House of Leaves

Brilliant and confoundingly strange. To quote a post I once saw responding to how it’s read: “With a headache and joy in my heart.”

I did it! wooo

How can someone write something like this I have no clue

I got to page 13, after the forward and introduction, before quitting. The writing sucks.

Danielewski has managed to find a medium in which he can partially disguise the fact that he's telling rather than showing. Kudos to him, but it's painful to read.

For instance, after a brief scene in which Will Navidson is looking at his partner Karen's hairbrush, we get a whole paragraph of academic analysis about how Will removing a clump of her hair from the hairbrush indicates how much he loves her. Same with a scene in which Karen is anxious for Will to return home, but “has quite effectively masked all her eagerness to see him.” We are told explicitly, “What both these moments reveal is how much Will and Karen need each other and yet how difficult they find handling and communicating those feelings.”

Gee, thanks.

Readers of Ready Player One (also terrible in the same emotionally stunted way) will love this book.

I didn't really like this book but, ultimately, I'm glad I read it. I don't think I can live in a world with the amount of digital ink spilled about this book and not have read it. What I do like about this book is the larger-than-life mythos that surrounds it. It almost seems as though all the “this book is life-changing”, “I can't look at things the same way ever again” type of reviews are less about the actual experience of reading the book and more about joining the ranks of those initiated into the strange shared universe of this book and it's cult following. Having read it I'm enjoying cursing around the web carving lines down House Of Leaves reviews and subreddits. The phenomenon surrounding this book is remarkable. While I give it one star as a book I'd give it three or four stars as a shared experience. I'm excited to listen to the Poe album “Haunted” which apparently serves as a companion piece.

This novel has an incredibly creative and enduring concept at its center that Danielewski is determined to rip the reader away from as much as possible. Not exaggerating when I say I would have enjoyed this more as a creepypasta or SCP story, or even a high concept video game (MyHouse.WAD tries to tackle this with interesting results) The frame narrative and academic satire did absolutely nothing for me.

see ja “düün” on mu lemmikraamatud

kirjutan midagi selle monstrumi kohta kui uuesti loen

I did it!!! I finished this beast of a book.
It definitely was a good read, quite scary at points! It made me feel uneasy, like I wasn't alone in the room.

My God, the blabbering, the endless, superficial, self-precious blabbering!

Definitely a journey. And what an addicting and hypnotizing one.
This book was (as expected) totally different from what I've read before. It felt way too clever for me in some parts, but putting in the effort (plus a bit of digging on some forums), things slowly start to make sense.
Would LOVE to re-read this someday as part of a bookclub so I could discuss the subjects and the plot in itself more actively. Really enjoyed it nonetheless.

4,5☆

8 years. It took 8 years to finish this book. (Wow almost 8 years to the day, too...)

I started it. I put it down. I started again. I put it down again. Then finally I picked it up and finished it. I tried to read it all at once, but I couldn't give Johnny's narrative the attention it deserved when all I wanted to know about was the haunted house. So this time I read the Navidson Record first then went back and read Johnny's notes. The Navidson Record was great, it wasn't the horror I'd expected from other's reviews but it was unsettling in the best ways and made me fall in love with the ‎Ergodic genre all over again. The text illustrating how Navidson navigated the dark space of the house were my favorite parts of the book.

Tackling Johnny's narrative was another story. Some of his exposition in the beginning felt superfluous. Like why do I need to know out all these seemingly random sexual conquests?? But when he truly begins to break down you see the ties between Zampano, Johnny, Johnny's mother and a host of other narrators, may they be reliable or not.

It was a ride to say the least, and mostly enjoyable. The rating is a 4.5 because I'm sure I'll read it again, but without bouncing around, but there are parts that's just a slog to get through.

Pale Fire meets Ficciones meets Annihilation meets (the good parts of) Skinamarink meets Infinite Jest meets I don't know what. if there exists anything more up my alley than this, I have yet to find it

I did have some issues with a lot of Johnny's digressions and found some of the shape poetry stuff a little gimmicky, but god I love this book

i have a million things to say and no idea how to say them. don't think i can formulate an actual review, but a few things i want to take note of right now

-this book fucked me up in a way that nothing of the medium has in memory. the concept is already scary enough and the medium is utilized to the fullest to convey each part. the descents into the house are terrifying but there are two other things that come to mind. one is the very concept of the minotaur, the ominous red strikethrough, how it remains entirely enigmatic and no tangible explanation is given. if i had to give a guess as to its inclusion i'd wager it has something to do with johnny and his heritage, but i'll delve further into that later. the other is the letters from johnny's mother. those later letters are some of the most disturbing things i've ever read, especially once the book's signature typographic quirks are used.

