My early life could be aptly described as a series of exoduses—some voluntary, others not. Forfeited couches, hotel beds, the backseat of our family car: all of these I had known at some point in my childhood as “home.” It was not until I was five that the concept of a “house” for me became more than a place where one eats and sleeps, but a space wherein one grows and knows respite. My first room appears as vivid to me as the day I left it. Walls adorned with comic posters and ceiling stickers, floors checkered with scuff marks and soda stains. For seven years, the contours of my selfhood grew within the space of those dimensions. I knew contentment; a kind felt only through the peace that accompanies routine and familiarity.
There was love in that house, right up to the day we left.
The chain link fence at the property’s outset is no simple fence, but an unassailable wall; separating us from everything that is not the world
If I am conjuring these recollections, it is only because the house at the centre of What Remains of Edith Finch and the many stories that course throughout its walls draw their power so readily from the font of memory. Even Edith Finch’s return to the home of her ancestors in rural Washington is framed as a memory, its ludic vignettes and serpentine pathways perhaps no more than a fabrication born out of poetic license and nostalgia. Ah, therein lies the word. In Greek, “The pain that draws one homeward.” Edith’s homecoming is one of catharsis; a drive to reconcile the question of her own past with the onus of peculiar fatalism that has befallen her family since the day they first landed in the Americas.
In his 1958 book The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard posited that the home represents the “first universe” of its inhabitants, the phenomenological template by which all subsequent knowledge and experience of physical spaces is derived. For Bachelard, the house was a tool through which to observe the human soul, a focal point epitomizing the dynamic interplay between an active mind and its surroundings. “Our soul is an abode,” he writes. “And by remembering ‘houses’ and ‘rooms,’ we learn to ‘abide’ within ourselves.”
The Finch home is nestled deep within the northern forestlands of Washington state. We, the player, manifest on the outskirts of the property, spying the house’s spindling structure from afar amid the treetops which dominate the estate. Despite all appearances, we are in fact already well within the folds of the house. Bachelard argued that the human being, when presented with even the slightest insinuation of shelter, will “build ‘walls’ of impalpable shadows, comfort itself with the illusion of protection — or, just the contrary, tremble behind thick walls, mistrust the staunchest ramparts.” In the case of the Finch estate, it is not a conglomerate of shadows, but rather the imperceptible geometry of invented space contriving parameters of plausible obstinance by which to contain the player. The chain link fence at the property’s outset is no simple fence, but an unassailable wall; separating us from everything that is not the world. The house is a simulacrum of the life observed.
A tool through which to observe the human soul, a focal point epitomizing the dynamic interplay between an active mind and its surroundings
Further ahead, the winding ridge trail of patchwork asphalt offers us a vantage from which to compare the distant enormity of the house with the minutiae of its surroundings. There is a fork in the road along the bend. To the left, we descend a steep mossy trail to a sunken marsh replete in tropical ferns, daisy thickets, and bluebells. It’s easy to miss, but this marsh is the game’s true and only tutorial.
Listen; close your eyes and take stock of everything you hear. The arrhythmic croaking of frogs, the rush of an adjourning brook, the bulbous ‘plyop’ of amphibious species treading a shallow surface of water. The chittering of fauna, the rustle of flora, all of these—a confluence of second-hand foley impersonating a soundscape of stunning naturalism. You open your eyes and look up, realizing in that moment that the rhythmic sway of the trees branches and the intermittent fall of leaves is no more than a series of assets acting out some elaborate pantomime of mise en scène, every mote and sunbeam an artifice of invention. Amid this virtuality, the game is inviting us to meander, to dawdle, to wander. It is a challenge to quiet oneself and be present, to bear witness through the fullness of our senses.
The house is inseparable from that of the forest, its towering additions perched precariously atop shoddy work beams, cradled in the embrace of a sturdy redwood. The lawn is an orchestration of overgrowth, weeds and bluebells sprout amid disheveled lawn furniture, windswept missing posters cushioned on lily pads. Nature had no need to reclaim this place, it was hers to begin with. Even in the wake of its owner’s absence, life persists as though nothing has occurred. The house is a hushed casket, interred in a walled garden.
Ah, therein lies the word. In Greek, “The pain that draws one homeward”
The house is a shucked carapace, abandoned in the fit of some unknown trauma. Cracking it open, what do we find? Bachelard would implore us to dispense with mere description, “in order to attain to the primary virtues, those that reveal an attachment that is native in some way to the primary function of inhabiting.” In other words, we must strive to bear witness to that immemorial space where memory and imagination commingle, a domain which speaks to the timeless comfort of shelter’s embrace. Savor the petals, but strike for the root. Through this lens, the house is a palace of the mind and the heart, each corridor and stairwell a portal into a diorama of a life lived.
We are but passengers on Edith’s sojourn; strangers looking out through someone else’s eyes, their thoughts visible to us only as calligraphic stanzas materializing from out of thin air. At one point she asks aloud, “What kind of family finishes building a cemetery before starting the house?” What kind of family arranges the belongings of the deceased in such loving tribute, only to embalm them behind caulked hinges and twice-locked doors? Moreover, who would even think to call such a place a home, this mausoleum of living death? There is unfathomable love in this house, sat beside a pain unspeakable. It is a place we have yet known before, yet unmistakably recognize. “It is our first universe,” says Bachelard. “A real cosmos in every sense of the word.”
