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House of Leaves is a multilayered intersection of wild ideas, ten years in the making,... read full description
House of Leaves is a multilayered intersection of wild ideas, ten years in the making,... read full description
reviews
Sep 15, 2008
Mickey
rated it: 
I wish there were someway that a sigh could count as a book review.
House of Leaves is a really, really damn good story. It's about a guy named Johnny Truant who finds a manuscript in a dead man's apartment. Said manuscript is entitled the Navidson Record. It's essentially a dissertation on a documentary of the same name, by and about a man named Will Navidson and his family. Navidson lives in a house that is larger on the inside than it is on the outside, sometimes only a small f More...
House of Leaves is a really, really damn good story. It's about a guy named Johnny Truant who finds a manuscript in a dead man's apartment. Said manuscript is entitled the Navidson Record. It's essentially a dissertation on a documentary of the same name, by and about a man named Will Navidson and his family. Navidson lives in a house that is larger on the inside than it is on the outside, sometimes only a small f More...
75 comments
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(371 people liked it)
Dec 16, 2009
Jake
rated it: 
So there's a definite cult around this book, and I am one of the many who drank the Kool-Aide and never looked back.
Here's a little anecdote that speaks to the possibilities of this book:
I was an RA my junior and senior years of college. One year I had a good friend of mine living in my building, and upon one of her visits to my room I put The House of Leaves in her hand, telling her that she should read it. A couple of days later I was in my room, awake at some unholy h More...
Here's a little anecdote that speaks to the possibilities of this book:
I was an RA my junior and senior years of college. One year I had a good friend of mine living in my building, and upon one of her visits to my room I put The House of Leaves in her hand, telling her that she should read it. A couple of days later I was in my room, awake at some unholy h More...
14 comments
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(181 people liked it)
Jul 07, 2011
Aerin
rated it: 
"If he had seen the termites, he wouldn't have died."
This is a riddle my sister told me when we were kids. She used to bring one or two home from school a day; she got them from her gifted class I think. I was allowed to ask yes-or-no questions to try and figure them out, but this one stumped me. "The termites ate him!" I finally tried. "And if he'd seen them coming, he would have gotten out of there!"
"NO," my sister said, exasperat More...
This is a riddle my sister told me when we were kids. She used to bring one or two home from school a day; she got them from her gifted class I think. I was allowed to ask yes-or-no questions to try and figure them out, but this one stumped me. "The termites ate him!" I finally tried. "And if he'd seen them coming, he would have gotten out of there!"
"NO," my sister said, exasperat More...
50 comments
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(126 people liked it)
Dec 28, 2009
Matt
rated it:
“Thus despite rational objections, technology’s failure is overrun by the onslaught of myth.” – pg. 335
This quote that I have taken completely out of context is probably the best one sentence summary of this book that is possible within the fractured confines of human communication, thus I will resort to the grocery list format.
‘House of Leaves’ is a masterpiece of metafiction, told in “documentary” style. I will attempt to unravel the layers of storytelling here, there a More...
This quote that I have taken completely out of context is probably the best one sentence summary of this book that is possible within the fractured confines of human communication, thus I will resort to the grocery list format.
‘House of Leaves’ is a masterpiece of metafiction, told in “documentary” style. I will attempt to unravel the layers of storytelling here, there a More...
7 comments
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(32 people liked it)
Dec 04, 2010
Paul
rated it: 
It's like one of those very psychedelic albums from the late sixties, where they do all those funny stereo effects, and all that phasing or whatever it was called - all great fun but you still had to have good songs. As you'll know by now, "House of Leaves" has more tricks up its sleeve than you can shake Jacques Derrida at, but not enough tunes. There are two stories. One's about this, you know, uh, what can I say - house. Okay, all right, it's about the story of the book about the fi
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11 comments
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(33 people liked it)
Jun 18, 2009
Michelle
rated it:
I’m sitting here trying to review this book, and I’m coming up with nothing. I’ve been thinking about it off and on all day.
At this point I’m tempted to just link to Tadpole’s excellent review and call it a day, but I really feel as though I should say something. After all, I loved this book, and I’ve never read anything like it. It’s a heavily annotated version of a heavily annotated version of a “factual” record about a family who moves into a house in Virginia where something More...
At this point I’m tempted to just link to Tadpole’s excellent review and call it a day, but I really feel as though I should say something. After all, I loved this book, and I’ve never read anything like it. It’s a heavily annotated version of a heavily annotated version of a “factual” record about a family who moves into a house in Virginia where something More...
