chapters in WATCHMEN. I got the impression that the fedora dude was MZD somehow, or represented him, or whatever.

I noticed the pink threads in the binding too, but am at an utter loss to insight as to its meaning. The crackling overall looked like origami folds, to me.

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

Also, is it just a coincidence that cats mysteriously died early in HOL (like first-chapter early)? Or is TF going to end up adding to the HOL mythos too? (If MZD does have a meta-mythos for at least some of his books... That would be one of the coolest literary things in my life...)

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

Well, 4 books into the series now, the 5th on its red-dark (woodland!) way...

My theory is, sort of:

Anwar eventually develops AI that leads, inestimably far into the future, to the discovery of whatever "VEM" really is. The result is the VEM Corporation referenced in House of Leaves. This entity controlled all of existence but split into two factions, and W.H.I.M. is the Familiar who entered into the past, to find Xanther and her family before Anwar could develop the wrong form of AI.

So, maybe like Terminator haha...

EDIT: The Verse seems to be the NarCons' ultimate context. That is, there's the multiverse as we "know" it, and then there's the multiverse of multiverses, which in this event means the multiverse of Stories (S.T.O.R.I.E.S. eventually maybe haha!), of which HOL and Only Revolutions are two examples important enough that Xanther could be spoken of as awakening the blue house in TF2 (IIRC) and then the Orb-rebels could be referred to as "Sam and Hailey."