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House of Leaves

by Mark Z. Danielewski (Goodreads Author)

4.14 · Rating Details · 81,718 Ratings · 7,614 Reviews

A blind old man, a young apprentice working in a tattoo shop, and a mad woman haunting an Ohio institute narrate this story of a family that encounters an endlessly shifting series of hallways in their new home, eventually coming face to face with the awful darkness lying at its heart.

Paperback, 705 pages

Published March 7th 2000 by Random House (first published 2000)

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Community Reviews

(showing 1-30)

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Dec 04, 2013 Mickey rated it it was ok

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I wish there were someway that a sigh could count as a book review.

House of Leaves is a really, really damn good story. It's about a guy named Johnny Truant who finds a manuscript in a dead man's apartment. Said manuscript is entitled the Navidson Record. It's essentially a dissertation on a documentary of the same name, by and about a man named Will Navidson and his family. Navidson lives in a house that is larger on the inside than it is on the outside, sometimes only a small fraction of an in I wish there were someway that a sigh could count as a book review.

House of Leaves is a really, really damn good story. It's about a guy named Johnny Truant who finds a manuscript in a dead man's apartment. Said manuscript is entitled the Navidson Record. It's essentially a dissertation on a documentary of the same name, by and about a man named Will Navidson and his family. Navidson lives in a house that is larger on the inside than it is on the outside, sometimes only a small fraction of an inch larger, sometimes miles.
After a quick bit of research Johnny figures out that the Navidson Record, and pretty much everything related to it, does not exist. Johnny becomes obsessed with the whole thing and it drives him crazy.

I think it's a really great story. However, House of Leaves is the perfect definition of bullshit.

You see, it's got an experimental narrative. People will tell you that it's hard to follow, but those are probably the same people who told you that the Matrix required multiple viewings to understand. The book is written by a fictional character named Zampano, he is the dead man I mentioned above in my synopsis of the story. Johnny Truant, who is more or less the books protagonist, chimes in via an introduction and constant foot notations that he's added to Zampano's work. Most of his foot notes however meander off into him rambling about things that have happened to him in his day to day life (mostly fucking a million super hot babes). It should also be noted that the Zampano character has made a retarded amount of foot notes. See, not that complicated.
What really got my goat here is all the goddamn, cutesy little "look how clever I am I"/"I'm a major in art and a minor in lit" bullshit. It starts off simple enough with that kind of stuff. Every time the word "house" comes up the text is blue, no matter what language (and there are several), no matter what. That's a kind of cool little thing, I'm ok with that, but then Danielewski decides that he's going to masturbate from page 119 to page 709. There are annoying text blocking boxes in the middle of about thirty pages that contain text in them that is so clipped and cut off that you can't read it. You have to turn the page sideways and upside down continuously for hundred page stretches at a time, and these pages tend to have a small paragraph at the very best (often times only one or two words), making you flip through the pages very fast. There are footnotes all over the fucking pages making it a big pain in the ass to know what you are supposed to be reading and in what order. Then at the end he has the fucking gall to imply that there are hidden messages encoded throughout the book and you should go back and find them. It is a seriously frustrating book to read.

There is no doubt that House of Leaves is extremely clever, and it's undoubtedly the most exhaustive work of fiction I have ever read. The foot notes alone, which I gather are 98% referencing material that does not really exist, are impressive. Danielewski really worked his ass off on this and it shows. I respect House of Leaves, I cannot stress how much I loved the story, but I pretty much hate the book.

This book looks at you with this smug fucking smile on it's face, daring you to say that you don't like it, knowing that masses of people are going to go along with it because they don't want to look stupid. That's what this is. It's the fucking Radiohead of books. Well, House of Leaves, I am not stupid and I'm calling your bullshit. Fuck you. ...more

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Jun 23, 2007 Jake Thomas rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: Ambitious enjoyment-seekers

So there's a definite cult around this book, and I am one of the many who drank the Kool-Aide and never looked back.

Here's a little anecdote that speaks to the possibilities of this book:

I was an RA my junior and senior years of college. One year I had a good friend of mine living in my building, and upon one of her visits to my room I put The House of Leaves in her hand, telling her that she should read it. A couple of days later I was in my room, awake at some unholy hour due to my vampiric s So there's a definite cult around this book, and I am one of the many who drank the Kool-Aide and never looked back.

