House of Leaves

By far the strangest book I have ever read, gaining points on sheer audacity alone, which isn't to say that it doesn't also earn high marks because the readable parts are beautifully written. Describing a book as having "readable parts" infers that other parts are - something different. The most concise and accurate description of House of Leaves is "something different". It features a layering of narrative points of view built upon other narrative points of view, and the reader is repeatedly snatched from one to another with no apparent pattern, rhyme or reason. One day Will Navidson, a Pulitzer… show more.

I found out about this book when a friend urged me not to buy this book because it messed her up. Needless to say, I bought and read it right away, and even though it took me a long time with frequent pauses to get through this behemoth of a book, I understand why my friend said what she said.

Even beyond the striking visuals and the slowly escalating typographic madness (just google it and you’ll know what I mean) a feeling of dread suffuses this novel that stayed with me long after I put it down.

I love this book's weirdness! Danielewski’s paranormal (and unconventional) story permitted me to write what I wanted and forget other people’s expectations about what a novel “should” be. It freed my work to be as strange as it needed to be.

I was unprepared for the surreal brilliance of this book. The novel initially appears to be a work of nonfiction written to deconstruct The Navidson Record, a documentary film that describes an unusual residence in Virginia. This house, owned by Will Navidson and his wife Karen Green, appears to be larger inside than outside. This sounds impossible, of course, but that’s what makes this book so wonderful. No matter how impossible the subject matter may seem, Danielewski’s approach renders even the craziest supernatural plot elements as if they were happening in everyday life. And in this case, everyday life… show more.

Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted cult following this terrifying story would soon command. So describes the dust jacket of Mark Z. Danielewski's infamous masterpiece.

A mind-bending collection of found documents, snarky citations, and secret codes. It's been said: you don't read House of Leaves, House of Leaves reads you -- and I couldn't agree more. This book literally made me question reality.

This is a book as sprawling and twisting as the house in question. It’s one people love or hate, or love to hate, but for me, it was an immersive and chilling experience. The idea that a house can grow around you, that you can get trapped and lost within it, is horrifying and yet so attractive. This is one of those novels that gives you those “someone’s behind me” chills until you’re just one huge shivering mass. 

The story and the way that the author tells the story is unsettling in every sense. You never know fully what’s coming.… show more.

This book lives in my Brain rent-free, ironic since my brain is also not a space in which anyone should take Up residence.

I love the layers of narraTors, Johnny, Zampanò, and Navidson, all of Them unreliable, telling lies from cOnscious design, from iNability to face the truth, from shifting realities. Maybe one day I'll find my way through to someone who loves my ironieS.

House of Leaves is an intellectual challenge in itself.

Not only does the text flip back and forth between our narrator’s life and the mysterious manuscript he found in a dead man’s apartment but the actual form changes with text written in color, backwards, upside down and even taking the shape of the very situations the words are describing. Making sense of what is happening amongst all these layers tests your brain’s ability to keep it all straight and will leave you with your own theory as to what is really happening in the House of Leaves. And that’s what… show more.

If you’ve ever explored an abandoned building, you know what it feels like to approach House of Leaves. This book clocks in at over 700 pages, and it took me a while to work up the courage to dive in.

Danielewski’s groundbreaking horror novel strips away the safety of just reading a story by dragging you right across the book’s threshold. 
House of Leaves is a difficult book to summarize, but one of the chief plotlines follows The Navidson Record, a documentary about a family’s increasingly strange experiences in their house. The structure has dimensions that don’t add up, including… show more.

House of Leaves might need no introduction, but I’ll never shy away from giving it one.

This behemoth is a faux-nonfiction book. Its gloomy undertones and pervasive sense of wrongness are inimitable. When reading House of Leaves, you feel as though something is not quite right—something hideous, inimical, and insidious is lurking, and soon that very thing will come for you.

I still think of those long, dark hallways and endless wandering. A masterclass.