House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
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Book Reviews of House of Leaves
Book Review: A reading experience like no other!
Summary: 5 Stars
I have an odd relationship with this book. I'd read enough about it to interest me, and then requested it as a gift from my father. When he bought it, he flipped through it, and gave it to me, laughing. He had seen the strange formatting of the book: switching between colors and fonts, pages full of writing, pages with no writing, blocks of text that are backwards, sideways, upside-down. It was like no other book he'd ever seen--and I couldn't wait to dive in.
Well, I didn't make it through it the first time. Containing a bizarrely layered series of narratives partially written in a somewhat dry, academic voice, it requires more attention than I was able to give it at that point in my life, and I found myself barely inching through the book's 800 pages. Ultimately, I had to put it down, vowing to revisit it at a time when I could give the book the time and energy it deserved. A few weeks ago, I tried it again, and found it to be one of the best reading experiences I'd ever read in my life.
To describe the structure or the plot in any great detail would be futile, and were I to succeed, it would take away half the fun. All you need to know is that it's about a family moving into a new house where things aren't quite as they seem, and that it's format of the book is like nothing you've ever experienced. There are footnotes, letters, journal entries, appendices, that frequently have your eyes and fingers flying all over the place, fingers wedged to mark pages as you consult a reference, or flip back to a footnote, or whatever else the book demands of you. The process of reading that the book requires as is different and immersive an experience as the text itself.
But it's worth it. Ultimately, this book consumes you. Once you start reading it, it's hard to let go; even when you put it down, it permeates your thoughts. It's disturbing, it's scary, it's profound; in parts it's even funny and romantic. This book seems to flawlessly transcend genre and classification, and roots itself in your head and won't let go. Even after you've finished, you'll feel like there's so much more hidden in the book--codes, footnotes, references. You'll find your thoughts turning to it when you least expect it.
At least, that was my experience. "House of Leaves" is not a book for everyone. It doesn't tie up nicely, it doesn't even begin to answer all its questions (though upon deeper reflection, it may answer more than it seems to), and some may find reading such an unconventional book to be a chore. "House of Leaves" demands an entirely unique relationship with its reader--if you give yourself to this book, it can be an infinitely rewarding experience. It was a journey like none I've had with a book before, and doubt I will again. But, if you prefer a very straightforward reading experience, and are unwilling to try something this radical, I can certainly see where it would be a bit much for some readers.
I wouldn't recommend this book to everyone -- but for those who can handle something so different, so unabashedly experimental and out-there, and who have the patience and desire to surrender themselves to the book and to explore the secrets that lie within its hallways... well, then you're in for one hell of a ride.
Note: As others have mentioned, "Haunted" by Poe is meant to be a sort of companion album to the book, and is a great album that is definitely worth a listen during or after experiencing the book.
Book Review: Double Dog Dare Is Alive And Well And Literary In The 00's
Summary: 5 Stars
Mr. Danielewski spends the opening pages of his book, from the "dedication" through the "introduction" warning you not to read the book. So what do you do? You read the book! Why the quotes around those words? Because there is more to behold in every word. Every idea is layered, boxes inside boxes, not just layers on layers. This is no two-dimensional construct (as "leaves" might suggest). Just as the "house" (sorry I can't print the word in blue) is bigger on the inside than on the outside, so are the words, the ideas and the book themselves. The metaphor is stunningly simple, yet profound, and well, complex. On one level, it's like every slasher pic ever made, where you know the character (future victim) shouldn't open that door, or go down that dark hallway. He/she has to because it's there. Because it's hardwired into the script and can't be changed. Only you, the reader, are the subject, here. You get your hands on this book and you have to "do it." On another level, you can marvel at the idea. Is it about the harmless curiosities of multi-dimensional space? Or is it about the pure horror of the supernatural? Are they one and the same? You've got to give Mr. Danielewski credit for knowing his audience and playing us for all we're worth. The comparisons to Pynchon, Wallace and others are inevitable because right away you see that the text is steeped in nearly real-time cultural allusions, and other written references, some of which appear to be actual, others not. So this, this is-it-really-a-novel? novel is very dense, highly compressed, even at more than 700 pages. But then, there are many pages that are nearly blank! Who's the joke on? The book invites you to move around; scan appendices, examine the index (which even has entries for words like "for," with dozens of pages listed). You have to smile, if not laugh outright. But at the same time, he manufactures a brooding edginess and mystery. You wonder about heeding jacket blurb