Customer Reviews

House of Leaves: The Remastered Full-Color Edition

5 star:		(200)
4 star:		(95)
3 star:		(43)
2 star:		(23)
1 star:		(49)

 

 

This postmodern, typographically chaotic novel is a monstrous book, both in page numbers and ambition. It is the literary equivalent of "The Ring." As we learn in the introduction, Johnny Truant, a tattoo parlor employee, has come into possession of a trunk full of bizarre scraps of paper once owned by an old blind man, Zampano, now dead. The papers comprise an exploration of a cult film called "The Navidson Record" and its sub-films, documentaries about an ever-expanding house that's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside and which consumes the lives of anyone who enters its dark hallways or watches the tapes. Johnny becomes himself obsessed with Zampano's papers and, in turn, with the Navidson house. He is haunted by the beast he smells and the descending madness he had no inclination to stop. The book itself is the melding of Zampano's papers, Johnny's footnote digressions into his own life and its troubles, and the debate among academics as they struggle to make sense of a film that probably never existed. The result is a dark, wild, often hilarious, sometimes excruciatingly boring foray into the meaning of home, family, love, and self.

The structure of the novel is innovative, with Johnny Truant's story unfolding in footnotes and in the appendices, while Zampano describes the film and the academics bicker over its meaning in the body. The most riveting narrative thread in this novel is of Navidson's and others' descents into the smooth walled, dark cavern of the mysterious hallway. The consequences on Navidson's marriage and on those he loves are devastating, and the reader is swept into both the horror and the need for hope. Johnny's story is less compelling, especially as the house fades into the background and his story takes over. The academic over-analysis is tons of fun - as long as you have the patience to get over the dryness to find the kernel it has been working toward. For example, early in the book, Danielewski (in the writings of Zampano) provides a lengthy academic discussion of the myth of Echo and its scientific and literary significance, only to derail it with a Johnny Truant footnote telling the reader that "Frankly I'd of rec'd a quick skip past the whole echo ramble were it not for those six lines . . ."

Even more bizarre than the telling of Truant's tale in footnotes is the typographical methods used to visually evoke the house in the Navidson Record. The words become their own labyrinth, with "hallways" of text enclosed in blue boxes; they sometimes inhabit corners only, or skip up and down the pages, one or two words at a time. When the characters don't know which way is up, the reader is twisting and turning the physical book to read upside down and sideways. You have to see the book to fully appreciate the visual hijinks Danielewski uses. It can take a long time to read certain sections, only to find that you can flip through several pages with just a glance at each.

Despite the suspenseful plot, HOUSE OF LEAVES is anything but a quick read. Its satisfaction is derived more from its individual parts than as a whole since it ends, to paraphrase T. S. Eliot, not with a bang but a whimper. I recommend this for patient readers and for those who delight in experimental turns in fiction.

A totally engrossing piece of meta-fiction. I loved this book, from beginning to end, though the Johnny Truant foot-notes passages were often boring.

Have read through this a few times now. Walks a thin line between intellectual commentary and pretentious drek.

If you can get past the Literature-thesis-project-on-acid feel of the book, the stories do work fairly well together. Wrapping a passible suspense story inside a paranoid descent and fleshing it out with some characters who at times intimately reveal aspects of themselves, the author does manage to tell as much with the gaps and discrepancies as with the stories themselves.

This may be the most complicated book I've ever read. There are layers upon layers and you can never be sure what's real and what isn't.

I won't say it's the best book I've ever read, but it's certainly the most ambitious and creative. The way the typography was used alone is unlike anything I've ever seen. It could have been simply a gimmick, but it really reflects the story as well.

A quick hint to people who like to read while doing something else--this is NOT the book for it. I took it with me to the gym and tried to read it while riding an exercise bike. Not a pretty sight.

I really don't feel like writing an essay like some of the reviewers have, but I would like to say that coming from the perspective of a not-so-avid reader, this book still holds up strong. It really is terrifying and thought provoking on so many different levels. I adore the 'unconventional' structure of this book, as well as all the taboo themes it deals with.

There is absolutely no end to the amount of ways there are to read this text(literally as well as figurativly). You won't be finished with it until long after you've finished reading it.

This is the most phony, dishonest, arrogant piece of writing I have ever encountered. Amazing what a bunch of silly type-setting can do to reviewers.

To the reader who looks at this book and thinks it is intriguing, they are right. However, when one delves a bit deeper into this book they find it is nothing but hogwash. This book makes fine kindling for fires, I must say. I opened this book to find nothing but psychobabble. A jumble of random pages strewn together to form a story. The pages vary from vast, typewritten monologues to blank pages with the word "the" to fill the space. There are pages with just dots and lines, some form of modern art perhaps. One page even has a random musical staff on it with notes. On the pages that are filled with words, some are upside down, some are crossed out, some paragraphs are boxed by blue squares. At the bottom of the pages is random, seemingly fabricated sources for the information. The book is not a novel, but rather a bunch of scrapped together stories to form a whole. It is rather pretentious and confusing. I felt stupid while reading it when I found a bibliography with psychiatric journals in the middle and then at the end when the index indexes every word ever used in the book, from "bat" to "hair" and beyond. Do yourself a favor and skip this book. Read some good literature, like Kerouac or Kesey or Burgess or Joyce. A bookseller I was talking with dismissed this book as B.S. and he was right. Stay out out of the "House of Leaves"!