Here's a little anecdote that speaks to the possibilities of this book:

I was an RA my junior and senior years of college. One year I had a good friend of mine living in my building, and upon one of her visits to my room I put The House of Leaves in her hand, telling her that she should read it. A couple of days later I was in my room, awake at some unholy hour due to my vampiric sleep schedule, and there's a knock at my door. As an RA this is a rather unsettling experience. On the other side of that door could be a drug overdose, suicide attempt, food poisoning or any other host of problems we're warned about as RAs. So tentatively I open the door and am relieved to find that it is not some horrific medical emergency, but simply my friend. Except my friend looks haggard. Her hair is unkempt, there are bags under her eyes and she is slouched forward, breaking her usually quite nice posture. In her hand is The House of Leaves. We stand there, silently measuring each other up, and then my friend rears back and throws the book at me, then walks away. Such behavior is not terribly unusual for this friend of mine, so I make a note to ask about this later and then go back to bed.

The next day I call up my friend and ask her what exactly was the deal. "I hadn't slept in two days," she said. "That damn book kept me awake. I couldn't finish it, I couldn't sleep with it in the room, I had to get rid of it. That book fucked me up." To this day she still can't bring herself to finish reading the book. And so.

The book has an amazing way of crawling beneath your skin and taking root. When I read it my sleep schedule, already astoundingly bad, became even more irregular and bizarro. I started looking at things differently. The world changed. Not in any big way, but there was a definite shift, and that's the way this book works. It comes at you sideways. People who just see it as a gimmick, in my opinion, are trying to hit the book straight on when you just have to give into it. It's like music, which isn't surprising seeing as how Mark Z. Danielewski's sister is the recording artist Poe, who came up with her album Haunted in tandem with Danielewski's writing of House of Leaves.

There are sections of this book I found so surprising and affecting that I had to put it down and give myself a minute to take in what I'd read and go over it in my mind. Every person I've ever met who has read this book has had something to say about it, something more personal than just "Oh yeah, I liked that," or "It's overhyped." There's a visceral reaction this book can elicit, and I find that fascinating.

I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday and she mentioned something David Mamet said once, something along the lines of "When you leave the theater wanting to discuss the play, that's a good play. When you leave the theater wanting to discuss your life and the world, that's art." I like that definition, and I think it applies to House of Leaves. Conversations about this book never stay on the book, they branch out into other areas and interests, they can't help but grow longer and deeper, not entirely unlike a five minute hallway. ...more

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Jan 08, 2013 Wil Wheaton rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: horror

If you want a really good, insightful review of House of Leaves (that I didn't write), go read this one from Aerin.

If you want to read mine, here you go:

House of Leaves isn't one of those tidy little things that holds your hand and wipes your bottom and tells you that you're special. It makes you work, and what you get out of it depends largely on how much work you're willing to do. House of Leaves is difficult at times, incredibly complex, occasionally pretentious, and (view spoiler) ...more

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Jul 07, 2016 Catriona (LittleBookOwl) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: owned

4.5/5 stars!
I plan to do a video review of this soon, so look forward to that :)

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Oct 19, 2009 Kim rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: the sick and twisted and loving it...

Recommended to Kim by: Michelle, tadpole, Gary

Shelves: contemporary, holy-shit

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Mar 02, 2012 Shovelmonkey1 rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: people who want to find their literary Everest

Recommended to Shovelmonkey1 by: 1001 books list and an alleged cult following

Shelves: 1001-books, bookcrossing-books, kitten-squishers, arty-farty, you-are-twisting-my-melon-man

This is not for you....

Or maybe it is.

House of Leaves is not an easy book to read. It will not only challenge your ability to hold a weighty tome at numerous different angles for prolonged periods of time as you endeavour to read text which is upside down, back to front and shoots vertically or diagonally up and down the page, but it will challenge your idea of what a novel is and how a novel should be presented.

Normally I like to try and keep my reviews short. None of you (this is an assumpt ...more

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Nov 27, 2007 Cloudhidden rated it did not like it

Recommends it for: no one

Looking for a spooky book to read around Halloween I was recommended this book by several others on a message board I frequent. Quite a few people mentioned its brilliance and the fear it put in them.

After reading it I could not disagree more.

The story is this: a family moves into a home and begins noticing physical features of their house changing. They begin to investigate, which leads to a new doorway and hall appearing where there was not one. The husband, being a world class explorer and f Looking for a spooky book to read around Halloween I was recommended this book by several others on a message board I frequent. Quite a few people mentioned its brilliance and the fear it put in them.

After reading it I could not disagree more.

The story is this: a family moves into a home and begins noticing physical features of their house changing. They begin to investigate, which leads to a new doorway and hall appearing where there was not one. The husband, being a world class explorer and filmographer decides to document the new house and in doing so creates a documentary, ala "The Blair Witch Project." But the book has a couple stories within the story. It is written from the point of view of some young slacker who breaks into this dead old man's house and takes the notes for a book the old dude is writing. The book and all of these notes are his reactions to watching the documentary film.

