House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
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Book Reviews of House of Leaves
Book Review: Lost, and these shadows keep on changing...
Summary: 5 Stars
How does one describe a book like this?
Start here: "House of Leaves" is a book that's bigger on the inside than it is outside. It isn't a book to be read from the first page to the last -- It's more a story to be explored, and it's a story about exploration. In nearly every aspect, how you read the book is a direct reflection of what's going on in the story at that point.
The story itself is complex. It's written on one level like an academic text, distant and carefully-worded, but on another level like a person's diary, full of intimate details and rambling passages. The academic portion is by an author we know only as Zampano, and it's an analysis of a film, "The Navidson Record," about a family who moves into a new house, and the house begins to change around them. First it changes in subtle ways, adding a quarter-inch to the interior dimensions without adding anything to the outside dimension. Like the book itself, the house is larger inside than out...MUCH larger, as the family discovers when new hallways are discovered where none should be, and a door appears in the living room which leads to untold depths. The house seems to be unsteady, changing itself from moment to moment, and it begins to consume the lives of the people living in it.
As if that's not enough, there's the additional layer of story of the young man who finds the fragments of Zampano's book after Zampano has died, and assembles it, making additional notes on sections, many of which branch into detailed descriptions of his own life and problems. This young man, Johnny Truant, becomes every bit as important to the story as the Navidsons and the house they live in, as elements of that story tie back into his story.
And then there's how the story is told, which in this case is every bit as important as the story itself. You'll start the book at the first page and everything looks normal enough. Perhaps you'll notice a few oddities in the early chapters, but for the most part you're still comfortable. Then it starts doing unexpected things. Footnotes refer to additional footnotes which refer to previous footnotes. You may find yourself following one note through several pages, only to find another note leading you back to where you started, moving backward and forward through the book to follow the trail. Then the text itself starts shifting around, pages printed upside-down or sideways or diagonally or backwards... sometimes several of these combined onto a single page. You'll have to physically turn the book this way and that to be able to read everything. Pacing changes with the story as well. Sometimes things are happening fast, and you'll read at a breakneck pace, 50 pages in 10 minutes or less. At other times, you're forced to linger over the same three or four pages for half an hour to catch the nuances of meaning contained there. And all of it, every bit, is tailored to reflect what's going on in the story in how you're reading it.
Put simply, this is a book that's not just written, it's designed. And it's a masterpiece.
The book I'm most closely reminded of, in terms of the story of the house on Ash Tree Lane, is Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House." The concept of a house which is not haunted by ghosts, but which is itself alive and possibly malevolent, is shared in many ways by both books. "House of Leaves" a haunted house story in which the monster (if there is one at all) never makes a real appearance, but its presence is always felt. From this perspective alone, this is one of the most effectively unsettling books I've ever read.
The way the story is told only adds to the effect, by turns surprising, delightful, and scary in the way it makes you read. It's a book to be read actively, aware and awake...to be explored with eyes wide open. It's exhausting. It's exhilirating.
Adding a further layer to the book is a CD that goes hand in hand with the book: "Haunted" by Poe. Written and performed mainly by the sister of Mark Danielewski, the author of "House of Leaves," the music adds to the experience of the story. Tracks like "5 & 1/2 Minute Hallway" and "Amazed" have clear and obvious parallels to the book, but other songs like "Haunted" and "If You Were Here" have even more powerful thematic links to it. Listening to the music on "Haunted" can lead to deeper understanding of the story in "House of Leaves," even as it adds further mystery. The music provides even more avenues for exploration.
When I finished "House of Leaves" (meaning I have read all the pages), I was left feeling drained. I've rarely been as satisfied or challenged by a book as I have by this one, and at the same time part of me wants to go back in and explore it all over again to find the passages of meaning I had missed the first time through, and perhaps the hidden things that I never would have seen otherwise. I can understand the obsession, the need to explore that house that keeps changing, because the book is very much like that. I can't claim to understand it all yet, but it's only my first time through it. I'm sure I'll be back to explore and lose myself in its pages again, someday.
