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House of Leaves

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House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. Weird mindfuck thriller. Kind of hard to explain without a few paragraphs of seemingly-disjointed rambling.

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I quite enjoyed Timequake by him, though I think Slaughterhouse 5 remains my favorite. The Sirens of Titan is pretty good too.

I really recommend holding off on Timequake until you've read more of his novels. It is so much more rewarding then.

After Slaughterhouse Five, my favorite was Hocus Pocus.

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. Weird mindfuck thriller. Kind of hard to explain without a few paragraphs of seemingly-disjointed rambling.

I was absolutely enamoured by this book, tremendously inventive and spooky. However I only got about a third of the way through it. This is because one day my girlfriend at the time saw it sitting on my coffee table. "Oh you're reading that. You know he used to be my boyfriend? This was before that got published."

I totally couldn't read anymore of a book written by someone who had slept with my girlfriend! That plus one of the characters started to seem like she was quite like her when I thought about it... I should go back to it, it really was fascinating. I don't know how where it can go for 2/3 more of a massive book though.

Edited by SoulChicken

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Finished House of Leaves yesterday. What a piece of crap. It started out well, but just fizzled out into nothing with too much bullshit diagonal text and crazy nested footnotes.

Tonight I'm starting on The Walking Dead, which is the biggest, hugest piece of comic I've ever seen.

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Finished House of Leaves yesterday. What a piece of crap. It started out well, but just fizzled out into nothing with too much bullshit diagonal text and crazy nested footnotes.

Yeah I didn't manage to finish it. After the linear beginning I enjoyed the 'primary' text; the actual description of the video and the analysis of the house. But all the stream-of-consciousness wangst in the footnotes by the 'editor' just bored the hell out of me for the most part. I ended up skipping through.

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I just spent my evening buried in House of Leaves and I'm not sure what to make of it. I'm not even sure I'll continue reading, but it's certainly something.

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I just spent my evening buried in House of Leaves and I'm not sure what to make of it. I'm not even sure I'll continue reading, but it's certainly something.

I've tried to get into this several times and I fall out completely after the first hundred pages or so every time. It's convoluted for the sake of being convoluted. I can just see Danielewski thinking about crap like printing the text backwards and then on the next page only having 3 words and thinking he's the most brilliant author of the century. I think people like it because of it's weird presentation, but it does nothing for me besides bring the story itself down.

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I've tried to get into this several times and I fall out completely after the first hundred pages or so every time. It's convoluted for the sake of being convoluted.

I'm a huge HoL fanboy, but I do understand why some people hate it. I take issue, however, with the idea that it's convoluted just for the sake of being convoluted. The book is both about a labyrinth and itself meant to be a labyrinth (leaves = pages). It's not much of a maze if it isn't convoluted.

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I'm a huge HoL fanboy, but I do understand why some people hate it. I take issue, however, with the idea that it's convoluted just for the sake of being convoluted. The book is both about a labyrinth and itself meant to be a labyrinth (leaves = pages). It's not much of a maze if it isn't convoluted.

Fair enough. Like I said, I only read about a hundred pages into it before quitting, so the concept likely didn't have time to really click with me I don't guess.

Still, I guess I just prefer a plain ol' wall of text with my books.

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I feel like the first portion of HoL is just poor. I get what he's going for, and I was even engaged for a while, but it just becomes too much. I'd really be interested in reading a book that was just the Navidson Record itself, but layering an interesting story inside all the flak doesn't hold my interest.

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I feel like the first portion of HoL is just poor. I get what he's going for, and I was even engaged for a while, but it just becomes too much. I'd really be interested in reading a book that was just the Navidson Record itself, but layering an interesting story inside all the flak doesn't hold my interest.

I think I would agree with this.

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House of Leaves.

BLEGH.

I was pretty sure when I read it that I was just too dumb to understand it. That it flew right over my head. That Danielewski wasn't a pretentious asshole. Just lookat how cool his sister is, and the great work of art that she put out to deal with their father's death.

So I struggled through the book, occasionally enjoying the typeset wankery, and finished it. There were blank pages. There were blue houses. There were printed holes that showed the next page's text on the previous page.

*SHRUG* His sister's 5 1/2 Minute Hallway is pretty much a 3 1/2 Minute encapsulation of the ideas he seemed to be trying to get across in this book.

I must be too dumb for Danielewski.

BUT THEN - He released his second book. Only Revolutions: A Novel. Two concurrent plots, both told from the point of view of a different character. On each page, two columns of words, with a line down the middle between them. One column is printed rightside up, the other upside down. In one of the threads, every single 'o' is printed orange. In the other, they are printed blue.

I have decided that he is, in fact, a pretentious asshole. That authors much better than him have tackled the same or similar ideas without falling back on the crutch of crazy typesetting. And I no longer feel too dumb because of House of Leaves.

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I feel like the first portion of HoL is just poor. I get what he's going for, and I was even engaged for a while, but it just becomes too much. I'd really be interested in reading a book that was just the Navidson Record itself, but layering an interesting story inside all the flak doesn't hold my interest.

As much as I like the book, I can't disagree with this. The Navidson Record portion is, thinking back, the reason I loved the book for a while. It had so many elements that I love in (horror) fiction and some part of that story just resonated and stuck with me. I've been wanting to reread the book for a while now, but the Johnny Truant stuff is stopping me. I liked it enough the first time, but I don't think I could run through that again.