The old man's ramblings reads like a textbook, replete with tons of footnotes, fake references, poems, rantings. But we don't get to just read his reaction, or simply walk through the documentary, we have to suffer through the slacker's constant juvenile side stories and craziness.

The premise is brilliant, and flipping through the book the first time, I was pumped at the prospect of the book. The effort Daniel put into this book is exhausting to say the least. This had to have taken countless hours for the detail to all of the fake references, quotes, drawings, and footnotes, but sadly at the center is a stupid story that goes no where.

I was never scared, but rather annoyed. NOTHING seems to happen. And as soon as the story begins to move, we get a long winded worthless conversation from our main character.

Nothing is ever explained, nor finalized. This is seriously one of the most boring, meandering, monotonous books I have read.

While reading the book I found a message board dedicated to the book and its absolute greatness. It took all I had not to log in and question the taste and objectivity of these people, but if they like it, who am I to pee on them.

I do not recommend this book, but if you do read it and turn out to enjoy it, please enlighten me as to what I missed as I fought falling asleep reading these boring passages. ...more

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Feb 18, 2013 Paul Bryant rated it liked it

Recommends it for: post modern horror fans

Shelves: really-big-timeconsumers, novels

It's like one of those very psychedelic albums from the late sixties, where they do all those funny stereo effects, and all that phasing or whatever it was called - all great fun but you still had to have good songs. As you'll know by now, "House of Leaves" has more tricks up its sleeve than you can shake Jacques Derrida at, but not enough tunes. There are two stories. One's about this, you know, uh, what can I say - house. Okay, all right, it's about the story of the book about the film about ...more

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Dec 20, 2012 April rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, horror, favourites, loved

"This is not for you."

*this will not follow the kind of reviews I usually do, so be prepared for a conglomerate of quotes, self-taken photos and annoying html text. Also this is quite long.

All right so not only was I completely mind-blown by this book, I was also overjoyed with the fact that I actually had an excuse to use my page markers! (I had orange for quotes, pink for ideas/concepts/points in story, green for layout/codes and yellow for footnotes and references as I'm sure you all wanted t ...more

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Sep 19, 2010 Stephen M rated it really liked it

Shelves: metafictive-madness, i-dont-even, sleep-with-the-light-on, the-megha-novel

I think this just about sums it up:

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Aug 11, 2016 Dan Porter added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010

I finished House of Leaves. A synopsis of the book - if such a thing were actually possible - might go something like this: This is the story of the assembly by one man, of the notes of another man, written on random bits of paper into a review of a movie - actually a documentary film - and the scholarly research spawned by the film. The film is about a house owned by the photojournalist who created the documentary. Or is it the house that owns him...and his family? Writing a review of this book ...more

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Mar 01, 2015 Kelly (and the Book Boar) rated it liked it

Shelves: read-in-2013, liburrrrrry-book

Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/

3.5 Stars

Are you looking for a book with a plotline a little something like this????

If so, House of Leaves might be right up your alley.

The simple synopsis (and the only one you're going to get from me) is this is the story of Will, Karen, and their dream home, told through various narrators.

I read House of Leaves before I started "writing" (a/k/a imaging) reviews. I don't make a habit of going back and posting something for a previo ...more

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Jan 03, 2013 Aloha rated it it was amazing

Shelves: genre-horror, a-own, b-ghosts, 1-favorites, a-ebooks, a-paper-book, z-danielewski-mark, b-ergodic-literature

...Then no matter where you are, in a crowded restaurant or on some desolate street or even in the comforts of your own home, you'll watch yourself dismantle every assurance you ever lived by. You'll stand aside as a great complexity intrudes, tearing apart, piece by piece, all of your carefully conceived denials, whether deliberate or unconscious. And then for better or worse you'll turn, unable to resist, though try to resist you still will, fighting with everything you've got not to face the

...more

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Oct 19, 2008 Matt rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: fans of metafiction, "house as a character" folks, weirdos

“Thus despite rational objections, technology’s failure is overrun by the onslaught of myth.” – pg. 335

This quote that I have taken completely out of context is probably the best one sentence summary of this book that is possible within the fractured confines of human communication, thus I will resort to the grocery list format.

