Raju welcomed the intrusion—something to relieve the loneliness of the place.

— R. K. Narayan

It is impossible to appreciate the importance of space in The Navidson Record without first taking into account the significance of echoes. However, before even beginning a cursory examination of their literal and thematic presence in the film, echoes reverberating within the word itself need to be distinguished.

Generally speaking, echo has two coextensive histories: the mythological one and the scientific one. [28] Each provides a slightly different perspective on the inherent meaning of recurrence, especially when that repetition is imperfect.

To illustrate the multiple resonances found in an echo, the Greeks conjured up the story of a beautiful mountain nymph. Her name was Echo and she made the mistake of helping Zeus succeed in one of his sexual conquests. Hera found out and punished Echo, making it impossible for her to say anything except the last words spoken to her. Soon after, Echo fell in love with Narcissus whose obsession with himself caused her to pine away until only her voice remained. Another lesser known version of this myth has Pan falling in love with Echo. Echo, however, rejects his amorous offers and Pan, being the god of civility and restraint, tears her to pisces, burying all of her except her voice. Adonta ta mele.® In both cases, unfulfilled love results in the total negation of Echo's body and the near negation of her voice. [29]

But Echo is an insurgent. Despite the divine constraints imposed upon her, she still manages to subvert the gods' ruling. After all, her repetitions are far from digital, much closer to analog. Echo colours the words with faint traces of sorrow (The Narcissus myth) or accusation (The Pan myth) never present in the original. As Ovid recognized in his Metamorphoses:

^Eloquently translated by Horace Gregory as: "So she was turned away/ To hide her face, her lips, her guilt among the trees,/ Even their leaves, to haunt caves of the forest/ To feed her love on melancholy sorrow/ Which, sleepless, turned her body to a shade/ First pale and wrinkled, then a sheet of air/ Then bones, which some say turned to thin-worn rocks; / And last her voice remained. Vanished in forest/ Far from her usual walks on hills and valleys,/ She's heard by all who call; her voice has life." The Metamorphoses by Ovid. (New York: A Mentor Book, 1958), p. 97.

^[1] Literary marvel Miguel de Cervantes set down this compelling passage in his Don Quixote (Part One, Chapter Nine):

. . . ia verdad, cuya madre es la historia, emula del tiempo, dep6sito de las acciones, testigo de lo pasado, ejemplo y aviso de lo presente, advertencia de lo por venir. ⁵¹

Much later, a yet untried disciple of arms had the rare pleasure of meeting the extraordinary Pierre Menard in a Paris cafe following the second world war. Reportedly Menard expounded on his distinct distaste for Madelines but never mentioned the passage (and echo of Don Quixote ) he had penned before the war which had subsequently earned him a fair amount of literary fame:

... la verdad, cuya madre es la historia, emula del tiempo, deposito de las acciones, testigo de lo pasado, ejemplo y aviso de lo presente, advertencia de lo por venir.

This exquisite variation on the passage by the "ingenious layman" is far too dense to unpack here. Suffice it to say Menard's nuances are so fine they are nearly undetectable, though talk with the Framer and you will immediately see how haunted they are by sorrow, accusation, and sarcasm. ⁵⁰

^[1] Exactly! How the fuck do you write about "exquisite variation" when both passages are exactly the same?

I'm sure the late hour has helped, add to that the dim light in my room, or how poorly I've been sleeping, going to sleep but not really resting, if that's possible, though let me tell you, sitting alone, awake to nothing else but this odd murmuring, like listening to the penitent pray—you know it' s a prayer but you miss the words—or better yet listening to a bitter curse, realizing a whole lot wrong's being ushered into the world but still missing the words, me like that, listening in my way by comparing in his way both Spanish fragments, both written out on brown leaves of paper, or no, that's not right, not brown, more like, oh I don't know, yes brown but in the failing light appearing almost colored or the memory of a color, somehow violent, or close to that, or not at all, as I just kept reading both pieces over and over again, trying to detect at least one differing accent or