House of Leaves

I heard good reports about this book by Mark Danielewski and found it in a used bookstore, put it on the shelf at home with about three hundred other unreads. I looked at it yesterday, and…good heavens, but it is…opaque! I think I would have to devote at least a week to working my way through it, and I need to ask…is it worth it?

Have you read it? The reviews and the back-cover blurbs are ecstatic about it, but I have seen this before with books that only a dedicated English professor could enjoy. Or a masochist.

It’s wild. If you like mindfuck books, it’s definitely that. I dug it, but not enough to keep it around after I finished it.

It’s bloody brilliant. I loved it.

To really get into it, you can also pick up Poe’s album Haunted (Poe is Danielowski’s sister) to listen to while you read.

Is yours in full color, in House blue, or only greyscale?

So amazing. Perfect mindfuck.

Uhh, grayscale. Right now my mind is saying “Hey, I’m not that kind of mind! At least not without dinner and a movie first!”

It sounds and looks…challenging. Would the use of certain… illegal in most states… substances… be of assistance in plumbing its depths?

Make sure they’re all still there. Have any moved?

He might want to measure the shelf too, while he’s checking. :smiley:

Actually, as much as I am in favor (sadly hypothetically only) of certain regionally disallowed substances, I really think they would be a serious disadvantage to this particular experience.

  1. I needed all my braincells to stay ahead of the game in the book - there’s codes and references and callbacks all through (don’t skip the footnotes!)

  2. There are some legit creepy and mind-twisty bits that I think reading while altered would have put me screaming into a straitjacket.

(Seriously tho - don’t read it late at night while listening to the Haunted album while you’re home alone, unless you *really like *that sort of feeling.)

You dont’ read House of Leaves so much as inhabit it. It’s a masterful example of ergodic literature.

It was hit or miss with me. It enjoyed it more after I decided I didn’t have to read everything, the footnotes are important but there is tons of extraneous flavor that isn’t vital to the story.

It wasn’t a quick read, but there were powerfully scary moments that made it all worthwhile.

:smiley: Yeah, it only got to about second base with me, which is my way of saying I didn’t care for it. It’s been a while, but I recall it as gimmicky and a lot of hard work for insufficient payoff.

Of course, I generally see myself as the board representative for the common dumbasses.

Oh, come on, you know that’s not true. You’re quite an uncommon dumbass.

Just kiddin’ Ms. Beetle, I really luvs ya.

Duh…thanks! :slight_smile:

House of Leaves is one of my favorite modern horror books. I also recommend listening to Poe’s Haunted album to enhance the flavor. Too bad you don’t have the full-color version, but that’s OK. It’s not essential to have the color.

Hey pretty… yeah I reccomend Poe with or without the book. The footnotes/side story was just distraction like a note of comedy in a horror movie to lighten it. If he had doubled down on the crazy and gone all in with an equally bizzare side story it would be great and not just really good. Still quite creepy.

Not that parts of the side story weren’t good and with some enhancement value.

I’ve seen it categorized as post-modern, but I normally *loathe *post-modern literature, and I really enjoyed this. I’ve actually got it on my night stand, awaiting a re-read.

To me, it was the perfect blend of genuinely creepy, quirky, and dark-humored to make an investment in reading it worthwhile. I didn’t try to make sense of it, though, just went along for the ride and tried to figure out puzzles if I felt like it. There’s one section (a footnote?) that just lists like 1,000 girls’ names or something, and I happily skipped the remainder once I figured that out. I don’t think you have to pick every available challenge apart to enjoy it.

Agreed with discouraging recreational substances while reading the book - it’s quite the mindfuck in places. I enjoyed it tremendously, and re-read parts now and then.

,¡ǝpɐɔǝp sᴉɥʇ ʇoN ¡ǝdou ˙˙˙ɯɯH, ʇɥƃnoɥʇ puɐ 'ʇᴉ pǝʞɔɐɹɔ 'oƃɐ sɹɐǝʎ ʇᴉ ʇɥƃnoq I

Someone needs to make a really good Kindle edition. Like keeping the stylistic twists, but changing them so that they make more (less) sense in an ebook.

It’s in your cite, so I’m going to ask you to explain it:

“If ergodic literature is to make sense as a concept, there must also be nonergodic literature, where the effort to traverse the text is trivial, with no extranoematic responsibilities placed on the reader except (for example) eye movement and the periodic or arbitrary turning of pages.” (italics mine)

What does the “periodic or arbitrary turning of pages” mean? This definition was made by an imbecile.

Spoilers apply, I guess?

In House of Leaves, the author plays with your expectations on how to read a book. Inside of going left to right, you sometimes have to skip many pages or only read certain sections on a page after going to the next only to have to backtrack to maintain a cohesive narrative. Moreover, the words sometimes spiral into a page and then spiral out of the back and then meander around the page without rhyme or reason. The point is reading the book is like a labyrinth and it’s meant to disorient you the way the characters in the book are disoriented.

The author also does similar, but not quite the same, things in his book Revolution

Not merely one of my favorite books, but one of my favorite examples of really conceptual art, period.

Danielewski does an amazing job of balancing different tones and voices throughout the book, and the various narratives weave around each other fascinatingly. Extremely good, and, in my opinion, extremely readable. It’s dense and opaque to a degree, but he’s not trying to run you off.

Some parts were amazing. Some parts were tedious. I’m glad I read it and would recommend it but I gave it to somebody else.