I like all kinds of books. But this is the most sick and twisted "book?" I have ever (tried) to read. What a waste of money! After trying to wade through this mess I finally decided that I don't care what happens to these people. They can stay in there huge dark pit and no one would ever miss them, or care. The headaches I got trying to figure out this massive mistake for a novel just wasn't worth it. What's with all the swirls and backward paragraphs and even two seperate stories on one page? I tried to like this. I really did. I kept telling myself, " It will all come together, it will all be worth it with a fantastic story, these people will really begin to matter to me...". NOT SO!!! Life is too short to waste precious minutes with novels like this when there are so many wonderful books that trap you, change you, make you think and feel. NOT THIS ONE. SAVE YOUR MONEY!!!

This is the most pretentious piece of junk I've ever read. Why Danielewski could not just write a compelling novel about the Navidson house and leave out all the footnotes to show off his knowledge of semiotics and other relatively obscure fields is beyond me. DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME! YUCKA!

A few years ago, when I was working in a bookstore, one of the books we couldn't keep on shelves was called House of Leaves. It is an experimental book by Mark Z Danielewski and has achieved what can only be cult status.

I had never read it.

At the bookstore I worked at, there was a waiting list for the book. The publisher would only send two or three copies at a time and I was never quick enough to grab a copy. I would try to find the book in other bookstores, only to find it absent from the shelves.

So it was with pleasure that I found a copy of it at a bookstore in Montreal. It felt odd being able to actually hold the book. I've been waiting to read it for a long time.

It is, perhaps, one of the most bizarre books ever written. It is a story within a story and it defies traditional concepts of writing and words. Let me explain...

House of Leaves is really two stories, a story within a story (and within another story as well, but that comes after). The first story concerns the set up of the novel. Johnny Truant, a layabout working at a tattoo parlour, is called at 3am in the morning by his friend Luze. Luze is sure that Zampano, an old man who lives in the building has died.

They find Zampano's body, but Johnny finds something else as well. In an old trunk, Johnny finds a book written by Zampano called The Navidson Record. The book is written on pieces of paper, envelopes, on the back of stamps, on ticket stubs. Assembled by Johnny Truant, it is a dizzying book.

The Navidson Record is an account of the events found in the documentary of the same name by Will Navidson, a Pulitzer Prize winning photo journalist, who moves his family into a house and sets up cameras because he wants to document a family making a home, a family becoming one with a house.

But there is a problem with the house on Ash Street. Soon, rooms start appearing in the house that were not there before. And, more confusing, the house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.

The house is growing.

Through out The Navidson Record, there are footnotes by Zampano. But here's the thing: the film The Navidson Record doesn't exist. Neither do Will Navidson or his wife Karen Greene. None of the books that Zampano refers to in his footnotes exist, except for a select few. None of the people Zampano interviewed about the documentary The Navidson Record exist. The entirety of The Navidson Record is a fabrication.

But it has affect Johnny Truant nonetheless.

Sprinkled through out The Navidson Record, we also get to read Jonnhy Truant's words which become more and more disturbing and unhinged as we forge through the pages of House of Leaves. Soon we are not sure what is real and what is not. As Johnny falls more and more into the darkness, we learn that his mother was house in an insane asylum called Whalestoe. Johnny wonders if he is succumbing to the disease that stole his mother from him or if all this is real indeed....

Sound confusing? You bet. This is a sprawling monster of a novel. I haven't had to work at reading a novel in a very long time. Normally I want to be entertained; be the story happy, comedic or dramatic or sad, entertainment is my primary goal when I read a novel.

But between the shifting narratives, the shifting typeset, the numerous footnotes and everything else, the book is a chore. But a good one. While I'm reading it, I feel like I'm being let into this secret world that has been hidden from the general public, finally released to the light.

I know that sounds odd, but it's the tone of the book. It's this dark, brooding work of fiction that redefines what fiction is.

House of Leaves was followed up by The Whalestoe Letters. It consists of letters to Johnny from his mother while she was in the asylum. Though the letters are included in an appendix to the book, more letters and codes to break are included in the self contained version. So of course I got a copy of The Whalestoe Letters too. You can't have one without the other right?

House of Leaves is unlike anything I've ever read before. It is also an overly large book, both in scope and size. Twice the size of a regular hard cover and clocking in at a whopping 700 plus pages, the book is a chore and the mere size of it will put of most people.

Added to that the shifting narrative, the weird storylines, the confusing typesets making it almost impossible to read. This will put off more people. But those few who are able to persevre and read it will read something truly close to genius.

House of Leaves is one scary book. It frightened me and made me incredibly uncomfortable while reading it; which is the point, I think. It is also a love story about what people are willing to do to save the lives of those they love. Or protect them from danger they have no control over.

So yes, House of leaves is a chore, a monster, a challenge. But one that has to be conquered in order to appreciate it's haunting, bizarre beauty.