26 comments
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(31 people liked it)
Sep 17, 2011
Dan
rated it:
I finished House of Leaves last night. A synopsis of the book - if such a thing were actually possible - might go something like this: This is the story of the assembly by one man of the notes of another man written on random bits of paper into a review of a movie - actually a documentary film - and the scholarly research spawned by the film. The film is about a house owned by the photojournalist who created the documentary. Or is it that the house owns him...and his family? Writing a review of
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40 comments
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(17 people liked it)
Sep 29, 2010
Mark
rated it:
NOTE: Footnotes are at the end of the review.
"House of Leaves" was my first foray into "post-modern" literature (1). I have to admit that this book "beat" me. I couldn't finish it (2). I was able to finish most of it, though, so I have a good idea of what it was about. I will say that I recommend this book for someone wanting a taste of post-modern literature without having to slog through a dense tome where the action is all internal.
The More...
"House of Leaves" was my first foray into "post-modern" literature (1). I have to admit that this book "beat" me. I couldn't finish it (2). I was able to finish most of it, though, so I have a good idea of what it was about. I will say that I recommend this book for someone wanting a taste of post-modern literature without having to slog through a dense tome where the action is all internal.
The More...
3 comments
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(9 people liked it)
Nov 27, 2007
Cloudhidden
rated it: 
Looking for a spooky book to read around Halloween I was recommended this book by several others on a message board I frequent. Quite a few people mentioned its brilliance and the fear it put in them.
After reading it I could not disagree more.
The story is this: a family moves into a home and begins noticing physical features of their house changing. They begin to investigate, which leads to a new doorway and hall appearing where there was not one. The husband, being More...
After reading it I could not disagree more.
The story is this: a family moves into a home and begins noticing physical features of their house changing. They begin to investigate, which leads to a new doorway and hall appearing where there was not one. The husband, being More...
13 comments
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(26 people liked it)
Sep 20, 2007
Nathan
rated it:
One of the reviews I read of this book compared it positively (bewilderingly) to The Blair Witch Project. I agree, only I thought The Blair Witch project was primarily a ninety-minute gimmick, and not particularly engaging, at that. I should probably admit that I only made it 3/4ths of the way through House of Leaves before realizing that my skull appears larger from the inside than it does from outside. Every person I know who has a brain currently, previously, or aspires to one day have a brai
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6 comments
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(24 people liked it)
Apr 08, 2010
Charlie
rated it:
[Spoiler alert: you can't really spoil this story because the dominant theme here is unanswered questions, but I try to distill a number of them, so be warned.]
This book was quite an elaborate mind-fuck. The unique regression of perspectives within perspectives was fascinating, but in the end became tiresome--simultaneously the book's greatest strength and only flaw.
We all know that the written word will always be superior to any other art form because it employs the ima More...
This book was quite an elaborate mind-fuck. The unique regression of perspectives within perspectives was fascinating, but in the end became tiresome--simultaneously the book's greatest strength and only flaw.
We all know that the written word will always be superior to any other art form because it employs the ima More...
12 comments
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(10 people liked it)
Jan 12, 2009
Caleb J.
rated it:
Holy crap, you can tell this was Danielewski's first novel. It is a fantastic experiment in meta-fiction, and I admire it for that reason, but as a narrative (or in this instance, several), it falls severely short.
The Johnny Truant arc feels like a long Palahniuk-style cliche of debauchery. It also illustrated just how arrogant and condescending Dnaielewski is as an author, because Truant frequently tells the reader how s/he should be reacting to the text as well as explaining and i More...
The Johnny Truant arc feels like a long Palahniuk-style cliche of debauchery. It also illustrated just how arrogant and condescending Dnaielewski is as an author, because Truant frequently tells the reader how s/he should be reacting to the text as well as explaining and i More...
2 comments
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(13 people liked it)
Jan 08, 2008
Matt
rated it:
My review was apparently too long, so I'll remove the description of the book. Here it is in brief - you can get a more thorough description from Amazon or elsewhere on the internet:
Johnny acquires a stack of papers written by an old man named Zampano, who recently died. Johnny realizes the mish-mashed pages are a book, and sets out to edit it together. The bulk of "House of Leaves" is the work by Zampano, edited by Johnny. It is an academic exploration/review/critique of More...
Johnny acquires a stack of papers written by an old man named Zampano, who recently died. Johnny realizes the mish-mashed pages are a book, and sets out to edit it together. The bulk of "House of Leaves" is the work by Zampano, edited by Johnny. It is an academic exploration/review/critique of More...
Dec 16, 2009
Samara
rated it:
When I think of this book, I think of a quote from Nabokov--"I want footnotes reaching up like skyscrapers!" In this book, the footnotes do climb up, rather like a noxious vine crawling up a trellis, but they also descend and wrap around your mind like cellophane.
