Agreed. Really, much of the philosophy of language has to do with how symbols and objects aren't really the same thing. The word "cat", for example, is arbitrary. It doesn't reflect the object it names in any meaningful way. Danielewski is well aware of this, and plays with it in a meaningful way. House of Leaves…

Danielewski is obviously a fan of Derrida. He worked on the film "Derrida" and has mentioned him in interviews before. Much of this thought on the distance between language and thought is really Derrida's.