Book Review: "It's po-mo...postmodern...weird for the sake o' being' weird"
Summary: 5 Stars
...or maybe it isn't. The term "cult classic" gets thrown around a lot, but Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves is one book that has definitely earned the title. This is the kind of work that inspires the admiration of many and the fierce devotion of a select few. The book itself defies easy description, but I'll give it a shot anyway. I've got time, even if I may not quite have the words. Anyway, House of Leaves, much like some other notorious brain-teasers (think Gravity's Rainbow and Infinite Jest) presents the reader with a multi-levelled narrative with more twists and turns than the dwelling that gives the book its title. It's superficially the story of an aimless tattoo-shop apprentice, Johhny Truant, who discovers disorganized writings scattered about the apartment of a dead blind octagenarian known only as Zampano, and finds himself irresistibly drawn to the herculean task of organizing everything into a coherent form. Zampano's writing itself, for its part, is the tale of a fictional documentary film called the Navidson Record, recorded with some help by a Pulitzer-winning photographer named Will Navidson. And the documentary (the description of which makes up the bulk of the book) tells the story of Navidson's and his family's move into a house in Virginia with some, er supernatural qualities. Not to mention, Truant regularly interrupts his transcription to inject some personal notes regarding his own experiences and thoughts while telling Zampano's story, which turn out to be rather extensive. Confused yet?
Well, it's not supposed to be light reading, but House of Leaves provides plenty of payoff for the dedicated.
Essentially, this book obliterates the traditional barriers of the novelistic form, presenting the reader with an unconventional, semi-linear narrative that's vast in scope and exacting in detail. In the end, though, the novel's literary experimentation, while interesting and distinctive, isn't the reason to read it, or at least not the best one. Rather, you should read this book because beneath all the bold innovations and encyclopedic knowledge of its author there's a real heart that elevates it above the merely pretentious. The obvious comparisons to David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest have already been made (in fact, I think I just made one), but there's an important difference to be noted as well. Where Infinite Jest generally sees Wallace holding himself at a distance from his subjects, observing them with the sort of clinical detachment characteristic of a lab experiment, Danielewski's novel boasts a striking level of emotional depth, giving a dramatic weight to its supernatural story.
While it really is a huge task to try to take it all on in a mere internet review, suffice to say that the totality of House of Leaves turns out to be nothing less that a fully realized epic that can engage your brain, pull at your heartstrings, and crush your soul at the same time. Danielewski clearly knows how to write a good scary story, but even more importantly, he manages to get you invested in his characters and *their* stories. Writing through Zampano writing through Johnny Truant, Danielewski turns the tale of Will Navidson, his family, and a house that's bigger on the inside than the outside into a catologue of love, loss, regret, and fear. The interpersonal dynamics that unfold end up becoming just as interesting as the descriptions of the vast interior of a house that seems to change shape as soon as anyone starts to figure it out. Danielewski's writing manages the difficult task of achieving its own sort of poignancy without seeming to try for it, often in strange places--just check out the descriptions of the picture that got Navidson the Pulitzer.
Then there's the parellel narration by Johnny Truant, mostly incorporated through footnootes, that's probably more frightening than anything in the main narrative of the novel. Befitting the subject matter of the novel, Truant is a lost soul living around the fringes of society when he discovers Zampano's body and the work he never finished, but there's nothing to prepare him or the reader for the insanity that quickly starts to set in. Truant's writing paints a picture of mounting dread and disorientation as his task of transcribing Zampano's writing becomes more and more of an obsession, with his writing becoming increasingly claustrophobic as his world begins caving in around him. Even his usual forms of self-medication-booze, drugs, sex-cease to give him comfort against the overwhelming weight that his task comes to assume. The despair captured in his words isn't always fun to read, but it had me glued to the page just the same.
I could probably write about fifteen more paragraphs on this book if I were so inclined, but it would still be difficult for my mediocre ramblings to do it justice. Cliched thought it may sound, House of Leaves really is one book that must be read to be believed. The novel has been around a long time now, but I know of few that achieve the combination of originality, depth, and intelligence that Danielewski pulls off here. You can stick this one on the short list of postmodern classics.
Book Review: Fun and disturbing ride through several psyches
Summary: 5 Stars
Mark Danielewski is either a genius or a certifiable maniac. I've never experienced a book anything like House of Leaves. It is certainly the most interactive experience I've ever had reading a book. For the uninitiated, House of Leaves is a multi-layered book with a history. Passed around the internet (according to the notes), it gained a cult following among the misfits who most identified with the struggles of Johnny Truant, tattoo artist and general layabout. I'll describe the book's contents as basically as possible: Will Navidson and his family moved into a house in Virginia to find that a door that was supposed to contain a closet, actually opened up into an area of hallways, stairwells, and unpredictability. Realistically, the room should not have been there, as the door was on the side of the house and a film made by Navidson showed that nothing was on the other side of the wall but the yard.