cautions not to read the book just before going to bed. But you go ahead and read anyway. Is this rhetoric elevated to the sublime? Or the cruel? A tower of reader manipulation. But you're a willing partner. You read it and you want to look into Danielewski's eyes -- just to see if maybe you can catch a glimpse of where this came from. He's working with a couple of very simple ideas, but he's looking at them in a whole new ... darkness? Yeah, it's pushing the post-modern envelope, but at the same time you've expected someone to do this. If he hadn't done it another daring young writer would have taken novelistic de/re-construction here or close by. Of course few would have chosen terror as their playground. But this is not all just a literary game. Or is it? Joyce said as much of his own "Finnegan's Wake." I daresay, few others could have pulled it off ... to the exent that part of me wants to know how other readers survived reading it! Is the editor still a functioning member of society? The proofreader? The author himself? His agent? The other reviewers on this web page? Is that a thumbs up! Yes, if you're willing to turn yourself over to a master. It may depend on how brave you are, whether you can detach yourself from the work so you can come up for a breath of fear-free air once in a while, or whether you allow it to take you and -- as at least one of its narrative voices promises -- change you forever. I've had a hard time thinking of anything else since I got my hands on it.Book Review: A Book of Many Distortions
Summary: 5 Stars
Have you ever held a vial of mercury? Do you remember your surprise that first time? Your surprise to find the weight your eyes had told your hands to expect was a lie? This is the experience that often comes to mind when finding myself again holding this book... each time I find myself tempted to once again wander the halls within the House of Leaves.
This book is heavy, much more physically weighty than eyes say it should be. Whether this was intentionally crafted by the creators, or if this is only a residual psychosomatic phenomenon as a result of having read the book, I couldn't say. Both are plausible. Because of how much work was put into distorting this book, I suspect the former cause.
If so, this is only the first of a great many intended distortions. "House of Leaves" is a work of art that appears to be a book, and draws heavily from the genre of literature. It then adds from much more experimental fields to create a specific effect, while simultaneously telling multiple stories. The end result (at first glance) could be mistaken as "just some book." This sensory illusion quickly falls apart shortly into the reading.
Mercury. The reason such a small quantity is so heavy, of course, is due to density. There is simply more matter contained in the occupied space than past experiences have prepared your mind to expect. This darkness, density and weight is the intended effect behind "House of Leaves." The family at the core of this story, trained by experience to expect time and space to operate in only one way, first meet with this darkness upon the discovery that their house is larger on the inside than outside of it.
To briefly cover the introduction, the days following this discovery were barely captured, and only on some home video footage and notes. Zampano, who pieced this all together with tape, ink and every available writing surface, called this "The Navidson Record." Johnny Truant, who took the dead Zampano's notes from the apartment of the deceased, claims that this record is a lie. Both, however, realize that the truth or falsity of this record does not affect the story's telling.
What follows is The Navidson Record, detailing these last days, with footnotes from Zampano, Johnny Truant and The Editors. As previously stated, it is not long until... well... things fall apart. The family, the minds of those who passed on the notes, and the book itself.
If you've not yet read "House of Leaves," something inside me wants to tell you "this book is for you" and "put aside everything else 'til you've read it." The more honest part of me--the part that's been stirred to raw emotions at only the thought of this book, and can open to nearly any page to feel my eyes tear up--wants to let you know that, should you finish it, this book will not leave you as the same person you were before entering the House of Leaves; that, here, there is no forgiveness, no salvation, nor yellow-brick road; that, within these pages is a creature of shadow, and that this darkness adapts to you--the reader--the more you read.
To those readers strong in spirit, who seek that rare strength found only in facing an even stronger fear: "Seek ye, in the House of Leaves, a forge to form or break your spirit." To all else: "Seek ye, elsewhere, your salvation."
who now, here, ~ has walked the halls ~ that wind within ~ the House of Leaves?
Book Review: Modern "Moby Dick"
Summary: 5 Stars
I'll begin by trying to expose what this book is "about". A family moves in to a house in Virginia. Because the father of this family is a photographer and film-maker, he decides to put cameras everywhere for a real-life experience sort of thing. Then strange things happen. The house is apparently bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Then there's even a new door opening on the sheer unknown. I'll say no more on this, but eventually, Navidson, the father, edits all this into a movie. Later on, a man named Zamapanò writes "House of Leaves" which is about this documentary-film made by Navidson. Then, that document is found by Johnny Truant, who introduces the book and writes notes for it. And much more.