Okay. Fullstop. Let's start again.
This book is a labyrinth. This book is a horror novel. This book is a love story. This book is all-encompassing.
This is the story of Johnny Truant and More...
Okay. Fullstop. Let's start again.
This book is a labyrinth. This book is a horror novel. This book is a love story. This book is all-encompassing.
This is the story of Johnny Truant and More...
0 comments
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(13 people liked it)
Aug 15, 2008
Jamie
rated it:
House of Leaves is really a weird book. So weird, in fact, that any discussion of it pretty much has to be dominated by its structure. Basically, there are 6 “layers” to the story, each of which the reader is directly or indirectly exposed to:
* Layer 1: Photojournalist Will Navidson and his family move into a new home. To procure content for a documentary he wants to make on the experience, Navidson sets up cameras everywhere a la some reality TV show. He soon discovers that, imp More...
* Layer 1: Photojournalist Will Navidson and his family move into a new home. To procure content for a documentary he wants to make on the experience, Navidson sets up cameras everywhere a la some reality TV show. He soon discovers that, imp More...
0 comments
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(12 people liked it)
Oct 09, 2007
Katie
rated it:
(SCROLL DOWN FOR AN AFTER)
I'm beginning to dabble with the experimental novel--and I say "dabble" because I haven't finished one yet. I started reading The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, this summer but only got about 130 pages in. Yesterday I got a bit deeper in Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves.
House of Leaves is the kind of book, so far, that when I'm interrupted from reading it, my heart races and I jump of my bed to get the door, conscio More...
I'm beginning to dabble with the experimental novel--and I say "dabble" because I haven't finished one yet. I started reading The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, this summer but only got about 130 pages in. Yesterday I got a bit deeper in Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves.
House of Leaves is the kind of book, so far, that when I'm interrupted from reading it, my heart races and I jump of my bed to get the door, conscio More...
0 comments
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(5 people liked it)
Mar 07, 2008
Mungo
rated it:
Contrived and full of gimmicks. A cut and paste job using ideas from Stephen King, Bret Easton Ellis and Thomas Pynchon with a few original ideas scattered amongst the stolen property. Sure, it's pretty and an interesting mix between storytelling and graphic arts, but pretty shapes and colors can't possibly hide a weak sentence:
"As I strain now to see past The Navidson Record , beyond this strange filigree of imperfection, the murmur of Zampanò's thoughts, endlessly searching, More...
"As I strain now to see past The Navidson Record , beyond this strange filigree of imperfection, the murmur of Zampanò's thoughts, endlessly searching, More...
5 comments
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(20 people liked it)
Jan 16, 2008
Greg
rated it:
This is without a doubt one of the most engrossing books I've ever read in my life. I'm almost embarrassed to admit the amount of notes I've scrawled in various notebooks while reading it. You can call this book a horror story, but you can also call it a love story. You might call it the reinvention of the novel, or at the very least it's a book that makes you question your ideas about what a novel could or should be. About where the line is between fact and fiction, author and creation, about i
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2 comments
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(7 people liked it)
Dec 17, 2009
R.
rated it:
If the inside of your house is bigger than the outside of your house, you might just be a redneck.
9 comments
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(7 people liked it)
Dec 17, 2009
Alex
rated it:
This book was a pleasure to read. I had a Harry Potter I-am-now-a-Reader reaction to reading it, like I wanted to read it all the time. The book is imbued with obsession from its storyline to its idiosyncratic layout, with words appearing at weird angles, "house" always appearing in blue, multiple story lines going on on the same page, printed in different fonts etc etc... and that obsession was passed on to me as I read it.
Story wise, and structure-wise, I have to say it i More...
Story wise, and structure-wise, I have to say it i More...
0 comments
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(2 people liked it)
Sep 04, 2008
Dan
rated it:
Hey, I finally finished this book. This story, by far was the most difficult for me to read; why? I painsakenly struggled through all of the different fonts, words in squares, used a mirror for the reversed words, and tried to find a story within.
I found the story throughout all the fuss. Was it worth it? Well maybe not a whole lot, but I do admire the courage it took to write this mess.
I know this is a very scary story about a house... and I'll stop right there, because you More...
I found the story throughout all the fuss. Was it worth it? Well maybe not a whole lot, but I do admire the courage it took to write this mess.
I know this is a very scary story about a house... and I'll stop right there, because you More...
