House of Leaves

[KC]

I'm currently reading Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves and I was wondering if anyone else has read this incredible masterpiece. This has to be - wait, it is - the best book I've ever read. Has anyone else ever read this book, and, if so, what'd you think of it?

[Monty Cantsin]

I’ve got a friend who loves that book, and is spose to be lending it to me soon…so what am I in for? It sounds good from this comment.

[Leo]

What's it about?

[KC]

House of Leaves (2000) is the debut novel by writer Mark Z. Danielewski, published by Pantheon Books (ISBN 0-375-70376-4). The novel quickly became a bestseller following its March 7, 2000 release, although it had already developed a cult following through gradual release over the Internet. It was followed by the companion piece, The Whalestoe Letters (ISBN 0-375-71441-3).

The format and structure of the novel is unconventional, with unusual page layout and style typical of ergodic literature. It contains copious footnotes, which often contain additional footnotes themselves; the direction of the text frequently flows in unusual directions; and some sections of the book have only a few lines of text or just a word or two on each page, arranged in strange ways, often to create (paradoxically) both an agoraphobic and a claustrophobic effect or to otherwise mirror the events in the story. The novel is also distinctive for its multiple narrators, who interact with each other throughout the story in disorienting and elaborate ways.

House of Leaves has been described as a "satire of academic criticism".

...


Danielewski's eccentric and sometimes brilliant debut novel is really two novels, hooked together by the Nabokovian trick of running one narrative in footnotes to the other. One-the horror story-is a tour-de-force. Zampano, a blind Angelino recluse, dies, leaving behind the notes to a manuscript that's an account of a film called The Navidson Report. In the Report, Pulitzer Prize-winning news photographer Will Navidson and his girlfriend move with their two children to a house in an unnamed Virginia town in an attempt to save their relationship. One day, Will discovers that the measurements of the interior of the house are larger than those on the exterior. Not only that, but a strange closet connecting the master bedroom with his children's room appears one day. Eventually he comes to the conclusion that the dimensions inside the house are not only larger, but that they are growing. Finally, a strange doorway appears in the living room leading to a hallway. At first it's just a small hallway leading to nowhere; about 30 feet long. Strangely enough, this hallway should be sticking 30 feet out of the house, and should logically be visible from the outside. However, this isn't the case. The hallway grows, and evolves into a labyrinth.Will contacts a number of people, including explorer Holloway Roberts, who mounts an expedition with his two-man crew. They discover a vast stairway and countless halls. The whole structure occasionally groans, and the space reconfigures, driving Holloway into a murderous frenzy. The story of the house is stitched together from disparate accounts, until the experience becomes somewhat like stumbling into Borges's Library of Babel. This potentially cumbersome device actually enhances the horror of the tale, rather than distracting from it. Less successful, however, is the second story unfolding in footnotes, that of the manuscript's editor, (and the novel's narrator), Johnny Truant. Johnny, who discovered Zampano's body and took his papers, works in a tattoo parlor. He tracks down and beds most of the women who assisted Zampano in preparing his manuscript. But soon Johnny is crippled by panic attacks, bringing him close to psychosis. In the Truant sections, Danielewski attempts an Infinite Jest-like feat of ventriloquism, but where Wallace is a master of voices, Danielewski is not. His strength is parodying a certain academic tone and harnessing that to pop culture tropes. Nevertheless, the novel is a surreal palimpsest of terror and erudition, surely destined for cult status.

That review above I edited to sound more accurate. Also, I completely disagree with the labelling of this novel as "horror" in any way. The whole point of the hallway is that it is what one makes of it, and that it just is. It's a riddle without an answer; it's purposeless; it's pointless. That's the whole point of the hallway and what the reviewer above completely failed to grasp.