Navidson and friends explore the area and film their exploits into what became known as The Navidson Record. A blind man named Zampanò wrote (or rather dictated) an academic exploration of the film in a book of the same name. His descriptions of the film and other people's thoughts on it comprise the bulk of House of Leaves.
After Zampanò's death, his neighbor, Johnny Truant, found the manuscript in pieces in his apartment and spent a lot of time compiling it into readable form. While doing this, he took the opportunity to comment on various sections (via footnotes) that related--however tangentially--to his own life. These footnotes range from sentence fragments to several pages. This is a second story separate from the Navidson tale, but as the Navidson tale is often so suspenseful within its telling, Johnny's life story is a nice break. Also, where Zampanò's writing is very dry and terse, Truant's is, of necessity, off the cuff and very stream-of-consciousness, which, considering Johnny Truant's different states of consciousness, is an experience in itself.
A second editor also appears and makes comments on both Zampanò's and Truant's various comments in a third font style in the footnotes, thus making the reader keep up with three very different voices that can change at will at any point in the narrative.
Another difficulty in reading House of Leaves is that the formatting is not always consistent. Often there are only a few words per page, or they'll be upside down, or coming from the corner fo the page, or a footnote will appear in the middle of several pages, or whatever Danielewski happened to dream up at the time. Plus, the word "house" always appears in blue, no matter its use. Even on the cover, see? Strange and thrilling, mostly because I don't understand it.
Further drawing you into his strange world are the appendices at the end of the book, containing notes, photographs, excerpts, clippings, and other manifestations of the story of the house on Ash Tree Lane and Will Navidson's trek through it, Zampanò's obsession with it, and Johnny Truant's disdain of anything unlike it.
But as much as this may seem like a turnoff, this is exactly what attracted me to the book in the first place. House of Leaves is a book for the reader who wants to be challenged by a book, to have his/her way of thinking twisted for a while. The reader who wants no part of reading to be difficult is going to be instantly turned off by this book. That person just needs to stay in their little house, going about their business, and never come near Danielewski's book.
The rest of you--the one's you got here by typing "House of Leaves" or "Mark Danielewski" into your search engines--are the ones that this book was written for. Step forward, steel yourself for the blow, and acquire yourself a copy of this book. You think David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest with all its hundreds of endnotes was challenging? Good. Now you're ready to take the next step. Welcome to the House of Leaves. Come on in.
Book Review: A Unique, Rewarding Horror Experience (Note the Lack of the Word Novel; This Book is an EXPERIENCE)
Summary: 5 Stars
If you don't have much patience, this book is not for you.
If, on the other hand, you enjoy browsing and reading some books several times--particularly books like this, where at least a couple of readings are required, since there's so much to discover--then this IS for you.
"House of Leaves" is indeed an experimental novel, but it's not precisely avant-garde. Everything follows a single cohesive storyline, even if it doesn't seem like it. Every digression and footnote is relevant, and enriches the experience.
However, again, you must be patient, and you have to enjoy perusing a book at leisure--speed-reading does no good here (trust me, I'mm a speed reader).
I don't want to go too much into the storyline (it's way too easy to offer spoilers) but basically, "House of Leaves" follows one man's discovery of a another man's archives documenting truly horrifying events chronicled by a pair of films that do not exist. These films were supposedly created by a professional photographer who was documenting his family's experience moving into a new house. Worse--or better, if you're into horror--those horrifying events are not really under the constraints of place or even time.
It if sounds convoluted, it's really not. Or, at least, it's easy to understand; you might have to read the above sentences a couple of times, but you absorb these facts almost by osmosis when you're reading "House of Leaves."
