Post of Leaves

[spectralbovine]

Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves is a tour de force achievement in postmodern narrative deconstruction. While marketed as a horror novel, its true appeal comes from its multilayered story, which, Russian doll-style, compacts no fewer than five layers of narrative. [1] At the center is the story of Will Navidson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning

Comments

[sainfoin_fields]

So, should wimpy people such as myself read it?

[spectralbovine]

Yes, it builds character.

[spectralbovine]

Also, it's much more readable than I expected. Don't be intimidated!

[cerulgalactus]

Your entry is possibly the best House review I have ever read. Well done1

1
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX totally incandescent XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX freedom XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Guernica.2

2 This, and the following 4 pages of footnotes were scrawled over with black Sharpie.

[spectralbovine]

Thank you!1

1Did you catch your shout-out?

[cerulgalactus]

I did indeed. Reminds me of that time Lude and I hit up an all nighter in the valley. I thought I saw Thumper there too, but it turns out it was just this washed up ex-junkie, didn't even catch her name. Didn't want to. Spent the whole night shying away from shadows and watching Lude hit on this obviously under aged German girl. I think he left with her 2 or three days into the shindig and really, at that point I was not doing all that good. I think I might have even blacked out at one point, because I came too laying in some strange bedroom, pants in a ball on the floor, next to the same girl Lude was trying to hit on. Don't think we did anything sexual though, her underwear was still on. I woke her up and she begged me for a ride home...well, to the hotel she was staying at in the City. I was right, she told me she was only 16. So, I think that not hitting on her was a good thing. Not that I am in any real shape to do anything like that. Not even with Thumper.

You need your brain to function before you can have fun.

[spectralbovine]

Come back when you've processed it all.

[beeker121]

That book scared the hell out of me. I ended up being unable to sleep for two nights while they were climbing into the infinite room and had to put it down. A few weeks later I picked it up to finish, but the immediacy was gone so I was able to finish and sleep.

This is an awesome review.

[spectralbovine]

I read a lot of it in bed before going to sleep; I thought it seemed appropriate. And it was always really quiet, and my closet door was slightly ajar, and yeah. It didn't really scare me, per se, but the descriptions of the house were just so unfathomably fathomable. Like I said, if you get into it, it gets into you just a little bit.

And I'm pretty proud of this review, thanks. I had a lot of fun. It's been eight years; I'm sure I'm not the first person to do one like this. But...I still think mine is pretty awesome anyway.

[beeker121]

I was reading it at home in WI. Our house is over 100 years old - the stairs to the main attic are on the other side of one wall and the little attic storage space is just off the room next to mine. There were way too many creaks and groans for comfort.

[gymble]

a) Your review rocks.

b) I really hated this book. I found the third person description of the House completely sucked the life out of what might have been a good horror story. For one thing, the entire premise that someone made a film about this House, but then had other people analyze it - nominally a real event - as if it were just some piece of fiction absurd. It pushed me away rather than drawing me in. The typesetting, the endless footnotes, etc. just felt pretentious and annoying. I kept looking for something more, some point, and never found it.

[spectralbovine]

a) Thanks. I got a real kick out of it. I want more people to see it!

b) See, I loved that. Because of course it was absurd. You didn't appreciate the satire? I mean, the media saturation this thing apparently had was just off the charts of sensibility. Yet, pretending it was real made me attempt to think it was real, how it would really work, which was fun. I do think it would have made a good horror story in and of itself, but I found this approach to it absolutely fascinating. I mean, I never would have thought that a description of a film I've never seen would be such a good read. (Unless it's a TWoP recap, right? Heh.) And I especially loved the way the typesetting mimicked the story, like with the labyrinth chapter: when that light bulb went off in my head, it was so cool. (And that chapter is stupid hilarious because the way he pulls it off is to fill up all the space with pointlessly long lists.) And then in scenes where text goes up and down and all around and gets compressed, it all helped me get into the scene and feel

[gymble]

You didn't appreciate the satire?
I guess, no? It was the kind of book where I could see someone who's had to read a lot literary analysis appreciating, but personally I just found it annoying. I know that some of the tricks were meant to pull people in, but I thought it was just dumb and ended up obscuring the actual story.

[spectralbovine]

someone who's had to read a lot literary analysis
Like, for instance, an English major? ;-}