House of Leaves : A novel

Rating:
Summary: The book that took over my life.
Review: Mark Z. Danielewski's novel (if you wish to label it so) is a work of utter genius. His account is steeped in academia, horror and gritty street life, with each feature perfectly realized. Nothing falls by the wayside in this book, and it is never difficult to keep up with the dual narrative. Many of Danielewski's conventions are as old as literature itself (colored text, interesting placement on the page, the false manuscript) but they have never been used as effectively before now. The claustrophobia that danielewski induces in his writing is matched with the increasingly shrinking text on the page.
In the beginning of this book his street-kid-cum-editor, Johnny Truant warns that "This book is not for you."
One suspects that Truant airs his warning not becuase this book has ruined his life, more becuase it is his personal find, a thing of beauty unseen by the masses. And, like some guy who listened to Radiohead long before they were lauded as the best band ever, he is reluctant to share his secret love with the rest of the world.

Rating:
Summary: Amazed...
Review: For anyone who has ever listened to Danielewski's sister Poe, and been completely enthralled by her music, this book will surely lead you to discover that talent does run in the family. Danielewski parallels Poe's ability to draw in and captivate the audience with wonderfully beautiful and chilling language that is set to a rhythm and pace which will only suck you in further. Don't be surprised if you sit down intending to read for an hour or so and snap out of the book to realize that you have been in there for hours. His control of the English language is beautiful, haunting, and classic. I feel like it is beginning to sound cliche to label it Nabokovian, only because he captures something that Nabokov himself never really did for me. Truly stunning.

Rating:
Summary: The story was OK when you could get to it.
Review: This book is one of those books that were made with college kids who like to pretend they're deep in mind.

It's a story about a famous photographer by the name of navidson who has recently moved into a posessed, evil house and is making a documentary of it.

no wait... it's a story about Johnny Truant, who found the transcripts of a review of this documentary.

no wait... it's about Zampano who wrote that review.

who knows what it's about. When this book isn't going off on one of it's 28 storylines, only one of which is really even slightly interesting, it's going on one of hundreds of barely-related tangents, for example telling you page upon page about the etymology of the word "echo" and making you read it upside down, inside out and squished on the corner of the page.

If that's not enough of an annoyance, you'll find yourself flipping to various appendices when prompted to. Sometimes these excursions to the back of the book prove useful and develop a character (like the letters from Johnny's mom), but most aren't that useful and just waste yet more of your time.

When you actually got to it, the Navidson storyline with the house was actually pretty good and scary. I don't doubt Danielewski has the talent to write some exceptional books in the future, I just hope he doesn't rely on silly typography tricks in later books.

This book is a classic example of people mistaking "different" for "good".

Rating:
Summary: [.......................]
Review: I read this in a week. Then I read it again. There is so much in this one book, from the non-existent documentary to the letters of a schizophrenic, the whole thing is laid out in a way I still haven't fully comprehended.

But what really impressed me was the narrative flow. I can't remember one slow moment in all 709 pages. The story, whether Zampano's manuscript or Johnny Truant's asides, never ceases to be engaging. Not even the scatological type setting detracts from this, if anything it adds to both the narrative and the imagery.

A word of warning though: This book is not going to be for everyone. Unless you're already familiar with the use of footnotes in a work of fiction (e.g. David Foster Wallace) this can be confusing at first. Also, for whatever reason, this book is very unnerving. It has a way of getting inside your head if you let it...

Rating:
Summary: simply gimmicky... there are better ways to spend your time
Review: I unfortunatly read this book a few years back based on a few friends praises, which I later realized were based mostly on the type setting. I for a long time thought this was another case of a meaningless novel being touted based on a few gimmicks, some of which I found quite interesting, but despite the fact that the narrator repeatedly says the book will change your life, you can never quite figure out why. The book seemed like an poorly concieved horror novel, with no real feeling, written by an author with a flare for game-playing. In short, i didn't really take it seriously.