I'm afraid to say too much, because spoilers are much to easy to give away here, and while there's probably enough surprises and revelations in this novel that revealing a couple wouldn't make much difference on the book's impact, I don't feel like spitting anything out. I will say this is a very scary novel. If you're any kind of horror fan who longs, at least on occasion, for something beyond the usual spatter and gore, then "House of Leaves" is a must. If you're a reader looking for the next big thing--or at least the next talked-about thing--in literary forms, you, also, should read it. If, however, you're into perfectly streamlined, evenly chapter-divided stories that do not digress and get themselves over with quickly--or at least cleanly-- skip it. "House of Leaves" is a worthwhile experience--extremely worthwhile, in my opinion--but it is not easy, and it is often frustrating. This is not because it is difficult to read; rather, it is because you want to know every answer as soon as the question pops up. At times, it feels like it can't possibly make any sense, like the footnotes and notes and side stories can't possibly add to the story, like it's a waste of time.
Trust me, though.
It's not.
This book isn't a runaway, blockbuster, billion dollar bestseller, and for several reasons. The form does put some people off. Also,it is genuinely frightening, and many people, contrary to what they say, do not actually like being afraid. However, the fact that it's been in steady print says something. "House of Leaves" will continue to develop a cult following; however, that should not be the sole factor in your decision to read or not read this book. It doesn't matter who likes or doesn't like "House of Leaves." It is unique enough that both its fans and detractors are all kinds of people, from all walks of life and learning and experience. This book does not appeal to any one type of person. If you read it, you'll probably understand why.
"House of Leaves" is one of the most unique, enthralling, confusing, frustrating, infuriating, and rich reading experiences I've had in the last couple of years. With the former caveats in mind--it doesn't get itself over with quickly, it is often frustrating, the digressions are almost like non sequiturs in places, and it's very frightening-- I would still reccommend this novel to most.
Book Review: In Pursuit of the Sound
Summary: 5 Stars
"The point of recounting these observations is simply to show how understandable it was that for Navidson the impendetrable sweep of that place soon acquired greater meaning simply because, to quote the Criteria directly, "it was full of unheimliche vorklänger* and thus represented a means to his own personal propitatiation."
* "Ghostly anticipation"
It has been a few days and I am still recovering from this novel. Really though, this book is more than just a novel-it's a mega-compilation of mini-mega works all tied in together through this film, called the Navidson Report, which didn't exist, but by the end of the book it might as well should have existed because of how believable it-and all the devised literature surrounding it-really is.
This book, House of Leaves, a giant enigma that has an entire web-board dedicated to understanding it, solving its riddles, is highly literary. It takes from literary criticism, psycho-analytic theory, engineering, physics, and sound science, as well as philosophy and family relations-all subjects that intertwine with one another. At times the book feels like it's a post-college-graduation masturbatory circle, which may be true in that it's merely commenting on college writing and academia in general (just look at all the authors and publications that Danielewski concocts-pretty ingenious).
Though it's hard to tell what the book is about without giving too much away or going too far into it (this book sucks you in and spits you out, makes you crave for more then makes you wish you hadn't taken that last bite), the book is about a film that's about a family that moves into a house that has different dimensions on the outside than on the outside, and has a strange hallways that leads off into nowhere. Whether it's actually nowhere is part of the debate, which is one of many debates throughout the text.
There are two other main plotlines in this book that deal with the writer of the book, Zampano, and the guy who finds the book in a chest after Zampano dies, ends up editing the book, and throws all sorts of creepy, disturbing, and graphic, youthful stories into the mix. Included, for example, are 60 pages worth of letters that this editor, Johnny Truant, received from his mother who was in an insane asylum (apparently these were published separately at one point in the form of the Whaestone Letters).
The book really is massive at around 700 pages, but there are typographical avant garde-isms throughout that make for a quick read. For example, some pages have only a sentence or a sentence fragment on them. Others have text in the corner of the page, but it's upside down. The book ends up becoming a part of you-you carry it around, read it when you can, and are okay with it being a strange tome that demands more than your average book. While it's easy to say it flies right by, it doesn't-there's an emotional weight that is unsettling. Whether it's through the family's problems throughout the film's plot, or the mere disturbing concept of this writer, Zampano, living blind in a windowless apartment, or really any of the depressing sides of Truant's own life-there is something that will make your stomach turn, and apparently this is for the better. But days later when the book's opening message (in Truant's foreword, claiming you will not be able to stop thinking about this book) rings true, the masterwork of literature becomes a worrisome psychological probe that can easily become stressful.
But that's what makes a book successful on the emotional level, and with its intellectual grit, fascinating main plot, engaging late 20th-century prose from Truant, and innovations, it's one that will, as a cult item or bestseller, the book is a success that many contemporary works of art rarely even aspire to.