House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
The Book: Tipped off by his friend Lude, Johnny Truant discovers a bunch of old papers and fragments which make up what looks like a dissertation by a man named Zampano, on 'The Navidson Record', a documentary about Will Navidson, his wife Karen, their kids and their house on Ash Tree Lane, which is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Through Zampano's laborious work we learn that the hallway in the middle of the house is a dark, cold, no-man's land, almost like an Escherian black hole, which sucks the occupants and their friends in with its mysterious shapeshifting and impossible physics. The house, the documentary, and Zampano's bits and pieces get to Johnny in a severe way, as he becomes claustrophobic and agoraphobic, delusional, panicky and violent, among other things. (And this is about where the synopsis ends.)
The big thing about this book is its format - Johnny starts us off with an introduction of sorts, then Zampano's dissertation begins, complete with (often fictional) footnotes, academic turns of phrase, chunks of deconstruction of theories on just about anything (physics, philosophy, cinematography, etc.), interspersed with rambling anecdotes from Johnny about what kind of day he's having (usually tripped out on something, whether it be drugs or his own mind, bar-hopping with Lude and picking up women). Further down the rabbithole, text-boxes appear, footnotes loop around each other, some bits are written backwards, there are lists and lists and lists of irrelevant material, some bits are written in the corners of the page, some are upside down, etc. Johnny's bits and Zampano's bits become more and more tangled together, dissolving eventually into nonsense. There are appendices and an index (which apparently links back to incorrect pages), and letters from Johnny's mother in a mental institution. Through these interweaving narratives, the dichotomy of fiction and non-fiction is blurred; academic credulity is undermined; what happens to Johnny and how it happens is never fully discovered. Mark Z. Danielewski's book is much about the act and the process of reading as much as it is a book to read, and of course, whenever the word 'house' appears, it's written in blue.
The Review: House of Leaves is one of those novels that you either really dislike or really love reading. Unfortunately I thought it a bit of a chore to get through, and felt like I wasn't rewarded for reaching the end of it. Some people really love the genre-bending visual delight of this book because it's new and innovative, and I respect that - MZD obviously spend a long, long time writing and setting it all out the way he has - but I couldn't help but feel like it was a waste of time, as it all got in the way of a pretty neat story idea. The idea behind 'The Navidson Record', the idea of the shapeshifting house and how it affects whoever goes in there (or who doesn't in some cases), would have made a great gothic or magical realist novel in its own right, but everything that MZD has done to the format of the novel just gets in the way of that story. Johnny's story is difficult to decipher (if there even is one - if there is, I can't say I'm too keen to go back and look for it, as he's a pretty hopeless and dislikable character). The other thing that really bothered me was the verbosity of the whole novel, hauntings of Kerouac's spontaneous bop prosody in Johnny's almost-constant word vomit but without the Beat appeal. MZD sums it up for me at the very beginning: "With a little luck, you'll dismiss this labor, react as Zampano had hoped, call it needlessly complicated, pointlessly obtuse, prolix - your word - ridiculously conceived..." (p. xxii). Johnny goes on to warn that although you've dismissed it, it will ultimately change your life - not now, but later on down the track, months, years or decades from now. I doubt it.
Some reviewers on GoodReads have made the point that the layout and the styles of prose are part of the story overall, and it is, but in the end, the effort I put in to try and get something out of House of Leaves ended up being, I think, for naught. To quote another GoodReads reviewer: "The book is bigger on the outside than it is on the inside". I appreciate the author trying his hand out on something different, a bit quirky, etc., but for me the experience wasn't enjoyable (or scary or unsettling or whatever other emotions or reactions others have to this book).
Out of Five:
1 out of 5
