Book Review: House of Leaves: The Remastered Full-Color Edition by Mark Z. Danielewski

I found this book incredibly frustrating.  I don’t know how to tell you what the book is about, because it is about so many things.  Irritatingly, the book compels me to draw pictures to try to sort it out.  For you, I’ve made a chart.  Here are the levels of narrative in the book as I see them.  In the spirit of piling-on so pervasive in the book, please feel free to suggest additional layers.

The life of Will and Karen Navidson, particularly their experiences in a bizarre and changing house in Virginia

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The Navidson Record, a movie made from the photos and videos of the Navidsons as they explore the uncanny labyrinth that appears beneath their home

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Popular and academic discussion (ad nauseam) of the film, including bootleg internet copies of film

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Zampáno’s description of the film and compilation of artifacts (introduced to Johnny by his friend Lude, a neighbor of Zampáno)

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Johnny Truant’s edition of Zampáno’s text, with additional footnotes about his own life; internet versions of this text are described here and at the next level

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An edition by unnamed editors that adds documentation about Johnny’s life; a copy of this is carried by Will Navidson during his last exploration of the house

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The author, Mark Z. Danielewski

That is a very pretty, ordered, and linear idea of the book, but nothing in the book is pretty or linear.  Like some post-structural choose-your-own adventure, the reader is constantly pulled away from the central text by footnotes and supplemental materials.  These aren’t the sort of footnotes and appendices that can be ignored either.  In the midst of a bit about Will Navidson, Johnny will go on for several pages about himself, his lovers (especially Kyrie, but also Thumper, his dream girl), or his friend Lude, among other things.  Some of these footnotes have their own footnotes, and in one particularly memorable sideways slide, we are pulled into the extensive catalogue of letters written by Johnny’s mom when she was confined to a mental hospital before her death.

On top of that, there are additional layers of narrative completely outside the text I hold in my hand.  For instance, the nature of the book invites any review (like this one) written about the book to become part of the narrative.  My favorite bit of meta-narrative though, is that Danielewski’s sister is Annie Decatur Danielewski, more commonly known as the singer Poe.  Poe’s album Haunted was produced simultaneously with House of Leaves.  The video version of the single “Hey Pretty” features bro reading a particularly hot and sticky scene about Johnny and Kyrie and a BMW on a hill.  It was certainly “the longest unzipping of my life” in more ways than one.  The unzipping of the book did not have the same erotic tension though as the unzipping of Kyrie’s leather pants.

I’d like to say that at the core of the story we have a haunted house.  Ok, not haunted, but very creepy and unstable, with a vast network of rooms beneath it that change according to the will and mental stability of their occupants.  It’s also possible to say that Johnny’s struggle with his own sanity is at the core of the story.  Alternately you could prioritize one of the love stories (Karen and Will?  Thumper and Johnny?  Johnny and Kyrie?  Kyrie and Gdansk Man?).  So what is it?  Satire on the extensive mental masturbation of academic and popular discourse, along with stabs at our bizarre willingness to overanalyze anything (guilty)?  Ghost story about a creepy house?  Love story?  Self-destructive struggle with drug addiction or mental illness?  All of these?

But wait, there’s more.  The book’s structure is enigmatic and twisting, the sense of time and place in the story is incredibly squishy, and embedded within the text are many puzzles.  Codes embedded in the letters of Johnny’s mom or the corners of pages. Anagrams in the first-letters of the footnotes.  Perhaps picture puzzles in the many different photos and drawings in the book.  Be sure to examine the pub info page and the use of color to highlight or obliterate some words and phrases.

So when I say that the book was frustrating and crazy-making, I’m quite serious.  Cleverly perhaps (on the part of Danielewski), my frustration and disorientation as a reader trying to navigate the structure of the book echoed the confusion of the characters.  The structure and narrative are quite lucid and “normal” sometimes.  At other times the text is upside down, angled, backward, sometimes with words edge-to-edge on a page of multiple columns and inset boxes.  Other times there will be only one or two words on a page for several pages.

The prose is so compelling though that I found myself wishing for a cleaner structure that would allow me to appreciate the very strong writing and imagery.  I quit reading the book repeatedly, convinced that the structure was an irritating manifestation of smug self-indulgence.  If I hadn’t agreed to read the book for Patrick I would certainly never have finished.

The book is successful in that I didn’t quit it, I won’t forget it, and I’ll likely talk about it a great deal.  That success is narrowly won though.  The structure is a gamble.  Most readers likely wouldn’t keep at it, let alone pick it up in the first place.  Those who love a puzzle and are willing to experience the book as an enigma to be savored will find it a treasure.