"I think anyone that deals with big questions could be defined as a horror writer. If you're Melville, if you're Hawthorne, if you're Emily Dickinson. If you're Nietzsche...and I name those names not to put myself in their company — I'm just saying that you can pick a diverse range of writers who, if they really approach the deeper questions...are ultimately going to unveil something that's terrifying. "- Mark Z. Danielewski
For the first time ever I will be reviewing a novel, but not just any novel, mind you. I will be reviewing Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves. House of Leaves is a gargantuan book that follows multiple different storylines and perspectives. This is a novel best read if you go in completely blind. You are still more than welcome to read my thoughts on it, but if you plan on reading the novel for yourself, it's likely best you do so first and then return to read my thoughts once you complete it.
Johnny Truant, a Hollywood tattoo artist/delinquent in his 20s, stumbles across a mysterious unfinished manuscript in a dead man's apartment (The man was named Zampano, he was blind, and it appears he might have been murdered by some 'THING'). Johnny takes the manuscript home with him and begins to investigate. He discovers it's entitled 'The Navidson Record', and acts as an analysis and re-telling of a documentary (also titled 'The Navidson Record'). The only issue is that said documentary doesn't exist, or did exist for some point until, somehow, all traces of it vanished.
'The Navidson Record' tells the story of Will Navidson (an award-winning photographer) his wife Karen (who somewhat lives up to her name), and their children. The Navidson's marriage has been going through a rough patch, and so Navy (as Will is nicknamed) decides to move them into 'The House on Ash Tree Lane', which is situated in a typical suburb. Once settled in, they discover that the house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside by 1/4 inch. Navy's curiosity gets the better of him, and he sets up multiple cameras inside the house. When a door randomly appears in the living room, Navy discovers that it leads into a hallway and the dark ever shifting/changing bowels of the house. A documentary crew is hired to help further investigate. Naturally, things don't go well. Meanwhile, Johnny adopts the same obsession that afflicted Navy as he delves deeper into 'The Navidson Record' and attempts to uncover the truth for himself.
House of Leaves is likely my favorite novel I have ever read, and I adore how it DEMANDS an active participation/form of play/form of creative play with it (The book even provides some empty lines here and there for you to share your own thoughts or notes as you read). House of Leaves deals heavily with themes of insanity/mental illness, how does one differentiate between reality and fiction/a fake vs. the real deal, the blurring of the fine line between reality and fiction, love/relationships, the relationship between a reader and a book, obsession, possession/ownership, how critique and analysis are futile and meaningless ( same goes for the search for answers), trauma, grief, loss, and the question of authorship. House of Leaves also acts as a stinging critique of scholarly analysis/academic criticism (There are many reference sources found in the footnotes, some real, some fictional. There is also a portion where fictional quotes are attributed to real-life people, like Stephen King, for example.).
House of Leaves itself is a love letter to the written word and its many forms, as well as a horror novel (Some claim it is a love story, and they aren't wrong. Love acts as an undercurrent in the multiple storylines found within). After reading it, I can say it's one of the few books that feels absolutely alive (like it's a living thing) and it's the only book that succeeded in inducing a sense of vertigo, dizziness and disorientation in me. There is a chapter (that I call 'The Labyrinth') that, if you don't read it carefully and with purpose, will likely lead you back in a loop to the beginning of said chapter. This is exactly what happened to me during my first attempt at reading House of Leaves. I almost threw the book across the room, and ended up having to put it down for quite some time before finally deciding to pick it up and try to complete it once more. It would end up taking me a total of six months or longer to finish the entire book.
There's a chapter near the end (which I call Exploration #5), which requires the reader to flip/rotate the book left, right, sideways, and upside-down. In this chapter, text is read left-to-right, right-to-left, ascending up the page, and descending down the page. There are even times where the text only occupies corners of the page. It was here that I completely forgot if I was reading House of Leaves front-to-back or back-to-front, or if I was holding the book right-side-up or upside-down. I had to leave the book for five minutes and take a walk around my house to reacclimate myself with my surroundings.
House of Leaves is written like a college thesis/academic dissertation, complete with copious footnotes and citations by Zampano, Johnny, and the editors of the novel ( From what I was able to uncover online, there might be as many as 450 footnotes, if not more). House of Leaves starts out like reading The Blair Witch Project, before it eventually morphs into something else entirely. While House of Leaves is clearly a work of fiction, it is written in such a way that it all feels real. Indeed, after a while I started to view it as a work of non-fiction, and the book works better when read as such. While you play with/read House of Leaves, House of Leaves plays with/reads you (There is a lot of mind-fuckery that goes on in the book). It's simply written so anyone can pick it up, but it's the content and way it's structured that is dizzying and challenging.
The novel, much like 'The House on Ash Tree Lane', is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. The contents expand past the cover of the book. If you peek at the page numbers, you will see that the story content seems to end around page 528, however there are numerous 'Exhibits' after that the footnotes will direct you to ((If you include these, the page count soars to a total of 662 pages. Make that 709 pages if you count the index at the end as well). As you read, you realize there are pages that are missing or torn out, and by the time you finish flipping back and forth through the novel, the actual page count clocks in at far more than 528 pages (likely far more than 709 pages as well). As if all this weren't enough material to investigate, recording artist Poe (Danielewski's younger sister) recorded an entire album of songs about House of Leaves that acts as supplementary material.
House of Leaves delights in teasing the reader, as it is revealed early on that Johnny has taken it upon himself to add material into the story, oftentimes without indication that said material was added after the fact. This makes it impossible to tell what parts of 'The Navidson Record' were written by Zampano and which parts were added later by Johnny. There's also the haunting implication that the entirety of House of Leaves might have been written by Truant himself. If true, then that would mean Zampano, as well as the contents of 'The Navidson Record', were all created by Johnny (If so, then Johnny is one hell of an incredible writer).
There are some cool artistic decisions made throughout House of Leaves. Examples include: Every time the word 'house' appears it is highlighted in blue (including when it appears in different languages), some portions of text are highlighted in red, and still others are crossed out entirely (yet can still be easily read if one desires to do so). Numerous different fonts/typeface are utilized throughout as well. There are also numerous references and allusions to King Mino's labyrinth and the minotaur that lies in the center of it. There's the terrifying implication that that same minotaur lies at the heart of 'The House on Ash Tree Lane' (either that, or the random groaning/noises heard within the house, that are attributed to the creature, are actually just the sounds the house makes whenever it shifts or changes). House of Leaves is certainly a challenging novel, but it does subtly provide directions on how to read it's contents. It helps if you follow said directions.
Mark Z. Danielewski first came up with the central idea for House of Leaves in 1993. In 1997, he posted the entirety of House of Leaves online as a pdf file. It took two and a half years to publish the novel, which could finally be found on bookshelves in March, 2000. House of Leaves is definitely a rewarding read that leaves you with quite a lot to chew on. It's hard not to become obsessed like Johnny and Navy as you venture into the labyrinth that is House of Leaves (Thusly, finding oneself lost or disoriented while reading is to be expected.). House of Leaves is practically bursting with mysteries, all of which have no ready answer/solution except that which the reader prescribes to them. I can understand why some don't care for it, but I consider House of Leaves a masterpiece. It's a towering, impressive achievement and remains one of (if not THE) most wildly ambitious novels I have ever read.
5 STARS
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