0 comments
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(8 people liked it)
Oct 23, 2009
JSou
rated it:
I finished this last night. At about 1:30 in the morning. Honestly, I have no idea how to even begin a review for this book. I kind of have the same panicky feeling I had when people would see me reading and ask what this book was about. I started blurting out incomplete sentences and even stammering all the while. I knew there was no way I could convey the brilliance of this book in just a couple light-conversational sentences. I think that might be the same case here, so my apologies in a
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15 comments
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(16 people liked it)
Mar 22, 2011
Fuzzy
rated it:
I was pushing through the last few pages of House of Leaves at lunch and a coworker saw one of the distinctly typographically "interesting" pages open in front me. "Are you reading House of Leaves? I loved that book." "Well," I said, "frankly I'm hating it." "Hating how compelling it is?" "No, just plain hate-hating it."
The weird thing is that I should love it. I love multiple layers. I love footnotes. I love codes. I love n More...
The weird thing is that I should love it. I love multiple layers. I love footnotes. I love codes. I love n More...
0 comments
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(5 people liked it)
Oct 16, 2008
J.S.
rated it:
More than anything, House of Leaves is pretentious. It does things against the grain just because they haven't been done before, not because they're necessarily good ideas. The book seems to take pride in trying its damnedest to give you a headache, and then expects you to like it (unless Danielewski is a sociopath, and wants people to suffer while reading this, in which case I've misinterpreted).
House of Leaves gives off the impression of a modern art experiment, daring you to say i More...
House of Leaves gives off the impression of a modern art experiment, daring you to say i More...
3 comments
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(11 people liked it)
Aug 15, 2008
Sarah
rated it:
this book is bigger on the outside than it is on the inside.
too much style, too little substance. the story of the house lured me in and propelled me through to the conclusion but most of the book was filler. the excessive footnotes were distracting and annoying and added little or nothing at all to the story. as i was having to turn the book upside down and sideways and very nearly bending over backwards to read some pages, i pictured danielewski grinning with delight at the headache a More...
too much style, too little substance. the story of the house lured me in and propelled me through to the conclusion but most of the book was filler. the excessive footnotes were distracting and annoying and added little or nothing at all to the story. as i was having to turn the book upside down and sideways and very nearly bending over backwards to read some pages, i pictured danielewski grinning with delight at the headache a More...
0 comments
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(12 people liked it)
May 20, 2008
Taka
rated it:
Amazing--
Once in a while out of the blue, someone comes up with a work of art incredibly original and mind-blowing, and one can only pray that he or she is lucky enough to encounter it. Well, here it is. A book devilishly conceived and beautifully crafted, written in its own polyphonous and cacophonous language, telling a captivating horror story about a strange house. The unusual layout of the book makes a portion of it a real labyrinth, making your eyes wander over those pages in s More...
Once in a while out of the blue, someone comes up with a work of art incredibly original and mind-blowing, and one can only pray that he or she is lucky enough to encounter it. Well, here it is. A book devilishly conceived and beautifully crafted, written in its own polyphonous and cacophonous language, telling a captivating horror story about a strange house. The unusual layout of the book makes a portion of it a real labyrinth, making your eyes wander over those pages in s More...
0 comments
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(4 people liked it)
Sep 01, 2007
Nate
rated it:
It is difficult to review this house of leaves, mainly because it attempts to betray every convention in the writing world, and as such becomes suspect on first glance. It is the ultimate experiment in book-art, taking the words on the page and literally painting them in circles, descending the writing in columns through 20 pages, and then reascending the column on the other side, back up those 20 pages. At first it's nothing but a good gimmick; However the deeper you get into the story (es
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0 comments
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(2 people liked it)
Jan 26, 2009
Lara
rated it:
I read this book in one day because I was physically incapable of putting it down. I was too busy turning it every which way, flipping back and forth between its labyrinthine pages, completely absorbed in its every level. It has crept its way into my head in ways I never thought possible. I turned my bedside lamp on and off several times last night, checking to make sure the room was still as I'd remembered it, wondering if I should go and get the book and look for more answers, or if I should
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5 comments
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(5 people liked it)
Jun 12, 2007
Brooke
rated it:
In short, House of Leaves is about a house that's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.
A bit of a longer synopsis: Johnny Truant finds a manuscript. The manuscript is an academic article about a documentary. This documentary was created by Will Navidson, who discovers that his house is larger on the inside than it is on the outside and decides to explore the strangeness and videotape it as he goes. The academic manuscript about the movie was written by Zampanò, who is blind More...
A bit of a longer synopsis: Johnny Truant finds a manuscript. The manuscript is an academic article about a documentary. This documentary was created by Will Navidson, who discovers that his house is larger on the inside than it is on the outside and decides to explore the strangeness and videotape it as he goes. The academic manuscript about the movie was written by Zampanò, who is blind More...
0 comments
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(4 people liked it)