-i have a plethora of theories but the one that intrigues me most is the idea of pelafina writing the entire novel while at whalestoe. my theory is that it spawns from her grief over johnny's death (two possible details about johnny's childhood support that), especially if she caused it herself. zampano could be representative of johnny's father - one idea that came to mind is pelafina cheating on her husband with this zampano parallel, rendering johnny a sort of bastard (minotaur theory ahem) child and the entire novel a sort of letter to johnny's father in itself. that explains the pelafina/karen parallels, the often haphazard style and inconsistencies of the book, and perhaps how johnny's nightmares mirror pelafina's choking of him - although that was likely just intended to convey the longstanding trauma. i wish i'd thoroughly read the letters before the novel, it makes johnny a much more compelling figure.

-something about this novel feels so distinctly... evil, even in the more positive interpretations of it. even after finishing the novel the dread still lingers, and i don't think it will dissipate for ages.

-the house in itself can be seen as a sort of rorschach test, and i believe the same goes for the novel per se. some people interpret this as a horror novel, a simple academic satire, or even a love story. i am finding myself very conflicted as to how i interpret this but there's a very personal story at the heart of both the navidson record and johnny's escapades, tedious as i sometimes found the latter. speaking of which, that may be the only thing which keeps me from proclaiming this my favourite novel. that and the amount of content i feel i may have missed the point on. this is such a dense work, and even still i feel kind of overwhelmed. but i don't know, i think it very well could be the best thing i've had the honour of reading.

oh also! this marks the end of my reading goal for 2023, a measly twelve books. we're not even halfway through may so i obviously underestimated myself a bit, but i really wasn't expecting to get back into reading the way i have recently. new goal is a tentative thirty novels, but if i am going to tackle pynchon, joyce, mccarthy, etc as i'm planning to the goal may reduce due to difficulty of the material.

I can see why this book is so famous! It is so effectively unsettling that a page-long footnote has a threatening aura and an asterisk in the margins can feel like a jumpscare. However, it is a LOT of work to read–I felt like I was studying or solving a puzzle for most of it and it took me nearly three months to finish. Somehow worth the effort!

This book was very... different. The main plot involves a house that defies science and is larger on the inside. But instead of just being a straightforward story it's told from the perspective of a researcher who wrote a manuscript compiling all the research and references from people who are discussing the film tapes that were made from exploring the house. (However the film tapes don't seem to exist). Sometimes there will be a page in French, or a page full of literally a list of 100 (irrelevant) names that you just have to skip over. So I guess it's a very artsy sort of book? But the mystery of the plot is compelling enough to keep it going.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That was EXTRAORDINARY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There's so so SO MUCH packed into this book!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The way the house changes people just by being known, the way the Narrative is part of the story, the relationships, the METAPHORS!!!!!!!!!! There's so so much here especially in regards to how people survive the changes the house brings, ultimately surviving not just the house but also themselves, the way some people Couldn't survive, the outside forces, the internal forces, the Pictures and glimpses into both Zampanò and Johnny as people!!!!!!!!!!!! While I can see how this book wouldn't be for everyone, I still HIGHLY RECOMMEND at Least giving it a try!!!!!!!!!! This is probably the most beautifully written phycological horror I've EVER read!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't stop thinking about what a nightmare this book must have been to design and print. I'm not sure any book will ever give me the sort of awe and revulsion I felt seeing a sentence span across the spine over two pages. It's obscene.

I didn't know much about House of Leaves beyond it's infamous typography, so it was surprising to learn it's functionally a book equivalent to found footage horror. It trades documentary “authenticity” for dense citations and pervert French, but conceptually I find a lot of similarities (both are primarily interested in the mechanics of their medium and how our trust in those forms can be exploited). How successful HoL is depends mostly on your willingness to indulge its most excessive elements, following footnotes to smaller footnotes and spinning the book around like it's the world thickest centerfold.

HoL slots into a weird segment of media that I conceptually appreciate but dread existing because it inevitably gets attached to the worst sort of gross art bro. It is a playful, surprisingly warm, darkly funny book, but also one that revels in masculine violence and the deification of male ambition. It is proud of its swamp, fascinated by the algae and mutated fish, but if you want to study the tadpoles you're forced to wade past crocodiles and a CW list longer than the terms you didn't read.

