A Documentary
Sitting at the heart of this strange, creative, one-of-a-kind book is a documentary film titled “The Navidson Record.” That documentary is the subject of academic criticism and reviews of all sorts. It is described in various ways throughout the book, including a very simple simile:
“The Navidson Record looks like a gritty, shoestring documentary.”
A Hoax
Another description of “The Navidson Record” considers it from the perspective of just the opposite of a gritty piece of authenticity:
“Some insist it must be true, others believe it is a trick on par with the Orson Welles radio romp The War of the Worlds.”
Best-Selling Author Stephen King Weighs In
One of the tricky parts of the novel which makes it a strange and unique work of fiction is the incorporation of “quotes” by famous people who weigh in on the various aspects of “The Navidson Record.” Horror novelist Stephen King confronts it from the issue of a quite particular metaphorical perspective:
“Well look at Ahab's whale. Now there's a great symbol. Some say it stands for god, meaning, and purpose. Others say it stands for purposelessness and the void. But what we sometimes forget is that Ahab's whale was also just a whale.”
"More like..."
The author is fond of situating a comparison through simile and then immediately making an edit to the description so that it either becomes clearer or, sometimes, becomes something different. The phrase “more like” is therefore one of the more commonly found two-word combinations in the narrative. Such as in the following example:
“…everything gets substantially darker. Not pitch black mind you. Not even power failure black. More like a cloud passing over the sun. Make that a storm. Though there is no storm. No clouds. It's a bright day and anyway I'm inside.”
