House of Leaves in On Paths Unknown

Nov 10, 2020 mark monday rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: horror-modern, new-dimensions

1 part fascinating, 9 parts unbearable.

I may come back to this one day, if only to reread the parts that specifically describe the bizarre occurrences in this house/labyrinth/abyss. I think those parts were pretty good? Maybe? Happy to skip revisiting the gimmicky (and often laughably written) footnotes/digressions/analyses, and especially to skip the trash story of maudlin Johnny Truant - the latter of which, sadly, is both the heart and much of the body of the novel. I guess I'm more into its ...more

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May 17, 2011 Jonfaith rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: speculativelyspeaking

My initial reading was courtesy of the local library. Yes, I had seen Blair Witch previously at the theatre and felt empty afterwards. One could also ditto the fact that I had read Infinite Jest by this point, the first time, if I may smug.

Everything worked for me during that initial reading. There were just enough fuck-ups surrounding me that the authorial tension was palpable. I found a great copy a few years later and I found myself drawn after my wife and I bought a house, the cause is obvi ...more

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Sep 22, 2007 Nate D rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: post-modernism, favorites

Read twice, Summer 2000 and November-December 2006.

This is one of those books that so many seem to hate, but coming back to it again after all those years confirmed to me that the book succeeds just fine on a number of levels. It can be read for a sort of existential horror entertainment, as a typographical marvel and amusement, as a diabolical Nabakovian puzzle box, or as a eerie rumination on loss and absence and how the irrevocable past impedes the present. Of course, they all work best toget ...more

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Aug 26, 2012 [Name Redacted] rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: urban-fantasy, tripe, dark-fantasy, disappointing, prurience

Colour me unimpressed. Another author who self-consciously tries so dang hard to make his readers think he's brilliant and insightful, but mistakes media for messages and content for substance. I'm giving it an extra star in large part because the author did at least attempt something incredibly ambitious. ...more

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Apr 04, 2009 Brian rated it it was amazing

In the last 100 books of fiction I've read, few can compare to this beauty. There are a couple of chapters that are so inventive and challenging to read ... but so worth it.

If you want to get lost in an amazing book in 2009, this is my recommendation. ...more

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Jun 17, 2009 Brad rated it liked it

Shelves: hyperreality, secret-history, horror, infuriating

So?

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Dec 01, 2009 Joseph Michael Owens rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

(I don't know how to do proper html spacing, but I loved this from the "Bits" part of the apendices!*)

"A sun to read the dark."
"A son to rend the dark."

[Typed]
November 2, 1968

Seventh Zampanò quote in House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski (Page 542, Appendix B. Bits).
...more

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Feb 28, 2021 Kate Sherrod rated it really liked it

Shelves: on-dead-tree-despite-the-pain

The gimmickiness annoyed me and at times physically hurt me (not a metaphor; I have physical difficulties with print books, especially trade paperbacks, even when I'm not called upon to turn them sideways or upside down) but everything else was interesting enough to make me put up with this, and I'll likely do it again fairly soon, because of course now I have Theories.

I didn't find it scary so much as sad and pitiful. YMMV. ...more

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Nov 04, 2018 Antonio Gallo rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: psycho, mistero, in-inglese, bibliomania, nonsense, mente, immaginazione, horror, letteratura-ergodica

La recensione che segue non l'ho scritta io, la riporto da Amazon ed è firmata "William". Posseggo questo libro da diversi anni ma non avevo avuto il tempo di leggerlo. Più di settecento pagine, edizione in inglese, un libro che per me rimane un "puzzle". Bisogna averlo tra le mani, sfogliarlo, vedere queste pagine stampate in maniera imprevedibile, sottosopra, alla rovescia, trasversale, insomma secondo lo stile della "letteratura ergodica", (non sapete cosa è?, e allora informatevi prima). "Wi La recensione che segue non l'ho scritta io, la riporto da Amazon ed è firmata "William". Posseggo questo libro da diversi anni ma non avevo avuto il tempo di leggerlo. Più di settecento pagine, edizione in inglese, un libro che per me rimane un "puzzle". Bisogna averlo tra le mani, sfogliarlo, vedere queste pagine stampate in maniera imprevedibile, sottosopra, alla rovescia, trasversale, insomma secondo lo stile della "letteratura ergodica", (non sapete cosa è?, e allora informatevi prima). "William" ha letto il libro in italiano, ha avuto il compito facilitato. Io ho la versione in inglese che è diventata un libro cult. Non è un caso che la vende a 399 euro. Ho tentato di leggerlo, ma poi ho mollato. Ho promesso a me stesso che prima o poi decido di riprovare. Nel frattempo leggete quello che ha scritto "mr. William".

"Finire un libro come Casa di Foglie di Mark Z. Danielewski mette una sensazione indefinibile di malinconia, almeno fino a quando non se ne inizia un altro. David Foster Wallace ha detto: “I romanzi sono come i matrimoni. E’ così triste finirli.” E immagino quanto dev’essere stato triste e devastante e vuoto per Danielewski finire di vivere con Casa di Foglie dopo ben dieci anni di totale simbiosi. Non credo che dopo aver letto Casa di Foglie si possa ancora parlare del vuoto stilistico della post-modernità ammesso che si sappia di cosa si parli quando si parla di post-modernità o di vuoto stilistico e visto che per alcuni parlare di postmodernismo è come parlare di niente, di un “vuoto inganno” non-sense, risponderò subito alla superficiale domanda “ma in casa di foglie c’è una storia?” Eccome, e non solo una, e come in tutte le storie, ci sono storie che si perdono lungo rampe di scale in salita, lungo scale a spirale che mutano continuamente il loro diametro ruggendo nel buio, dietro gli armadi, fra gli spazi incomprensibilmente in movimento, in fondo a ogni infinito corridoio e dietro ogni infinito scherzo, ci sono storie messe lì per raccontare altre storie o semplicemente altro, come la vita, storie che sono tutta la Storia, storie, e case, e foglie, sparpagliate tutto attorno.