My metaphors are mixing and my mind is wandering, but this is all to say HoL is a challenging recommendation in 2022. A rewarding one if you can stomach the grime, but I wouldn't shame anyone for keeping it on the shelf a while longer.

This book is mental. Sometimes it annoyed me, and sometimes I thought it was wonderful. Ugh. I don’t even know what to say. It’s just mental.

This book was something. I think maybe it was just a bit too much for me to wrap my head around. I'll have to go back and read a bit about it to see why I didn't like it as much as some people. But no, I didn't really like it.

This book is so unique; I almost struggle to find the words to describe it because it's so different from any other book I've ever read. It's a great book, but definitely somewhat haunting, and I'm not sure I would recommend this book to everyone.

Some other thoughts about this book:
* The main storyline was hands down “unputdownable” to me but I didn't enjoy Lude's story nearly as much
* The typography and page layout in general is so peculiar... there were parts that I blazed through and some other parts I didn't even know how to read. But I guess that's the point of the book?
* Big book fear prevented me from picking this up sooner but I'm glad I finally did because it's definitely one of those books you don't really stop thinking about

This book is so unique; I almost struggle to find the words to describe it because it's so different from any other book I've ever read. It's a great book, but definitely somewhat haunting, and I'm not sure I would recommend this book to everyone.

Some other thoughts about this book:
* The main storyline was hands down “unputdownable” to me but I didn't enjoy Lude's story nearly as much
* The typography and page layout in general is so peculiar... there were parts that I blazed through and some other parts I didn't even know how to read. But I guess that's the point of the book?
* Big book fear prevented me from picking this up sooner but I'm glad I finally did because it's definitely one of those books you don't really stop thinking about

This is so difficult for me to rate.

For the unique and intricate structure - and the massive effort that must have gone into writing this book - its a clear 5 stars.

I really enjoyed (?) and was intrigued by the actual narrative of the Navidson Report - 4.5 stars

I didn't really care about the Truant narrative (except his childhood history) - 3 stars.

The academic text was dense and at times tedious (yes I understand that was the point - but it was not an enjoyable experience) - 2 stars.

Somewhere between 3 and 4 stars. Fun at times but I was constantly pulled out of the story going, “oh, the author is doing this, that's clever, that's stupid,” etc.

Don't read the kindle unlimited edition as I foolishly did, it's not the proper text, just scanned it and it's riddled with typos. Not sure how to review this, it's undoubtedly clever and I found myself drawn into the plot at times, but at the same time parts of it are extremely pretentious. I think I'd like to read the proper edition one day, but for now I am happy to digest it!

I'll just copy over my comments from the Literally Dead thread:

I finished this today! OK, I “finished” it, having skimmed a lot of the material aside from the narrative of the Navidson Record. This is my second time around and I didn't have patience for a lot of Johnny's story.

I was hovering between a 3 and 4 rating, because I recognize the intricate layering work Danielewski did here, but I also found Johnny's parts insufferable, other than the very early bits in the tattoo shop where he feels something stalking him.

However, I realized a lot of my criticisms just bring up ways that Danielewski anticipated/elicited those criticisms. For example:

* The book can come off as pretentious. But that makes the opening line of the Navidson section a really keen joke: it's a torturously acadamic-ese sentence reflecting on “authenticity.” Cute, MZD.

* The ending of the Navidson narrative struck me as clunky this time around. Karen saves the day with ThE pOwEr Of LoVe. But this does fit with the established theme that the labyrinth reflects what you bring to it. Which - wait a minute - is what the book itself does as well.

*Johnny's voice and the academic Zampano voice aren't distinct. Zampano exhibits Johnny's erroneous “could of” formation within the Navidson Record, while Johnny busts out with $5 words and poetic, fancy wording that doesn't at all match with his history and status. OH, but is that just MZD pointing out to the reader that this is all falsehood and confusion, and reminding us Johnny isn't trustworthy and maybe none of this is legit at all?

And basically, if you start reflecting about the book in any way, you can go down a rabbit hole of deep literary analysis or just fun puzzle-thinking. Surely that deserves a tip toward the higher star rating.

(But I still hated Johnny's preposterous sexcapades and the general Male Gazeyness of the whole thing.)