‘House of Leaves’ is a masterpiece of metafiction, told in “documentary” style. I will attempt to unravel the layers of storytelling here, there are very possibly even mo ...more

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View all 8 comments

Lori Gah, I really have to move this book higher on my to-read list.
Jun 17, 2009 01:12PM

rem There are actually five layers, which was what I found particularly frustrating about this book. There is also the editor, which mildly ruined the There are actually five layers, which was what I found particularly frustrating about this book. There is also the editor, which mildly ruined the experience for me. In short, they are terrible. To preserve the whole man this book is caraaaaazy feeling, the editor character basically did nothing. That is actually the thing that consistently ruins the willing suspension of disbelief for me with this book. How could the editor be so bad? And the excuse that they were just trying to present the work as close to what it was as possible is stupid because Johnny Truant is transcribing the whole thing anyways so it isn't even close to what/how Zampano originally wrote anyways (see The Gorgeous Nothings or basically any book about illuminated manuscripts, this isn't a difficult thing for a publishing company to do). If you are going to be an editor who will make space for all the crazy-go-nuts typography and text, etc. I am pretty sure you could easily make a way to sort of create another border of space to properly organize things and provide proper editorial oversight and footnoting.

And you do not need a masters in all those things to understand this book. Danielewski did a good job of grabbing references from a variety of places, but the few I did recognize were obviously taken out of context and misinterpreted. That was probably intentional as the characters are supposed to be crazy. It does take a lot of work to be connected enough to gather all of these references, but picking out some interesting phrases and then forcing them into place in a crazy person's narrative does not require genius or master's level knowledge of all these things. You just have to have read it. They basically function on the level of complex puns. It is not hard to pull some sentences out of stuff (especially complex stuff like Derrida) and misapply them. I can't speak for the other subjects, but just about any upper level undergraduate in English Literature could do this. It isn't a question of having the intelligence as much as the drive to just grind it out. Which is of course a great effort, but it is more effort than genius.

I think that may be what niggles me about this book. He did a very good job of making it seem like a work of genius, but it does not take much poking around to realize it is just the surface trappings. There is no substance. Anyone can take a straightforward story, twist it about, remove portions, and make it seem like some crazy enigma that would take a genius to solve, much less write. It comes back to a question of effort, not of supreme intelligence. ...more
Sep 03, 2015 05:13PM

Oct 24, 2007 Sarah rated it did not like it

Recommends it for: enemies

Totally infuriating. It made me feel dumb, bored, and annoyed all at once. If I want that, I'll date my first boyfriend again.

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Sep 10, 2012 Maciek rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: owned-books, horror, own-in-hardcover, big-tomes, read-in-2012, books-which-say-aloha, experimental-fiction

Everything has been said but not everyone has said it yet.

- Rep. Morris Udall at the 1988 Democratic convention

I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality.

- James Joyce in a reply reply for a request for a plan of Ulysses

The thoroughly well-informed man--that is the modern ideal. And the mind of the thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing. It is like a ...more

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Sep 20, 2007 Nathan rated it did not like it

Recommends it for: People I hate.

Shelves: fiction, books-i-hope-die

One of the reviews I read of this book compared it positively (bewilderingly) to The Blair Witch Project. I agree, only I thought The Blair Witch project was primarily a ninety-minute gimmick, and not particularly engaging, at that. I should probably admit that I only made it 3/4ths of the way through House of Leaves before realizing that my skull appears larger from the inside than it does from outside. Every person I know who has a brain currently, previously, or aspires to one day have a ...more

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Oct 16, 2008 J.S. rated it did not like it

More than anything, House of Leaves is pretentious. It does things against the grain just because they haven't been done before, not because they're necessarily good ideas. The book seems to take pride in trying its damnedest to give you a headache, and then expects you to like it (unless Danielewski is a sociopath, and wants people to suffer while reading this, in which case I've misinterpreted).

House of Leaves gives off the impression of a modern art experiment, daring you to say it's pointles More than anything, House of Leaves is pretentious. It does things against the grain just because they haven't been done before, not because they're necessarily good ideas. The book seems to take pride in trying its damnedest to give you a headache, and then expects you to like it (unless Danielewski is a sociopath, and wants people to suffer while reading this, in which case I've misinterpreted).

House of Leaves gives off the impression of a modern art experiment, daring you to say it's pointless even as it flips the sentences sideways and has one word per page for a whole paragraph. Not to mention the convoluted narrative, which can be described in more detail by someone who liked the book. However, I will say this: it's interesting to note how I stopped caring about the core of the story as soon as its sorta-narrator explains that it never happened (which he does right in the beginning, so this isn't a spoiler). Even though I know it didn't happen, because it's fiction, I became apathetic about the story of a family moving into a house with impossible interior dimensions because even the other characters in the book said it wasn't real. I don't know if that counts for or against House of Leaves, since it tells me something about the way I read books on the one hand, and it also invalidated most of the plot on the other.

