Johnny is Zampano?

[enthralled]

Someone earlier mentioned Johhny Truant as meaning johhny come lately, and the whole abcdefghijohnnyz as meaning Johnny Zampano, Could it be that JT is Zampano, and when he revises his work, he adds notes as "Johhny come lately"?

[noevilstar]

Zampano = Mark before his Dad's death and/or the Work mark completed before knowing the more finished story. (He talks in interviews about how years of various work began to come together and live together).
J = Mark after his Dad's death. Hence, non sum qualis eram, sight (but still no sound), how we meet J after Z's 'death'.

abcdefghi Johnny Z. -> Johnny Zampano

and when he revises his work, he adds notes as "Johhny come lately"?

^I like that idea with Johnny come lately. Truant/come lately being his editing moniker. Mark has said that JT is just a courier. Of note is that its not just courier, but courier new, at least on this site that is the font.

Johnny, the new courier - known some call is air am.Perhaps the statement is meta-leveled as the error in Latin suggests he is not who he used to be, and illustrates it through the misuse of a latin phrase as well.

Interestingly, Pelafina probably creates the moniker/psudonym Truant in the same letter she ponts out J's little latin lie

4-12-88 (heartbreak's heart just skipped four beats)

"The papers all say that "JOHNNY IS TRUANT!"
And his mother's repotedly ruined.
He's gone to the wind,
God knows how he's sinned,
'Cause in Latin he's practically fluent."


P.

[LJonesy]

Someone earlier mentioned Johhny Truant as meaning johhny come lately, and the whole abcdefghijohnnyz as meaning Johnny Zampano, Could it be that JT is Zampano, and when he revises his work, he adds notes as "Johhny come lately"?

I've been working over in my mind along the premise that Zampano is Johnny's Father, and that TNR is a recount of their past before Johnny had to be sent away.

As i continue to think about this though, drawing links, drafting long-drawn essays out in my mind, i keep coming back to MZD's life in some different, and odd areas. It's as if i can't complete and post up this theory without intertwining Johnny's own life/personality, TNR and MZD's life/personality.

Considering this thread seemed best to post it in, i dunno, maybe other people, as they read this, can begin to see the links that i have? Takes some decodying, joining this dot to that, but then again to establish any quintessential meaning behind the book, the characters and/or their purpose, you'd have to do some digging and decoding anyway.

I've been away from this place for far, far too long....

[heartbreak]

I've been working over in my mind along the premise that Zampano is Johnny's Father, and that TNR is a recount of their past before Johnny had to be sent away.

As i continue to think about this though, drawing links, drafting long-drawn essays out in my mind, i keep coming back to MZD's life in some different, and odd areas. It's as if i can't complete and post up this theory without intertwining Johnny's own life/personality, TNR and MZD's life/personality.

This is along the same lines I've been thinking as well. I think Johnny, Z and P were a family. That's why they use similar sayings and words. They are already familiar with each other. TNR is Z's metaphor for how their life was, the footnotes Johnny's and the Whalestoe Letters are P's, and all three are an echo of MZD's family life.

Ell, daemon, ShadowGirl and I have been working on organizing the information we have to try and sort out and better view the connections. It was during this process that the fours and the more recent golden ration discoveries came up.

Ell is not completely sold on an overall answer to of Leaves, he thinks it is possible there might be one, but that it is so personal to MZD we will never figure it out. He's more interested in finding the ins and outs of the book and how things work together and what secrets we haven't unlocked. Which is good because he is always coming up with ways to verify findings.

We're usually in the chat room talking about stuff around 6am/9am (depending on where you live in Oz) to about 12pm/3pm your time.

[blueyelie]

This is along the same lines I've been thinking as well. I think Johnny, Z and P were a family. That's why they use similar sayings and words. They are already familiar with each other. TNR is Z's metaphor for how their life was, the footnotes Johnny's and the Whalestoe Letters are P's...

Odd I never really noticed, or took time to notice, but they all do talk similarily. Of course we know, or take to know, that P. is JT's mom, so of course certain saying may rub off on him... but to that idea, how? All he ever got was letters from her, never really heard her speak to him. Unless he just really adapted to the letters. And Z seems to love words and play with them, just like P. I wonder if there is a certain set of words, or word, they all use a lot?

Now I don't know if these is brought up elsewhere, but I just realized something. Now many people who think that Z is JT's dad, that when JT finds the trunk he should have known it was his dad. Well, JT leaves his family in general right? His mom gets taking to the Whale, and he is then in adoption homes from there on out. So technically he never really "knew" his dad.

It was during this process that the fours...

Just an idea to the 4; we always are linking JT, Z, and P. Who would be the 4th? Thumper, Lude, Gdnask Man? I would assume Thumper, Z and P in love together, and JT seems pretty wrapped up in Thumper. Just wondering your view on the 4th.