I have recently found out that the book is actually far worse than what I originally thought. I learned this based on the fact I discovered the writings of Jorge Luis Borges and Umberto Eco. For those who haven't read these two authors, Jorge Luis Borges is rightfully considered one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, and has been called the greatest writer in the Spanish language since Cervantes. He wrote many many things (though never a novel) about the abundance of human learning, the maze of meanings, eternity, infinity, identity, and life, his favorite metaphor was that of the Labrynth. One can see through 'House of Leaves' use of this metaphor that the writer was no stranger to Borges' writings... or perhaps he was.... I've become mostly convinced of this since I began reading Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose," Eco is a very intelligent scholar, also obsessed with the complexity of meaning, and an admirer of Borges. His book "The Name fo the Rose" was largly inspired by Borgesian themes, and is an intelligent investigation of those themes. The book was also ripped off front to back in House of Leaves. The books are both fictions of discovered texts that inspire a writer to investigate a story that alludes them (the language is almost the same in some places), the manuscripts all base on trying to investigate a mystery at the center of which is a labrynth that inspires people to murder.

The largest difference between "The Name of the Rose" and "House of Leaves" is the noticable lack of content in "House of Leaves." Whereas in "The Name of the Rose," people are always discussing some aspect of knowledge, and the overall plot forwards the basic thematic core of the book, "House of Leaves" fails to develop a thematic core that is any deeper than the typesetting.

Borges often put forward the basic rule that he followed in his writing, that he never let the form get in the way of the thought behind it. I don't believe that House of Leaves is inspired by Borges because it does the exact opposite.

Simply my suggestion is that if you haven't read Borges, you do so before House of Leaves. Borges is much easier reading, and you will get a lot more out of it.
And anyone who has read Borges should know that there are a million things that need to be read before this book

Rating:
Summary: Like a shutter, Tom's fingertips were gone
Review: If this is the best horror novel you've read in years... you haven't read many horror novels.

Most of the previous reviews bring up good points about the text. The primary rule is not to go in expecting much. If you come from a curious, persistent*, and casual frame of mind, this book will satisfy you deeply.

To have CRAFTED such a work speaks to the author's tremendous talent, but even this is diminished by the fact that so little of the material that doesn't tie directly into the narrative (i.e., footnotes, especially those which DNE) adds anything to the reader's grasp of the story as a whole.

One neat gimmick that I haven't seen mentioned in any reviews is the self-referentiality of the book, particularly as it relates to Navidson's reading of it. Things such as this really underpin the book and make it interesting throughout, which is why I thought I'd mention

*you really don't have to be that persistent to read the book. Upon surveying it briefly in the bookstores, I was somewhat put off by the bizarre typesetting. These are not as confusing as one first imagines, and do add quite a bit to the flavor of the book - it's one of few I've seen that uses form so extensively to add meaning.

So, I after recalling these things, I almost feel unjust in giving 3 of 5 stars, but when compared to the bulk of books of significance I've read lately, HOL falls a bit short.

Nevertheless, to end on a high note, I would recommend this to anyone who has found themselves intrigued by perusing this volume. It is accessible, it is refreshing, and it is merit-worthy.

Rating:
Summary: about half worth reading
Review: House of Leaves is not a horror novel. It's a work of literary fiction pretending to be a part of a different genre. I suspect it's a cheap marketing ploy. It gets a three star rating from me because about half of it is good stuff. Unfortunately, you have to slog through the rest to read the good half, because it's a discontiguous fifty percent.

I think the real problem i have with this book is the masquerade of it's being experimental. It's not. Postmodern writers have been doing this kind of thing for almost two generations. It's unconventional at best, and, depending on how kind you're feeling, an interesting pastiche or verging on plagiarism of the work of dozens of other, better writers. If you haven't read Pale Fire, The Garden of Forking Paths, 100 Years of Solitude, The Crying of Lot 49, Goodbye Columbus, Infinite Jest, or White Noise, you probably would be better reading those than this. If you have read them, that is, if you're a fan of the literary fiction genre, House of Leaves will probably just let you down like it let me down.