So basically what you get is 2 stories: the Navidson story with the house and its numinous mystery, and the Johnny Truant autobiographical parts. Of course, all of these are characters, and don't be fooled by the book description in the jacket or by the "second edition" because both of these are part of the story, not of our "reality".
For most of the book, I really thought it was incredibly good. There's a lot of good "horror" styled elements, and as an academic, I found it quite amusing all the play on footnotes and references to both real and bogus books and authors. If you're a lit student, you'll get some fun from those parts.
I personally preferred the Navidson story per se than the Truant stuff, though that is good too; but I just found myself sighing every time one of his giant footnotes came up. It's hard to give a well-balanced opinion on this novel. It's definitely an intriguing read and there are excellent things by the tonload, but you do get confused in some parts, namely the Truant stuff, where you don't really know what's happening, which I guess is intentional and part of the whole "going crazy in meaninglessness" deal.
It's greatly written, though, and it's certainly thought-provoking in more ways than one. At first I was afraid this novel would be nonsense upon nonsense, but it wasn't so. Be unafraid, it's absolutely readable; yet there are parts which are trickier, but you won't fail to note they were meant to be so. Up until page 500 or beyond, I forget, I thought that this was genius work, and I still think that it is. My only negative feedback is the following.
I think it was a daunting task to give that novel a proper ending, and in some ways, I think it didn't work here. In fact, and that may save the novel in my eyes, there's not really an ending. I mean, there definitely IS, don't get me wrong, there is an ending, but it's not all that satisfying, and I don't mean to say too much about it. There are many ends to this, I guess, and like a labyrinth, which it is written to look like, there's not really an end ever.
"House of Leaves" is probably this century's - or the past one's - "Moby Dick". It has the same experimental taste, albeit a century and a half later, and it seeks the impossible White Whale too. I can't say "numinous" enough when talking about this, or that, novel. And if you don't know that word "get thee to your OED" because that's one important word.
So, to sum up, this is an excellent book and certainly something you've never quite experienced before.
Book Review: Feel Small and Hunted by Beasts!
Summary: 5 Stars
Imagine yourself in the Kingdome stadium, sitting in the bleachers ALONE, the only one in the whole building, and the lights go out, and it is darker than PITCH BLACK, so dark you can't believe you're alive, and then the concrete steps all around you start to twist and elongate and the bleachers begin to shake and fold beneath you, trapping you in one place. Then it stops, and it is quiet for a long time. You are so scared you don't even breathe, until a low growl emerges in the distance, gets slowly louder and stronger until it is right beside you and tears through your body like FIRE. This is kind of like reading the House of Leaves. It begins with very strange anomolies of physics within a solitary house at the end of Ash Tree Lane, somewhere in Virginia. The walls stretch, small rooms suddenly appear where there was just a wall before, and the outside dimensions of the house are SMALLER than the inside dimensions.
Will Navidson, a world-class photojournalist, lives there with his family, and although they are an adventurous and wickedly INTELLIGENT bunch, they haven't good enough humour to put up with the unknown horrors contained in their new home. After Will discovers the closet in the living room is not really a closet, but a hallway into a phenomenally large, black network of tunnels and caverns, the family unit splinters. Although it is tearing his family apart, Will cannot stop going into the forbidden labyrinth and FILMING. He hires some master-explorers to go in with him and they have a two week adventure that puts the best Steven King and Clive Barker to shame. What happens to them is so exciting and tense, the reading experience is UNPRECEDENTED.
The cool thing about this book is the multiform approach to the material. Danielewski isn't afraid to confront this story head-on with in-depth psychological analyses of the characters, profound historical examinations of the house and its implications, cultural dissections of the story being written and the film contained in it, relentless scientific exploration into the mineralogical makeup of the structure itself, and maddeningly thorough explanations of the paranormal possibilities of the house and what happens in it. One of the dozens of alternate solutions to the puzzle of the house, is that it is a gateway into a parallel universe, with its own physical laws, and another is that it is actually the "house of many rooms" that Jesus described in the new testament.
All of these approaches are given equal gravity in the story, and all are written with humour and a kind of cleverness that would put the literary marvel David Foster Wallace to shame. Danielewski is downright uncanny in his linguistic talent, and also quite effective with the emotional depth of the material. The only downfall is the length. He goes too far in some sections, especially the psychological sketches.
This book is amazing, you can get lost in it just like in the labyrinth it describes. There's enough material in the footnotes and annotations alone for a complete novel. Be careful, though, and make sure you have a safe place to read it- it makes you feel like you're being hunted...