Review : House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
Pages : 705
Genre : Horror?
Stand alone
My Rating : 3… 4… 5?/5
About the Book :
Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story—of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.
My Thoughts :
I spent two years saying “I’ll read it soon!”, and then, I finally did it.
I read House of Leaves.
And it was such a unique experience. Not unlike trying to find your way on your first day to Hogwarts.
Except worst.
When reading it, I wrote on Instagram :
Reading House of Leaves is such an experience; there’s text flying this and that way, footnotes to the footnotes’ footnotes, stories inside stories, and so on. I’m using 3 bookmarks and I keep Google in proximity. It feels a bit like being back in school, except I don’t understand what I’m doing. Hmmm.
While some pages of the books are in regular format, this is just a taste of some of the craziest pages in the book!
House of Leaves is, as the synopsis promises, the story of a couple who finds out their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside – and a lot bigger. When they step through a magically-appearing door, they find corridors that stretch in every direction, rooms without light and a staircase that changes shape as needed. They experience a confusing exploration of this surreal architecture, and as they do, so do we.
House of Leaves is written and arranged to reflect the characters mystifying adventure. The first story reads like a non-fiction report on a documentary about the house. This is parallel to the story of Truant, who first found the report and annotated it not only with relevant thoughts, but also with long slices of story about his life. Whether this story is relevant or not to the story of the house, well, it’s all a matter of interpretation!
My favorite part was definitely when the pages started to go into the craziest directions. I don’t want to spoil too much; but at some point, the text moves to mimic the adventure; pages upside down, pages with only a couple words, etc. You have to turn the book this and that way, and it’s just so much fun!
I’d been told House of Leaves was scary and very unsettling, and personally, I can’t say this is what I mostly got from it. I did find the idea of exploring this house very troubling; but more than that, I was confused, curious, intrigued, and completely mixed in my emotions. Once I closed the book, I noted on Goodreads :
House of Leaves is such a different experience that it is hard – almost impossible – to come up with thoughts and a rating. I loved parts of it and didn’t care about others; blown away and entertained, then completely bored. But, it was certainly different!
Two weeks later, I stand by these comments. I had a great time reading it, investigating it, flipping back and forth between pages and questioning Google every other page. But for me, this was a challenging reading adventure I can now cross off some imaginary “to do list”. There are forums dedicated to what does this mean???, and they’re certainly entertaining, but I don’t think I would be up to rereading it and analysing it! Reading more by the author though? Absolutely. This was entertainment in its most extreme form and I had a blast giving it a try!
I read House of Leaves for the RIP challenge, and I definitely recommend it. There’s a feel of both old horror to it but also something more contemporary (think Blair Witch or Paranormal Activity, but on paper). It’s unique, that’s for sure, and perfect to read on these dark nights of the fall season.
I tried to read House of Leaves years ago and gave up about 3/4 through. Just not for me. Glad you enjoyed it, though, you almost make me want to try again. Almost.
I get it! I almost gave up in a few places too. It’s not for everyone and I think you have to be in the right frame of mind, too (after all, I did try to read it twice before, without success…)
Whoa. What is going on on that page you posted? Eep! It’s making me dizzy! And haha, I’m usually happy to google things while reading because it means I might be learning new things but this sounds really intense!
Yes, this part was crazy! There’s tons of pages where you have to turn the book this and that way to be able to read. It’s fun but the book is on the heavy page, so it counts as exercise too… right?!?
And I love having to google too for the same reason!