One of the three sorta-narrators uses an absurd amount of foreign languages and obscure quotes (also possibly fake) to drag the story down even further, and to top it off, there's the first guy who frequently interrupts with random stories about his sex life. Maybe Danielewski wants us to envy the tattoo artist that lives like a rock star, or maybe he wants to convince us that he's not a square by breaking up all the academic nonsense that makes up about half the book, but either way it feels forced and unnecessary. By the way, as far as I can tell, there's no explanation for why this fake story of a Twilight Zone house is driving the tattoo artist, Johnny, slowly insane. Admittedly, I didn't finish the book, but I haven't found an explanation elsewhere, and it's probably another one of those things that the author left so deliberately obtuse that scholars and intellectuals can argue about it for the rest of time.

If that sounds like fun to you, then get the book, by all means. For me, all of Danielewski's attempts at being different and artsy were just irritating. When I get a book, I want to read it, not juggle it around because the sideways words are supposed to represent the characters walking up the walls or something. By the way, did you notice how I underlined house and bolded book every time in this review? I'm not going to tell you why - hell, I don't even know myself - but there's bound to be someone out there who thinks it's a deep artistic message. It worked in House of Leaves. ...more

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Jun 18, 2009 Michelle rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: Footnote lovers, Non-linear style lovers, Blair Witch Project lovers

Recommended to Michelle by: Tadpole

Shelves: novels

I’m sitting here trying to review this book, and I’m coming up with nothing. I’ve been thinking about it off and on all day.

At this point I’m tempted to just link to Tadpole’s excellent review and call it a day, but I really feel as though I should say something. After all, I loved this book, and I’ve never read anything like it. It’s a heavily annotated version of a heavily annotated version of a “factual” record about a family who moves into a house in Virginia where something isn’t quite rig ...more

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Oct 23, 2009 JSou rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001, spooky, favo-u-rites

I finished this last night. At about 1:30 in the morning. Honestly, I have no idea how to even begin a review for this book. I kind of have the same panicky feeling I had when people would see me reading and ask what this book was about. I started blurting out incomplete sentences and even stammering all the while. I knew there was no way I could convey the brilliance of this book in just a couple light-conversational sentences. I think that might be the same case here, so my apologies in ...more

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Feb 19, 2013 MJ Nicholls rated it liked it

Shelves: novels, merkins, tortured-artists

Everyone’s favourite stovepipe-hatted feline-loving formal innovator arrived in 2000AD with this quiet little novella starring Stretchy Font Man, Captain Kerning and Bendy Page Gurl. Since then he has published a version of Finnegans Wake you have to “drive” and a book of blank space. I read the whole thing minus the last 30pp or so of the ‘Whalestoe Letters’—a tedious ripoffering from ‘Diary of a Madman’ with the typography Gogol would have used had he been granted access to Doubleday’s photoco Everyone’s favourite stovepipe-hatted feline-loving formal innovator arrived in 2000AD with this quiet little novella starring Stretchy Font Man, Captain Kerning and Bendy Page Gurl. Since then he has published a version of Finnegans Wake you have to “drive” and a book of blank space. I read the whole thing minus the last 30pp or so of the ‘Whalestoe Letters’—a tedious ripoffering from ‘Diary of a Madman’ with the typography Gogol would have used had he been granted access to Doubleday’s photocopiers—and was mildly impressed. I couldn’t resist seeing how Zorro had used his visual effects to service the story, and certainly, these page-bending moments are responsible for the most powerful moments in the text. Otherwise, the excessive footnotes and cute metacommentaries from Truant are tolerable, but since they only serve to buffer the horror story, it all seems a glorious waste of time—a costly, risky, showy, noisy, messy, sticky waste of time, unlikely to blow the minds of ages sixteen and up. Four stars until I hit the yawny appendix material . . . overstays its welcome, so slips down to three.

