House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of House of Leaves
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: "This is not for you." ... but, then, maybe it is
Summary: 3 Stars
The 3 star rating is an average between those who will find House of Leaves an engaging intellectual challenge (4 ½ stars) and those who fill find it an incomprehensible mess (1 ½ stars). It's an average of the gripping tale of the Navidsons and the self-indulgent story of Johnny Truant. Like the House, parts of the work are larger than you expect, and (unfortunately) parts are smaller.If you can get past it's flaws, you will find that Danielewski has spun an interesting (and genuinely eerie) yarn (or two, or three). There are sparks of real genius in the book that can transcend the pretensions, and the unusual - though not unique, check out David Foster Wallace - style is an asset when it is not taken too far.
The Good: The Navidson's and their friends are believable and given a reasonable amount of depth given the format (an analysis of a video record). Their plight is genuinely suspenseful moving from simply disconcerting to parts that are truly scary. It's relatively easy to empathize with these people. This is definitely a story worth reading! Johnny Truant's plight is also easy to empathize with, particularly for readers who can get truly engrossed in a book. The book format can be a great asset - as a means of bringing the various stories together into a whole, it generally works. It requires the reader to abandon traditional "beginning-middle-end" thinking in order to get the most out of it and that, in and of itself, can be a joy. Even the use of a colored font wherever the word "house" appears is a nice touch.
The Bad: Johnny Truant isn't nearly as plausible as the Navidsons. His life is more of a post-adolescent fantasy than anything that happens in the real world - even in L.A. The insights provided into Zampano are infrequent and occasionally inconsistent - one wonders why any attempt was made at all. And the frequent use of footnotes, while sometimes an asset, hopelessly break up the emotional rhythm of the story when the tension should be highest.
The Ugly: It's possible to get WAY too much of a good thing. Chapter 9 - with it's over-the-top barrage of intercut, sideways, backward, inverted and overstruck text; it's (admittedly!) meaningless lists; and footnotes that fall off into oblivion - is a disaster. Perhaps it is meant to give the reader a taste of the same disorientation experienced by the characters, but it becomes simply tedious. Later, pages and pages of emptiness interrupted by a word or two, often at odd angles and formats, certainly make the pages fly by, but this quickly get old. Sadly, none of these excesses add anything to the story. A gradual increase in the size of the margins - slightly shrinking the text - would have been more subtle and might actually have increased the feeling of claustrophobia. [BEWARE: THE REST OF THIS PARAGRAPH IS A SPOILER.] And Johnny Truant's descent into madness and destitution ends with ... nothing. He miraculously (and without explanation) becomes available to the "Editor" as if he's just another normal guy buying groceries, paying the bills, etc.
One final note: take the time to go online and look up the Pulitzer-winning photograph mentioned in the book. Seeing this chilling image adds significantly to the impact of the book. And then look up the tragic story of the real-life photographer who took it. The real world has always had more horror in it than can ever be found in fiction.
Book Review: >>^..^<< 'Meow'
Summary: 3 Stars
This book is written well. Too Well. Infact a lot of it reads like a university text book that costs 200$ and has only ever been read by the author and no one else. The word sterile springs to mind. Some pages only have three words on them and often they are upside down or written in a circle; bound to make you look wierd if you read it on a crowded train! Typographical experimentation fails to take the readers attention away from the mess that these paper leaves are in. Books cannot be videos.Book Review: "this is not for you"
Summary: 5 Stars
people seem very passionate about this book: either the reader loves it, or the reader hates it, and no reader seems to fall somewhere in between without writing something like "this would have been an excellent STORY without the baggage of esoteric 'marginalia' (i.e., the footnotes, which i would probably argue are margins in the derridean sense, pulling apart the STORY - your longed for 'center' or 'point' or 'enlightenment'), and without the submersion of the 'scary' stuff about the uncanny house beneath many layers of "unimportant" and "extraneous" material which a reader expecting a straightforward readerly novel (like king or other pop fiction) with beginning-middle-resolution. this is not the way to approach house of leaves, and if you begin it expecting a linear, clear, authoritative narrative, then you are going to be disappointed. in that case i suggest that you do not even attempt house of leaves, because you are going to dislike it and struggle with it. if you are going to enjoy this book - and it is a wonderful book, playing always with the very expectations of the reader, but also the possible forms of narrative itself, and concepts of authority, centrality, power (political & personal, for they are the same) - then you are going to have to approach it expecting it to violate all of the descriptive rules you have in your mind about narrative form and STORYtelling. you are going to have to read it carefully, thinking about every word, reading every footnote, but also remaking the text for yourself, making it your own and divorcing it from the sense and reference of the words themselves. you must be willing to work through the text slowly and carefully to get from it any pleasure, untainted by disappointment. if you are not willing to give that effort, then this book "is not for you." pass it, and the hype by, and pick up the next king novel, which you will enjoy, because he will meet your expectations rather than challenging them. however, i think it would be excellent for you to let lax your preconceptions and opinions, and put much effort into this amazing text, and to decolonize your "STORY" and "center" and "point/moral" and enlightenment" obsessed mind by combatting this text.Book Review: :/
Summary: 3 Stars
It was odd..... very odd....
Couldnt stand the footnotes by that johnny guy though