And I Thought It Was Just a Whale

At some point, I lost my ability to think about entertainment in terms of symbolism unless directed to do so. This is interesting to me, as I used to be into that stuff pretty heavily in high school, and actually got the point where I often felt that symbolism that others described as subtle seemed heavy handed to me. Nowadays, I only think about things I watch, read, or play in terms of surface elements.

This came up for me while reading what struck me as a brilliant deconstruction of a video game, Silent Hill 2. I haven't played the game myself, and there were spoilers aplenty, but what really got to me was that if I had played the game before reading this, I would have totally missed all of it. Now not only do I want to play the game, I want to do so from a point of view that's being lost to me.

I think what's bothering me is that frequently, the best stories use symbolism to tell the reader a lot more about the characters that they are going to get fom the story. The game discussed in the article above could be played as nothing more than another game, full of monsters and characters that drive a basic survival horror story. Having read the author's ideas, however, it seems that the creators of the game had a bit more in mind than that, and I would have missed out on that.

Another example is the book I'm reading, The Thornbirds. At one point Management asked me about some symbolism in it, and I had once again totally missed it. It was a mjor part of the book, repeatedly coming up, and yet I missed it. Bothersome.

All I can think to do is seek out entertainment that defies the ability to ingest the meaning at a surface level. The best example of this I can think of is a book called House of Leaves. On it's surface, it's a variety of haunted house story, but to say that barely skims the surface. I read this book three times before I really figured out what it was about, and even then I had to use the online message boards that are dedicated to nothing but conversations on this book. I imagine that I could read it again and come away with more, a lot more, but the fact is that the book has a density and complexity that requires a break between readings. It's the only book I can think of that I wish people I knew would read just so they could help me figure out the parts that I'm missing. Seriously, look it up.

In that vein, I look to you, dear readers, to put forth movies, games and books that defy a simple view-it-and-forget-it experience. I need content that I will think about for days, trying to piece together what happened there, not because it's poorly put together (I'm still trying to figure out what the &$%# Romy and Michele's High School Reunion was - I couldn't make it past an hour but it gets a 72% at Rotten Tomatoes? WTF?), but because it's dense and complex. Any ideas, either posted in comments or submitted directly will be most appreciated.

And again, please one of you read House of Leaves. I'll buy it and lend it to you if I have to.