*

Previously: The “Getting Even” Review

Dear _____

I received last week a letter refusing representation by your agency, based on the excerpt of my novel Dennis & the Dictaphone. Permit me to explain some of the intricacies of my work in case my intentions were unclear. Firstly, this is an “audiovisual novel”—portions of the text are dictated to the reader (left blank on the page), while other portions are dictated by the reader, forcing the reader to complete various sections for his/herself (using their own pens or computers). The audio effect would be achieved by the inclusion of small audiophonic devices in the text (as in birthday cards, etc). Also, with each book a free Dictaphone would be issued, containing another novel co-written by five anonymous writers and read by five anonymous actors. The reader’s task is to trace which portions of the novel are written by myself and therefore form an extension of D&tD—the second half has been left blank for this purpose. It is so also unclear from the excerpt I sent that, from p400 onward, most of this novel is written in anagrams, forcing the reader to rearrange the words to decrypt their meanings in the original Greek. I also want to make clear the intricacies in the typography of my novel. Every letter Y after page 67 should flash yellow, every letter V should turn from purple to black. I also want to achieve a “lava lamp” effect on page 628, where a kaleidoscope of colours moves across the text in an ocular swirl. This is achievable with some strategic backlighting on the preceding page. I have received written encouragements from both Jeremy Irons and David Markson (the latter made when he was alive) to publish this text, so I believe it expedient on your side to take another look at the MS. Let’s see if we can make this work.

Respectfully,

Mark “Zorro” Danielewski ...more

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Feb 14, 2016 Char rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: haunted-houses, dark-fiction

House of Leaves is an experience.

I've decided not to go into the plot, because it, (they?) really can't be fully explained in such a limited venue as a book review. Depending on how you look at it, there could actually be 5 different plots going on, perhaps more, and again: limited venue.

After mulling it over for a few days, I find that I'm comfortable saying the following:

1. The portions of the story dealing with the house itself were my favorites. I think these sections were truly scary-amo House of Leaves is an experience.

I've decided not to go into the plot, because it, (they?) really can't be fully explained in such a limited venue as a book review. Depending on how you look at it, there could actually be 5 different plots going on, perhaps more, and again: limited venue.

After mulling it over for a few days, I find that I'm comfortable saying the following:

1. The portions of the story dealing with the house itself were my favorites. I think these sections were truly scary-among the scariest I've ever read. I've seen other reviewers say they weren't that scary and I've been thinking about why that is. All I can come up with is I guess it depends on what scares you most. If it's a guy with an ax or a ski mask, or maybe Hannibal Lecter, then perhaps this wouldn't be that scary to you. However, if you're afraid of the big, black, empty and what might be hiding in it, then you will most likely be scared and/or disturbed by this book.

2. If you're looking for an immediate pay off as far as scares, this book is the wrong place to look. The building atmosphere, the use (sometimes excessive?) of foreshadowing, plot lines suddenly left hanging while other lines are pursued are just some of the techniques used to keep the reader off balance. This is like the long term con, not 3 Card Monty.

3. If you think you're going to come out of a first reading knowing everything there is to know about House of Leaves, I just want to tell you- you're not. There is SO much going on here, it's crazy. Mythology, song lyrics, poems, quotes, codes and themes all combine to create this unique story. I'm not sure it's even possible to "get" everything you're supposed to "get" on a single reading. Maybe it is and I'm just dumb? It's definitely possible. ;)

I don't know what else to say, so I'll wrap it up. I recommend this book highly, solely for the experience of reading it. The varied plot lines may or may not appeal to you as I've mentioned, but the experience of reading this book itself is not to be missed. What books have you read that could be called an experience? If the answer is none, you need to read this book! ...more

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Dec 13, 2016 Fabian rated it it was amazing

As avant garde as any novel's got the right to be. It is all about condensing and expanding the parameters of the novel, heck, of the tangible object. It makes a case of molding the form like clay-doh; a book is stationary no more... (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

You open the book and a dissection, an exploration is made. You are the surgeon & all this takes is your time, your attention, your very personhood! Can you imagine what Borges would have made of this?

"House of Leaves": A damn necessary read. T ...more

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Aug 09, 2015 Jess ❈Harbinger of Blood-Soaked Rainbows❈ rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: top-100, literary-fiction, own-it, to-reread, reviewed, the-list, mindscrew, 4-stars, a-z-challenge, bizarrelandia, popsugar-2015, favorite-reviews

D is for Danielewski

Read a book that is over 500 pages long.

I go wild, 'cause you break me open
Wild 'cause you left me here
I go wild 'cause your promises are broken.

This book.

Seriously.

I mean, how even do you classify this book? Or review this book? Or even begin to comprehend what it's trying to say? Or do? Or be?

Wild because the chips are down. Wild because there isn't anybody else around. Wild when the waves start to break. And God knows they're breaking in me now. I go wild because it do
...more

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Feb 21, 2016 Mona rated it really liked it

A Long, Strange Trip

Table Showing Reward/Effort Ratio for Some “Difficult” and Long Novels (Some, not all, Postmodern)

Weird Book

“House of Leaves” is one weird book. And I’ve read many a strange book, but this one is up there with some of the strangest.

