I do believe that House
of Danger should be included on the book list for this class in the
future. Here's why:
For the majority of the books that we have read already, I felt a
constant desire to find the "truth" and discover what was
"real." For instance, in The
Things They Carried, though I realize the truth of O'Brien's stories didn't
truly matter, I still felt a little concern that everything was a lie, and I
yearned to discover “happening truth” in any of his stories. Similarly with Man in the High Castle, I was engrossed in trying to figure out
which world was reality: the one where Japan/Germany lost the war or the one in
which they won. But House of Danger provides a new level of understanding truth and
reality, because there is not one true ending.
Every storyline takes you somewhere completely and utterly different,
and as much as I searched for the one round, perfect ending, I never could find
one that I was satisfied. Some were
optimistic, some were depressing, some came far too abruptly, but you never
could say that one was more “true” than another, especially with such silly,
unrealistic storylines. This forced me
to think about the value I place on truth as well as reflect on the fact that
there may not always be a clear truth, nor a perfect ending to any choice we
make. House of Danger challenged us to take something as seemingly simple
as a children’s book and find deeper layers of meaning in it. Though analyzing like this can sometimes be
annoying, it is a very valuable lesson to learn, so I believe that House of Danger deserves to remain on
the syllabus. Plus, it is always a great
break from studying chemistry to read about killer monkeys and alien invasions.
I also found the "truth" in House of Danger very interesting. For some reason, after I read my first ending, I subconsciously accepted it as the truth. As I went back to read the various other results, I never seemed to accept them quite as fully as the very first one. I found myself comparing every storyline to the first, never content in the idea of multiple truths. Looking back, it was absolutely absurd that I was trying to find the truth in a book that blatantly lacks one single truth. Although the reader often searches for these "truths" to cling to, this book, like most of the others we have read this semester, lacks such a singular truth. I agree that this idea fits nicely into our class.
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