House of Leaves in What's the Name of That Book???

Oct 18, 2022 Melissa Rochelle rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2022

Once upon a time there were two high school seniors that checked this book out of their local public library multiple times and neither ever completed the novel. One day in early fall, the twentieth anniversary edition re-appeared on shelves at Target and one of those former students now nearing 40 bought a copy.

She
slowly
made
her
descent
into
the
darkness
of
the
house
while
trying
to
stop
falling
into
her
own
darkness

Because the darkness, that's inside all of us.

I was one of those high school students ...more

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Mar 30, 2018 Maryse rated it liked it · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This is not for you.

So starts MZD's House of Leaves. Perhaps I should have headed the warning (wasn't really a warning but then I initially thought this was a horror book), but I found this book at an odd place in my life, facing my own abyss and questions about life - or maybe it found me just as Zampano's notes find Johnny. Whatever, this is for me.

House of leaves is a strange book, to say the least. A book about a book about a film. Johnny Truant, a tattoo shop slacker, finds and edits a This is not for you.

So starts MZD's House of Leaves. Perhaps I should have headed the warning (wasn't really a warning but then I initially thought this was a horror book), but I found this book at an odd place in my life, facing my own abyss and questions about life - or maybe it found me just as Zampano's notes find Johnny. Whatever, this is for me.

House of leaves is a strange book, to say the least. A book about a book about a film. Johnny Truant, a tattoo shop slacker, finds and edits a book written by a blind man called Zampano which is about a film called The Navidson Records. Zampano makes every attempt to paint the film as true events although Johnny finds holes in his references that suggest that not everything is true. Zampano dies alone leaving unexplained disappearances of cats, locks and markings in house. As Johnny studies Zampano's work he too begins to experience paranoia, nightmares and to fear the darkness which no longer feels empty.

Structurally, I think this is one of best written novels I've ever read; exceptionally written. Zampano's textbook style criticism with its abundance of references works for me; the multiple referenced authors, interviews and footnotes does create this vast, deep and seemingly real world of The Navidson Record. Navy's dying moments, in particular, though sparsely written guts at anyone who has ever experienced a loss. The piece has a sense of space that you do get sucked into that dark hallway in the same way the characters do, and the reader blindly falls into the story create this spiral of a story which follows Navidson and his friends, leading Zampano leading Johnny leading you, the reader, into the unexplained beyond.

The page layouts are genuis, mimicking thier/your descent into nothingness, slow and confusing at first but then, as less and less (sometimes even just 1 word) are contained in a page, time and space warps. While the initial 200 pages took hours to read, suddenly you fly through the next 100 in just minutes. Soon, the constant intrusion of the footnotes adds to sense of disorientation. What is the story about again? Where am I??? As one looses Navy's storyline in Zampano's psuedo-academic criticism and Johnny's never ending anecdotes. At more than one point, I wanted to stop, but like all its characters, I'm too invested already. I am Holloway unable to return without succeeding. I am Navy obsessed or possessed by this thing. I am Johnny who recognizes too many of my own monsters that I cannot turn away. This is for me. So I struggle on

I like books that "interact" with the reader, those that seem to take you into a story rather than tell you. It was not long after Johnny began sharing his paranoia that I too seemed to see things in the dark, hear things in the dark, fear the dark. Creepy, but I suppose that is part of its magic. The house is said to change in response to who is entering it. In the same manner, the darkness that threatens Navy et al molds into something personal for all of the characters, including the reader who is attempting to make sense of this story. In essence the reader sort of becomes part of the story: You trying to understand Johnny's notes who's trying to make sense of Zampano's interpretation of Navidson's view of this horror. We are all trying to see the Navidson house but none of us (except for Navy) has in fact truly "seen" the house. Yet Zampano, Johnny and the reader are all trying to interpret it through their own, limited lenses. It's brilliant but herein also lies its downfall.

In the end, after all the whirlwind of events and footnotes and appendices and pictures and side studies, after all the interview transcripts, the letters, the lost notes, what I am reading is at best an interpretation of an interpretation of an interpretation of someone. Unfortunately, the author constantly reminds us that none of the writers seem trustworthy. Johnny is a junkie who constantly lies and is best known for making up stories. Zampano, a blind man, is commenting on a visual film. All of Johnny's research on Navidson points to the fact that The Navidson Record does not exist. "Bullsh**t," as Tom Navidson screams in Tom's Story (Danielewski transcribing as Zampano, p. 270). So what have I been reading? If I cannot trust any of the narrator, then how I can I trust any of their work? What can I trust? Who's to say that all this isnt just Johnny's acid trip? Does any of this even mean anything? After all that philosophical, mythological, existential hogwash, after all the emotional and psychological investment, not to mention the physical time I've wasted struggling through these pages, what exactly do I get?

Nothing.

Unless you decide to have hope and trust anyway. Then that nothing changes and slowly becomes something. ...more

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May 21, 2007 Gina rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This book made me go a bit mad in my head, but in the best way, and I didn't even cry when I was done it, despite all the insanity. It is a hard read and definitely not a good one to pick up for the Metro, but it expanded the way I know books are written and read. If you have an entire week to spare and know you won't be alone in dark rooms for a while, check this book out. ...more

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Mar 27, 2015 Jennifer rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Came back 8 years later to increase my rating to 5 stars because I think about this book more often than any other book I've ever read and spend way too much time trying to find any other book that would live up to my memory of this one. ...more

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