It’s technically a novel, but cross bred with a lot of other genres.

I'm also at a disadvantage because I'm reviewing the book nearly two weeks after I've read it (I don't like to do this, because my memory of details is usually best right after re ...more

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Mar 07, 2008 Mungo rated it did not like it

Recommends it for: meh... nobody really... although it was suggested to me by just about everybody.

Contrived and full of gimmicks. A cut and paste job using ideas from Stephen King, Bret Easton Ellis and Thomas Pynchon with a few original ideas scattered amongst the stolen property. Sure, it's pretty and an interesting mix between storytelling and graphic arts, but pretty shapes and colors can't possibly hide a weak sentence:

"As I strain now to see past The Navidson Record , beyond this strange filigree of imperfection, the murmur of Zampanò's thoughts, endlessly searching, reaching, but neve ...more

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Apr 18, 2012 Szplug rated it liked it · review of another edition

I understand the entire conceit of mocking the turgid, pretentious, and absurdly obfuscating styling of postmodern academia, replete with footnotes sufficient to populate a Mongol horde; I appreciate the creativity towards, and playing around with, aspects of typography and color and kerning and textual direction; I can fathom the juxtaposition of the intricate and necessary edificial entries of the Navidson exploration with the jejune, supernumerary mouthwash rinse of a boastful free rider; and ...more

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Dec 05, 2016 Dan Schwent rated it it was ok

Shelves: horror

So, I liked House of Leaves but wouldn't call it great or brilliant. I liked the concept of a cache of papers found detailing a possibly ficticious film about a house with impossible dimensions and the maze of mind bogglingly large size in its closet. It was interesting but at its core it was a thin story propped up by gimmicks and pretentious nonsense. I understand that the informational footnotes were supposed to make it seem more real and the rambling narrator's footnotes were supposed to ...more

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Feb 17, 2013 David rated it did not like it

Shelves: worst-books-ever, so-many-feelings

It is difficult for me to coherently and succinctly express my overwhelming hatred for this book - not just dislike, but absolute, overpowering disgust - but the sheer thought that people continue to naively read this and somehow leave with the impression they had just completed a masterpiece was too haunting, too shocking for me to continue sitting passively.

To read House of Leaves is to witness a microcosm of the downfall of society: any semblance of truth and meaning is abandoned and replace It is difficult for me to coherently and succinctly express my overwhelming hatred for this book - not just dislike, but absolute, overpowering disgust - but the sheer thought that people continue to naively read this and somehow leave with the impression they had just completed a masterpiece was too haunting, too shocking for me to continue sitting passively.

To read House of Leaves is to witness a microcosm of the downfall of society: any semblance of truth and meaning is abandoned and replaced with monotonous, faux-intellectual nonsense; pathetic attempts at literary pyrotechnics become no more impressive than watching one's reflection in a funhouse mirror.

The plot, at first glance, seems intriguing: a family moves into a house only to discover a room that defies all rules of logic; it seems to expand infinitely, and untold horrors lie within. This in itself could be a fascinating book - not necessarily a literary masterpiece, but at least an entertaining diversion.

Instead of taking a straightforward approach, however, Danielewski chooses to tell the story in a dry, academic style, in which the aforementioned plot appears in a Blair Witch-esque film and a long essay is written about it, then wrap that underwhelming story in not one, but two superfluous narratives. The opening narrative is the tale of Johnny Truant, a misanthrope who lives a rather unremarkable life and exists mostly to try and convince you of the novel's terrifying qualities: he goes on and on about how encountering the essay altered his life forever. In the meantime he does drugs and has sexual experiences that are probably supposed to come off as shocking and provocative, but are instead sort of pathetic - his descriptions of some woman's deft hands entering his anus and stimulating his prostate are laughable, not only due to the over-the-top writing but also to show how ultimately bland Danielewski is in what he perceives to be edgy or different.

All the different narratives exist in footnotes, and oftentimes Danielewski adds wholly unnecessary footnotes purely to engage in some self-indulgent "trick", akin to a kindergartener doing a cartwheel: the first letter of each footnote will spell out his name, the last letter of each footnote will spell out his name, etc. They are in no way integral to the plot and serve more as some disturbing exhibitionist trick to show how clever he is rather than to perform a legitimate literary function.