Le frasi non seguono una sequenza logica ma un’apparente fluidificante crociata digitale, appaiono e scompaiono come cateteri cubitali in uno schermo luccicante, poi si sdoppiano, poi ricompaiono veloci in flash e rettangoli ricomposti e ben definiti come torrioni analogici impenetrabili. Una telecamera osserva i corpi dislocarsi secondo la noia e il disprezzo e l’ansimare della vita dentro la morte apparente, la telecamera continua a registrare gli sguardi storditi, le sedie capovolgersi, le fauci tramare, le vite scemare. Scansiona il tremore, cataloga occhi fuori sincrono scrutare. Le porte si aprono, poi lentamente si chiudono. C’è Danielewski che narra di Johnny Truant che narra di Zampanò che narra di Will Navidson e Karen Green [omonima della moglie di Wallace] che rievocano l’esperienza dell’opera cinematografica avanguardista e sperimentale tratta dalle esplorazioni numerate della loro Casa-Incubo, “The Navidson Record”.

Casa di foglie, I like it, un delirio grafico e narrativo di ottocentoerotte pagine che graffia, che fa precipitare il lettore in un buio metanarrativo multinarrativo e sovranarrativo e psiconarrativo [horror-narrativa-cinema-fotografia] per poi riacchiapparlo per capitoli e capitoli di lirismo lucido ed acuto tale da far schiantare gli occhi e da far scavalcare e scollinare le pagine laggiù oltre il vuoto insinuante che attanaglia lo stomaco.

E che dire delle note? Vero e proprio romanzo nel romanzo nel romanzo, infinito scherzo in cui si affacciano poesie collage lettere immagini scomposizioni grafiche dannazioni redenzioni urli nel silenzio candele che rischiarano un buio totale disorientante. Casa di Foglie è un horror partorito dalla realtà e dalla penna tremolante e fulminante di Danielewski che fa ridere, che fa piangere, che non lascia scampo." ...more

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Jul 27, 2025 Jlawrence rated it it was amazing

A dazzling mix of metafiction, existential and visceral horror, strong engrossing storytelling, and genuine heartbreak. A family discovers a labyrinth of darkness impossibly nested (and changing) within the walls of their house, the tragic exploration of which is filmed in a documentary, said documentary described and annotated with academic and pop culture commentary. But that's all within a fictional book, The Navidson Record, written by the deceased and erudite recluse Zampano, whose abandone A dazzling mix of metafiction, existential and visceral horror, strong engrossing storytelling, and genuine heartbreak. A family discovers a labyrinth of darkness impossibly nested (and changing) within the walls of their house, the tragic exploration of which is filmed in a documentary, said documentary described and annotated with academic and pop culture commentary. But that's all within a fictional book, The Navidson Record, written by the deceased and erudite recluse Zampano, whose abandoned, cursed manuscript is compiled and commented on by the troubled Johnny Truant, whose own turbulent life unfurls in his own extensive footnotes.

Zampano's invented footnotes (frequently using the names of real name critics and authors) predicts and pre-empts some of the interpretations that can be placed on Danielewski's unreliable narratives, but the various threads are rich enough to be taken many ways, and what sticks with me the most is the strong thread of human observation and compassion that underlies what otherwise could be an impressive but hollow display of post-modern pyrotechnics. For instance, the portrayal of the uneasy but loving relationship between Navidson and his alcoholic brother Tom (I *loved* Tom's jokes in his journal), and Johnny and his mother ((view spoiler)).

As for the spell the book casts, let's just listen to Johnny, writing about the curse Zampano's manuscript holds for those who read it (no spoilers, this is from the intro):

"Old shelters—television, magazines, movies—won't protect you anymore. You might try scribbling in a journal, on a napkin, maybe even in the margins of this book. That's when you'll discover you no longer trust the very walls you always took for granted. Even the hallways you've walked a hundred times will feel longer, much longer, and the shadows, any shadow at all, will suddenly seem deeper, much, much, deeper.

You might try then, as I did, to find a sky so full of stars it will blind you again. Only no sky can blind you now. Even with all that iridescent magic up there, your eye will no longer linger on the light, it will no longer trace constellations. You'll care only about the darkness and you'll watch it for hours, for days, maybe even for years, trying in vain to believe you're some kind of indispensable, universe-appointed sentinel, as if just by looking you could actually keep it all at bay. It will get so bad you'll be afraid to look away, you'll be afraid to sleep.

Then no matter where you are, in a crowded restaurant or on some desolate street or even in the comforts of your own home, you'll watch yourself dismantle every assurance you ever lived by. You'll stand aside as a great complexity intrudes, tearing apart, piece by piece, all of your carefully conceived denials, whether deliberate or unconscious. And then for better or worse you'll turn, unable to resist, though try to resist you still will, fighting with everything you've got not to face the thing you most dread, what is now, what will be, what has always come before, the creature you truly are, the creature we all are, buried in the nameless black of a name.

And then the nightmares will begin." ...more

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