We're usually in the chat room talking about stuff around 6am/9am (depending on where you live in Oz) to about 12pm/3pm your time.

Man 6 AM!?!?! That way to early to analyze HoL!

[Short_Fuse]

This might be out of the nowhere, but I think I might have a good idea.
I think once P was institutionalized, she started writing HoL. The Director (Original one, not the new one) was Z. He got the story and started writing some of it down and wrote some of it himself. Then P dies, Z continues the story and the he dies and Johnny gets the story. This would explain how P says she want Z, and how Johnny is so close to the book considering his own mother wrote it.

Just a thought ^_^

[Ellimist]

Evidence would help, but I think asking for such a thing is futile in this thread...

[Short_Fuse]

P is always making references to Johnny, "Zampano how I miss you" is mentioned in code in one of her letters (don't remember which one) when i found that, First thing that went through my mind was that Zampano was the old director, and she misses him because the new director is almost out to get her.
Again, this is just a therory, and the book can be interpritid differently by every single person that reads it.

[heartbreak]

I remember a "My dearest Zampano, who did you lose?" but don't recall a "Zampano how I miss you" being posted. It would be great if you could remember what letter it is from.

As to the director bit. I think they are both Zampano, that the old and new director bit is possibly a representation of change in how P viewed him. This goes along with how both letters are in TNR as I've mentioned before.

[Short_Fuse]

Thats the quote, thanks Hb, never that great in remembering everything in such large book.
To the New Director, I could back that up with the blue X over new in the letter she writers, that makes scene to me like its saying, not the new director, but now different, like Zampano changes.

[blueyelie]

Random: Also the blue X could be where Navidson changes as well...???

[Short_Fuse]

Random: Also the blue X could be where Navidson changes as well...???

Cans someone check the dates on this, left my book at my bro's.

This could be a connection there. Zampano, P, and Navidson all changing at this time, and so is Johnny for that matter, P is getting crazier, Johnny starts getting obsessed with the book. Zampano's writing is getting stranger, the typography, and Navidson gets obsessed with the hallway.

[AdrianBunn]

Hey. Newbie here. Just finished the book (though I've wanted to read it for quite a while).

When I finished the book I was struck by how Johnny's mother's letters - their style, vocabulary, format, phrases, etc - were quite obviously echoed in how the Navidson Record was written and formatted (or at least how Johnny supposedly composed/compiled Zampano's voluminous notes). I mean, after all, those amazing letters from his mother were essentially like Johnny's education in his most formative years, and it also figures that a similar mental illness that plagued her in later life would perhaps also plague Johnny as well. As well as some little clues along the way (the main one being the coded message in one of his mothers' letter addressing "Zampano"), I think it makes (perfect) sense that Johnny is actually Zampano. I mean, there was probably an old guy who died in Lude's apartment building, but that is perhaps the end of any connection there. I think Johnny was always sort of mentally ill, like his mother. both of them had great imaginations and both also had quite substantial literary gifts.

[heartbreak]

Welcome to the site Adrian.

The only problem I see with the Johnny is Zampano theory is that MZD has said in interviews that he sees of Leaves as a three character play. If Johnny is Zampano, who would the third character be in the play with him and Pelafina?

[Short_Fuse]

The problem with Zampano being Johnny (just in my mind) is that his description of Z after he died is so strongly told, and with out Z the story would not have started. If Zampano did not in fact exist tho, this would support JT have multiple personalities. At the same time, if you look at it, the entire book is through the eyes of Johnny, and so if he didn't put the book online, who did?

Just a few thoughts

[AdrianBunn]

Welcome to the site Adrian.

The only problem I see with the Johnny is Zampano theory is that MZD has said in interviews that he sees of Leaves as a three character play. If Johnny is Zampano, who would the third character be in the play with him and Pelafina?

Thanks, Heartbreak.

I must try and find some of the interviews, etc with MZD, where he talks more about HOL. But for my part at least, when I finished the book, I thought it was essentially a 'two person play', just Johnny and Pelafina, throughout the novel. I felt that subtext of those two characters throughout the whole book for some reason. And Johnny's final story, the one about the mother and her newborn (which for me was the real end of the novel, not the following two short chapters from TNR), where he says he has nothing left "except this story", which I took to be a story about his own painful/unorthodox/beautiful relationship with his mother and how she was always there, whispering to him, guiding him throughout his life, and perhaps how Johnny had wished he had rather died at birth, "You can go now". I mean, what other mother would whisper Latin to her newborn son: "behold the child".

But long explanation short, I just found echoes of that two person relationship throughout the book, that unorthodox mother/son relationship. That's why I think the book is more like a 'two person play' (not to go against the MZD or anything!).

P.S. The book could be read as a 'three person play', the three speakers are Zampano, Johnny, & Pelafina, but only two people actually exist.