The pages on which Danielewski tries to "experiment" with typographic formatting really prove nothing new whatsoever; his attempts at innovation were probably more likely a sad scheme at attempting to convince naive readers to his brilliance. There is nothing in the novel that has not been touched upon before in works like William Gass's The Tunnel and even Sterne's Tristam Shandy. The section in the middle of the novel during which the pages are segmented in four look intriguing until it becomes clear that two of those segments are dedicated to a) a list of documentaries that adds nothing to the novel and b) a list of directors of aforementioned documentaries that adds nothing to novel... except for, of course, another chance for Danielewski to show us how great he is at spelling his name. On other pages he only includes a few words per page or cramps the text into a corner in order to create a sense of agoraphobia or claustrophobia, but it serves no real purpose. A true good writer would be able to weave in these experimental elements while maintaining an actual ability to write well, but here, Danielewski leans on them entirely. Instead of enhancing his points, they are his sole means of achieving what he wants to say. What Danielewski has created is no literary masterpiece, merely a laughable attempt at disguising his dry and unexciting writing into something else entirely, which has been contorted beyond any enjoyable means by its creator's own self-indulgence.

I'll conclude on a lighter note: a good novel should have intercourse with its reader. Especially in a lengthy novel, like this one, authors should be aware that readers are making long term relationship with their novels, and should be reassured that this long term relationship is a worthy one. Had Danielewski executed House of Leaves properly, it would have been a nice quickie - not necessarily memorable by any means, but at least enjoyable. By taking the approach he did, Danielewski created what could be the most unpleasant long term relationship imaginable. This novel never has the decency to suck you in, enrapture you - it would be as though a lover's only sexual contact with you were to sit in front of you and masturbate while forbidding you to do anything similar, then, right before finishing, zipping up and declaring he wasn't in the mood. That's what this novel is: a disturbing masturbatory narcissistic ode to one's reflection without any meaning or resolution, without anything worth saying. I have witnessed people praising this novel as the future of literature, as the next step of the evolution of the novel. The thought of a hack writer like Danielewski receiving such praise fills me with an unshakable nausea, and I have - I kid you not - prayed that this novels cult following is actually an elaborate inside joke meant only to drive those not "in" on it - like myself - insane. But if those who praise this novel are serious, this will be the death of art. This will be the death of truth and meaning. If people legitimately believe this is where literature is going? If people believe the "innovations" present here are worth their time, that a daring writer need do nothing more than find a creative way to spell his name, to obfuscate his narrative beyond recognition and do so in such a manner that drains it of any meaning or capability to be enjoyed?

I fear for the future of humanity. ...more

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Aug 15, 2008 Sarah rated it it was ok

Recommends it for: mark danielewski

this book is bigger on the outside than it is on the inside.
too much style, too little substance. the story of the house lured me in and propelled me through to the conclusion but most of the book was filler. the excessive footnotes were distracting and annoying and added little or nothing at all to the story. as i was having to turn the book upside down and sideways and very nearly bending over backwards to read some pages, i pictured danielewski grinning with delight at the headache and neck ...more

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topics	posts	views	last activity
The Reading For P...: House of Leaves Buddy Read with Maria, Holly, and others	49	45	Nov 29, 2016 09:51AM
Cosmo Readers: General Discussion about "House of Leaves"	5	15	Oct 31, 2016 08:36AM
Cosmo Readers: Detailed/Spoilery discussion about "House of Leaves"	2	16	Oct 14, 2016 11:13AM
Reader's Paradise: Palash and Sundara-House of leaves	80	26	Oct 04, 2016 05:09AM
Play Book Tag: House of Leaves/Deanielweski - 2 stars (barely)	7	26	Aug 24, 2016 03:36AM
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About Mark Z. Danielewski

Mark Z. Danielewski is an American author best known for his books House of Leaves, Only Revolutions, The Fifty Year Sword, and The Familiar series.

Danielewski studied English Literature at Yale. He then decided to move to Berkeley, California, where he took a summer program in Latin at the University of California, Berkeley. He also spent time in Paris, preoccupied mostly with writing.

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Quotes from House of Leaves

“Who has never killed an hour? Not casually or without thought, but carefully: a premeditated murder of minutes. The violence comes from a combination of giving up, not caring, and a resignation that getting past it is all you can hope to accomplish. So you kill the hour. You do not work, you do not read, you do not daydream. If you sleep it is not because you need to sleep. And when at last it is over, there is no evidence: no weapon, no blood, and no body. The only clue might be the shadows beneath your eyes or a terribly thin line near the corner of your mouth indicating something has been suffered, that in the privacy of your life you have lost something and the loss is too empty to share.” — 1074 likes

“Passion has little to do with euphoria and everything to do with patience. It is not about feeling good. It is about endurance. Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer.” — 957 likes

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