36. Mark Z. Danielewski:

 

House of Leaves

written: 2000

(673 pages)

 

read in August 2014

verdict: **** LIKE

 

When my sister came up with the idea to read House of Leaves, I was highly sceptical and even a bit afraid, since a colleague of mine had told me about it, ominously hinting that it's a very difficult book, often considered to be "unreadable". Hearing this, Sandra of course wanted to read it aloud to me, precisely to check out the truth behind this statement!

 

An initial browse through the book offered us a glimpse of how much it differs from a conventional novel: here, pages crammed with name-lists precede pages with only one or two sentences on them; there are footnotes galore, and footnotes of footnotes, and footnotes that lead nowhere or back to the beginning; the text may be upside-down or even mirrored; we detected at least three different fonts, even crossed-out passages in red. In short: the book is a helter-skelter treasure trove, and at first glance it really looked daunting. But we started it – and finished it! And enjoyed it!!

 

So, what is it about? In fact, the book is a sort of frame tale within a frame tale: the initial protagonist is Johnny Truant, who is editing the manuscript of a dead writer. The manuscript tells us about strange happenings in documentary maker Will Navidson's house, in which the laws of nature don't seem to apply, because the inside appears to be bigger than the outside. This central story has all the ingredients of a horror movie, but reducing House of Leaves to a horror book doesn't do it enough credit, so my review will not be a summary of this story but rather an explanation of what was so special about the book.

 

Especially interesting for us was the fact that the author Mark Z. Danielewski (1966) uses different writing styles for his story. First there is Johnny Truant, who is constantly interrupting the central story of the house with witty remarks or endless anecdotes about his love affairs. Actually his stream-of-consciousness sentences, which sometimes go on for over half a page without comma or full stop, were quite challenging both to read out loud and to listen to. Then there is the central story of the house itself, told through interviews and filmscripts. And finally Zampanò, the author of the manuscript (which seems to be his thesis on the film-material) uses a highly academic style. Those who have been through university will find this part amusing to read. Danielewski here clearly makes fun of some academic writers who use pompous sentences that are often bare of all meaning. We enjoyed this part quite a lot.

 

In the end, one has to wonder how much of all this was true. Naturally, Danielewski wrote the book as a work of fiction, but in the realm of this fiction, was the story of the house true? It could well be that either Navidson pulled a hoax with his film, or Zampanò invented the entire thing for his thesis, since none of the film material is available anymore, and none of the references check out. A third possibility would be that Johnny Truant invented the entire thing, even the story of Zampanò's manuscript. There's lots of evidence for the latter hypothesis, since Johnny himself is a highly unreliable narrator, but what else can you expect from someone whose last name is "Truant". He even tells us that he always loved to invent stories, so maybe he invented the entire thing from start to finish.

 

Our book was a special edition, including many pictures, letters and poems in an appendix, and after finishing the story we also checked out those. I must admit, Johnny's poems were not all that great and the letters from his schizophrenic mom were too gloomy for our taste. But this does not diminish our excitement about the book. We are very proud that we were able to plow through the entire thing from beginning to end. Well, to be completely honest, there were two huge lists of artists and buildings that kept going on for 16 pages and although Sandra started to read them all out to me, we abbreviated it a bit in the end. But that was the only part we did not read entirely, so I guess it can be called a feat nevertheless. On amazon, I saw that an audiobook has been made out of it and I wonder whether these lists are included there.

 

The book is very complex and even after finishing it we discussed it a lot, always finding new issues and ideas about what it could all mean. Actually one idea that we had quite early in the book was that the house could stand for the human mind, which in a way is also bigger on the inside than on the outside, because it can expand with imagination and constantly change and evolve, you can either lose yourself in your imagination or stubbornly end up in a dead end, good ideas can be beneficial, but bad thoughts can be destructive, just the way the house is depicted in the book. Maybe it's not what the author meant, but it's definitely a very satisfying lesson we have drawn from it. Basically the story has all the ingredients to become a cult book. It was a rare find and we can really recommend it. We are proof that it's not unreadable, but it's not an easy read either. In any case, it's a complete LIKE for us.

 

Oh, and as an explanation for those who have not yet read the book, the blue color for the word "house" and the different font for remarks on Johnny Truant on this page are a tribute to the author, who did the same in his book. That way, you get a taste of what the book was like.