If anyone has any recommendations for a book that's similar in theme to the Navidson Record with HoL, I'd love to hear them.

BUT THEN - He released his second book. Only Revolutions: A Novel. Two concurrent plots, both told from the point of view of a different character. On each page, two columns of words, with a line down the middle between them. One column is printed rightside up, the other upside down. In one of the threads, every single 'o' is printed orange. In the other, they are printed blue.

I have decided that he is, in fact, a pretentious asshole. That authors much better than him have tackled the same or similar ideas without falling back on the crutch of crazy typesetting. And I no longer feel too dumb because of House of Leaves.

I've had that book sitting here for the longest time, and keep putting off reading it because any time I pick it up, I have an initial thought of "How am I supposed to read this...a chapter for him then for her, or page for him then her, or...you know what, never mind. I'll read something else."

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I feel, at this point, the same way about Danielewski, that I do about China Mieville. Potential, lots of it, some fantastic ideas, but trying way, way too hard to be interesting/different, and it blots out the parts of their stuff that are interesting. Like I said, give me The Navidson Record without Johnny Truant, or Bas-Lag without the shitty, overwrought prose and I will devour it like a man who wants to quench his thirst after a week in the sands.

...Shit.

I am, however, sad to report that I cannot recommend any Navidson Record-esque titles because my typical reading fare doesn't stray into that sort of thing. That said, if you should ever find anything that does ring similar, send it my way.

E: I should note that I did go back and finish House of Leaves several weeks after I posted my initial feelings. At this point, three and a quarter months down the road, I remember almost nothing of the book, save the initial exploration of the hallway and the brief, quite intriguing description of the initial "rescue" attempt.

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Honestly, I really enjoyed House of Leaves.  I had picked it up because someone said "hey this book is like silent hill" and I said "hey, I like silent hill."  I never finished it though.  It disturbed me at some point and I shelved it for a while and never got back to it.  And then the bookmark fell out and who knows how to find where I left off.

 

I still like it, but I guess since I never finished it I'd feel weird ever recommending it.

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Honestly, I really enjoyed House of Leaves.  I had picked it up because someone said "hey this book is like silent hill" and I said "hey, I like silent hill."  I never finished it though.  It disturbed me at some point and I shelved it for a while and never got back to it.  And then the bookmark fell out and who knows how to find where I left off.

 

I still like it, but I guess since I never finished it I'd feel weird ever recommending it.

 

Actually, never having finished it is the best state to be in to recommend it. There's a lot of cool stuff there. Hell, even the Johnny Truant stuff is pretty interesting for a while. But eventually it just kind of falls apart, the funky textual stylings really never pay off in any meaningful way, and the book descends into a lot of crazily formatted and extremely dull endnotes and footnotes and such that have very little to do with anything. I'm sure that this is meant to illustrate how crazy the author(s) of this document are supposed to have gone, but, well...that doesn't save it.

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It's so interesting to see this response to this book. I bought it because I saw it recommended to designers several places. I didn't even realize until I got it that it was kind of a horror story, and after getting a little spooked out early on I haven't picked it up since. It's pretty disappointing to learn that all the madness doesn't have a payoff in the end. What's the point of creating some crazy thing if there's nothing to get a the end of the craziness? I mean, I guess some people like that, and I'd be more willing to wade through it just to find out for myself, but I get crazy anxiety with scary stuff and don't want to subject myself to that?

 

Danielewski released a new book yesterday! Volume one of, what, 27? I'm probably going to pick it up after work today and read it immediately.

Anyway, here's a nice little profile piece with him http://lithub.com/did-mark-z-danielewski-just-reinvent-the-novel/

 

Also this profile piece was kind of insane.

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Danielewski released a new book yesterday! Volume one of, what, 27? I'm probably going to pick it up after work today and read it immediately.

Anyway, here's a nice little profile piece with him http://lithub.com/did-mark-z-danielewski-just-reinvent-the-novel/

Hmmm.  I never got through Only Revolutions, but I really liked The Fifty Year Sword.

 

 

It's so interesting to see this response to this book. I bought it because I saw it recommended to designers several places. I didn't even realize until I got it that it was kind of a horror story, and after getting a little spooked out early on I haven't picked it up since. It's pretty disappointing to learn that all the madness doesn't have a payoff in the end. What's the point of creating some crazy thing if there's nothing to get a the end of the craziness? I mean, I guess some people like that, and I'd be more willing to wade through it just to find out for myself, but I get crazy anxiety with scary stuff and don't want to subject myself to that?

 

Have you taken a dive into some of the fan theories surrounding the book?  The question of the actual narrator is pretty illuminating.  I have a particular headcanon theory about the nature of the text and the house that I think fits pretty well.

 

But you could also look at the book as a deconstructionist piece.  Deconstruction like in the critical theory sense where words and objects/ideas are just this endless loop of unconnected signifiers and signifieds.  

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I think it's fascinating to see how other people received this book - specifically in regards to not being able to finish it. I had almost the exact opposite response. It took me a couple months to get through the whole book, but the majority of my time was spent on the first half. It only held my interest for small stretches of time.

 

At some point, a switch flipped. I started throwing myself into it, and it suddenly became a lot more fascinating. I couldn't stop reading it, until I had finished the book. 

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