Cheers

[AdrianBunn]

At the same time, if you look at it, the entire book is through the eyes of Johnny, and so if he didn't put the book online, who did?

Just a few thoughts

I think Johnny did put the book online, he just forgot that he did. (518): "The book is burning. At last. A strange light scans each page, memorising all of it even as each character twists into ash...Had I meant to say memorializing?"

I think that Johnny actually did 'scan' the entire book first for purposes of electronic distribution before he burnt the original copy and all the notes, etc.

Reading too much into the text?..probably

[heartbreak]

P.S. The book could be read as a 'three person play', the three speakers are Zampano, Johnny, & Pelafina, but only two people actually exist.

Maybe the message to Zampano was exactly that, a message to Zampano. Parents often use their children as couriers between them.

[AdrianBunn]

Maybe the message to Zampano was exactly that, a message to Zampano. Parents often use their children as couriers between them.

I haven't looked into all the relationships in the book all that much yet, but, how does Pelafina know Zampano, if he is indeed a person discrete from Johnny?, and know him way back in the 80's? and why would she be addressing to him a secret letter through her letters to Johnny as a kid?

...this is what you were suggesting I take it?

[Short_Fuse]

Reading too much into the text?..probably

Isn't that what these forums are about?

No i don't think that johnny forgot it unless it was one of his multi personalities maybe, but some of the coding that the kids found he didn't notice, and they had all 736 pages of the book, but johnny hadn't even finished his part of the story yet? sounds like someone knew what johnny was already gonna write...

[sutrix]

I haven't looked into all the relationships in the book all that much yet, but, how does Pelafina know Zampano, if he is indeed a person discrete from Johnny?, and know him way back in the 80's? and why would she be addressing to him a secret letter through her letters to Johnny as a kid?

Father, mother, son. But that's just a way of looking at it.

[AdrianBunn]

The problem with Zampano being Johnny (just in my mind) is that his description of Z after he died is so strongly told, and with out Z the story would not have started.

See: Johnny Oct 31 1998 entry cont… (p515): "No idea what to make of those last few entries either [he’s talking here about the introduction describing old man Zampano, his room in Lude’s building, how he found the book, etc]...What's the difference...What's invented what's remembered what's forgotten". Johnny goes on to say "I just completed the intro when I heard them coming for me" - like the intro was just some after thought tacked to the front of what is essentially his book. Remember, Johnny also convinced us the episode between Sept 2 through Sept 28 with his two Doc friends was true too. Johnny is prone to confabulation. Not to mention there being no record of Navidson, Karen, their family, or the Navidson Record film, or the home on Ash Tree Lane, or Ash Tree Lane for that matter (p499).

So the idea is that there never was an old man Zampano, and Johnny is the sole author of all the contents of HOL, and 'Zampano' is a name that probably comes from Johnny's mother, like she used to call him Zampano, like her secret name for him for something (the meaning of the name Zampano has probably already been looked into on the forum). All in all, as far as I can see, Zampano and his work (i.e. TNR) seem to have existence only through Johnny.

[heartbreak]

If Johnny is actually creating Zampano and writing all his parts, why would he write about creating a son in the margins? Or why would he reference himself to Dien Bien Phu if he is actually Zampano?

[Short_Fuse]

If Johnny is actually creating Zampano and writing all his parts, why would he write about creating a son in the margins? Or why would he reference himself to Dien Bien Phu if he is actually Zampano?

To make you think Zampano exists, otherwise, you would know Johnny wrote the whole thing straight out of his head, and thats not the way its suppose to be, he is suppose to be editing it, not writing it himself.

[heartbreak]

You could argue the same way for Zampano as well. That he created Johnny in the footnotes. A son in the margin. Or that Pelafina created the only thing while she was whacked out in the insane asylum. All these arguments can use the exact same evidence to argue for one character or another. With no greater claims for one theory over the other, they all become void and we must think of something else to explain why they use similar phrases and reference each other.

I think the strongest candidate for that is simply they all exist and they all know each other.

[fearful_syzygy]

What evidence is there that they know each other?

[Short_Fuse]

What evidence is there that they know each other?

Hidden messages aren't random.

[heartbreak]

...they use similar phrases and reference each other.

The very same evidence that people use to claim that one created another. The idea that they know each other is a much simpler solution and jives with what MZD has said about the book being a three character play.

[fearful_syzygy]

No no, I mean, clearly P, Z, and J are three separate entities, but I don't think there's anything to suggest that Pelafina knew Zampanò. It makes much more sense for Johnny to have altered the text to make it look as though she did.

[heartbreak]

No no, I mean, clearly P, Z, and J are three separate entities, but I don't think there's anything to suggest that Pelafina knew Zampanò. It makes much more sense for Johnny to have altered the text to make it look as though she did.

Why would he do that?