Book Review (Canon): House of Leaves

House of Leaves

Written by Mark Z. Danielewski in 2000

The Raccoon: Blurring the lines between reality and multiple layers of fiction, Danielewski’s occult cult masterpiece chronicles the story of a family slowly torn apart after they move to a suburban house that is bigger on the inside than on the outside.

UNMASKED: House of Leaves contains four layers of story.  At the center, Will Navidson and his family struggle against their impossibly-structured, possibly living home.  All the while, Navidson films this journey, and his wife later assembles the footage into the documentary The Navidson Record.  Zooming out, the bulk of House of Leaves is an in-depth essay and commentary on The Navidson Record, whose author, Zampanò, describes its contents as well as the debate surrounding its authenticity, reception, and themes.  Even further removed, narrator Johnny Truant explains how he came into possession of Zampanò’s work, and how his attempts to decipher it have led him to be tormented by anxiety and paranoia.  Finally, unnamed editors fill in gaps left by Johnny, and they include a series of letters written by his mother, in hopes of rendering the story more understandable to the reader.

So begins the confusion.  Johnny reveals early on that The Navidson Record does not exist.  

This stark fact leads him, and us, to question why and how Zampanò spent so much time analyzing it; after all, the author went so far as to cite other nonexistent commentary in his work and compile a series of exhibits regarding the Navidsons.  Of course, when Johnny tells us that he reached out to celebrities such as Stephen King to verify that their quotes in Zampanò’s essay were falsified and they have never heard of Will Navidson nor Zampanò, we must remind ourselves that the narrator too is fictional; the real Stephen King has no more knowledge of nor contact with Johnny Truant than he does with the other two men.  Furthermore, toward the end of the novel, Johnny learns from his own fanbase that he has already published the book; the version we hold has been updated by Johnny after travels to Virginia in hopes of locating any evidence of the Navidsons’ house.  In truth, the first edition of House of Leaves already had all of Johnny’s story; again, the narrator’s life only exists to the extent that Danielewski wrote about it.

And yes, I did feel that two large paragraphs were necessary to provide a basic description of House of Leaves.  The book is the closest thing to Daedalus’ legendary labyrinth anyone has created since the German Enigma Code.  Like the house in the story, House of Leaves cannot be contained within its own binding; online forums are still trying to unearth all of its secrets, and the actual act of reading this beast involves mentally organizing footnotes within footnotes and philosophical treatises dividing the two simultaneous plots, as well as occasionally rotating the pages, using mirrors, or deciphering codes to be able read the words.

While reaching the last page of House of Leaves is incredibly rewarding, and I encourage every passionate reader to undertake the adventure, I must honestly warn you that, once you have allowed such a complicated, atypical work to take root in your mind, leaving it behind is not as simple as closing the back cover.

• The actual

Strengths1

• The random inclusion of several dozen layout of the book “Pelican Poems”
• Many of the book’s questions invokesare still unanswered by the end, although all of the storylines and character arcs find resolutions. the feeling of being lost
• Although calling House of Leaves a horror story is greatly exaggerating, the Navidsons’ house in a is uniquely uncanny and frightening.

m a z e.

Rating: 18/20 minutes

Ideal Setting: Read this whenever you begin to feel bored with how comfortable you are in your world.

1Weaknesses