What I've Read: House of Leaves

This book had been on my reading list for a coupe years. It's a love/hate kind of novel and I'd never been able to bring myself to pull the trigger not knowing how I'd really fell about it. I finally got it as a gift and am very thankful I did. I started reading this one in October. Back when I was still looking for a good October haunted tale. It took me almost two months to finish it. The book seems to garner a lot of strong reactions. Some hail it as one of the greatest reading experiences of all time. Others call it a mediocre story buried in pretentious wool. What did I think? Let's find out.

The Book:

House of Leaves by Mark A. Danielewski

The Premise In My Own Words:

A guy named Zampano dies. Another guy named Johnny Truant finds a journal in Zampano's stuff documenting the experience of Will Navidson in the house he recently purchased. A room appears in the house that wasn't originally there. Navidson feels compelled to explore the ever expanding room. Truant examines Zampano's journal and finds himself having strange experiences of his own. Yeah, that's a lot of details and character names for a simple premise but I included them all to give you an idea of the breadth of this work.

The Review:

The main distinction for House of Leaves is the unorthodox format of the book itself. There are footnotes, footnotes with footnotes, appendices, pages written upside down, coded letters, and even paged with only a single word on them. If that sounds a bit disorienting, I haven't even scratched the surface. Sometimes the footnotes are written so you have to turn the book on its side (or even upside down) to read them. There's a lengthy section with a square box in the center of each page. Inside the box is a list of things a certain room does not contain. Things like radiators, cooling systems, ducts, double-wall ducts, flat oval, or round duct with perforated inner liner, insulation and outer shell. In the outer margins of that same section is an ongoing list of architects and architectural styles. Over twenty pages of things like "the Festival House near Dresden," and "the Pampidou Center in Paris," or "Alessandro Spechi".

The thing I've noticed with almost every positive review I've read about House of Leaves is that everyone talks about the format. Very little of the story is ever mentioned other than "I slept with the lights on after reading this." And that's really the draw of this book. It is unlike any other book I've ever read. At first, I really enjoyed the layout. I kind of felt like an Indiana Jones-type adventurer digging through an ancient text in search of secrets.

The novelty eventually wore off. Reading the book felt more like a chore than an escape. On top of that, the story is mediocre. I hated every section of Johnny Truant's story. The character had zero depth and his antics as an adult felt like the author's attempt to make the character more interesting that he was. The parts focused on the Navidson account can be really good. But just when it starts to get interesting the author switches to a pseudo-intellectual style as if we're reading some scholars account of the event (which is actually what Zampano's journal is supposed to be.)

My score for this one is kind of low. Don't let that deter you. While I mostly disliked it, I am still glad I put forth the effort and tackled something so unique. House of Leaves is a book I think everyone should try just for the experience.

The Score:

2/5 stars

Pair With:

Ardbeg Wee Beastie. It's a young scotch that heavily relies on marketing and novelty. The beastie aspect fits in with the possible monsters that dwell in the Navidson house.