If you enjoyed this study please consider supporting the Heterotopias project through purchasing our zine. Issues 001 + 002, featuring almost 200 pages of visual studies and critical essays on games and architecture, are currently available in a discounted launch bundle here.
Thank you for your support!
My early life could be aptly described as a series of exoduses—some voluntary, others not. Forfeited couches, hotel beds, the backseat of our family car: all of these I had known at some point in my childhood as “home.” It was not until I was five that the concept of a “house” for me became more than a place where one eats and sleeps, but a space wherein one grows and knows respite. My first room appears as vivid to me as the day I left it. Walls adorned with comic posters and ceiling stickers, floors checkered with scuff marks and soda stains. For seven years, the contours of my selfhood grew within the space of those dimensions. I knew contentment; a kind felt only through the peace that accompanies routine and familiarity.
There was love in that house, right up to the day we left.
If I am conjuring these recollections, it is only because the house at the centre of What Remains of Edith Finch and the many stories that course throughout its walls draw their power so readily from the font of memory. Even Edith Finch’s return to the home of her ancestors in rural Washington is framed as a memory, its ludic vignettes and serpentine pathways perhaps no more than a fabrication born out of poetic license and nostalgia. Ah, therein lies the word. In Greek, “The pain that draws one homeward.” Edith’s homecoming is one of catharsis; a drive to reconcile the question of her own past with the onus of peculiar fatalism that has befallen her family since the day they first landed in the Americas.
In his 1958 book The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard posited that the home represents the “first universe” of its inhabitants, the phenomenological template by which all subsequent knowledge and experience of physical spaces is derived. For Bachelard, the house was a tool through which to observe the human soul, a focal point epitomizing the dynamic interplay between an active mind and its surroundings. “Our soul is an abode,” he writes. “And by remembering ‘houses’ and ‘rooms,’ we learn to ‘abide’ within ourselves.”
The Finch home is nestled deep within the northern forestlands of Washington state. We, the player, manifest on the outskirts of the property, spying the house’s spindling structure from afar amid the treetops which dominate the estate. Despite all appearances, we are in fact already well within the folds of the house. Bachelard argued that the human being, when presented with even the slightest insinuation of shelter, will “build ‘walls’ of impalpable shadows, comfort itself with the illusion of protection — or, just the contrary, tremble behind thick walls, mistrust the staunchest ramparts.” In the case of the Finch estate, it is not a conglomerate of shadows, but rather the imperceptible geometry of invented space contriving parameters of plausible obstinance by which to contain the player. The chain link fence at the property’s outset is no simple fence, but an unassailable wall; separating us from everything that is not the world. The house is a simulacrum of the life observed.
Further ahead, the winding ridge trail of patchwork asphalt offers us a vantage from which to compare the distant enormity of the house with the minutiae of its surroundings. There is a fork in the road along the bend. To the left, we descend a steep mossy trail to a sunken marsh replete in tropical ferns, daisy thickets, and bluebells. It’s easy to miss, but this marsh is the game’s true and only tutorial.
Listen; close your eyes and take stock of everything you hear. The arrhythmic croaking of frogs, the rush of an adjourning brook, the bulbous ‘plyop’ of amphibious species treading a shallow surface of water. The chittering of fauna, the rustle of flora, all of these—a confluence of second-hand foley impersonating a soundscape of stunning naturalism. You open your eyes and look up, realizing in that moment that the rhythmic sway of the trees branches and the intermittent fall of leaves is no more than a series of assets acting out some elaborate pantomime of mise en scène, every mote and sunbeam an artifice of invention. Amid this virtuality, the game is inviting us to meander, to dawdle, to wander. It is a challenge to quiet oneself and be present, to bear witness through the fullness of our senses.
The house is inseparable from that of the forest, its towering additions perched precariously atop shoddy work beams, cradled in the embrace of a sturdy redwood. The lawn is an orchestration of overgrowth, weeds and bluebells sprout amid disheveled lawn furniture, windswept missing posters cushioned on lily pads. Nature had no need to reclaim this place, it was hers to begin with. Even in the wake of its owner’s absence, life persists as though nothing has occurred. The house is a hushed casket, interred in a walled garden.
The house is a shucked carapace, abandoned in the fit of some unknown trauma. Cracking it open, what do we find? Bachelard would implore us to dispense with mere description, “in order to attain to the primary virtues, those that reveal an attachment that is native in some way to the primary function of inhabiting.” In other words, we must strive to bear witness to that immemorial space where memory and imagination commingle, a domain which speaks to the timeless comfort of shelter’s embrace. Savor the petals, but strike for the root. Through this lens, the house is a palace of the mind and the heart, each corridor and stairwell a portal into a diorama of a life lived.
We are but passengers on Edith’s sojourn; strangers looking out through someone else’s eyes, their thoughts visible to us only as calligraphic stanzas materializing from out of thin air. At one point she asks aloud, “What kind of family finishes building a cemetery before starting the house?” What kind of family arranges the belongings of the deceased in such loving tribute, only to embalm them behind caulked hinges and twice-locked doors? Moreover, who would even think to call such a place a home, this mausoleum of living death? There is unfathomable love in this house, sat beside a pain unspeakable. It is a place we have yet known before, yet unmistakably recognize. “It is our first universe,” says Bachelard. “A real cosmos in every sense of the word.”
If you enjoyed this study please consider supporting the Heterotopias project through purchasing our zine. Issues 001 + 002, featuring almost 200 pages of visual studies and critical essays on games and architecture, are currently available in a discounted launch bundle here.
Thank you for your support!
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