Mark Z. Danielewski

A family relocates to a small house on Ash Tree Lane and discovers that the inside of their new home seems to be without boundaries

Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves

Zampanò

A family relocates to a small house on Ash Tree Lane and discovers that the inside of their new home seems to be without boundaries. A first novel. Original.

I will become, I have become, a creature unstirred by history, no longer moved by the present, just hungry, blind and at long last full of mindless wrath.

The walls are endlessly bare. Nothing hangs on them, nothing defines them. They are without texture. Even to the keenest eye or most sentient fingertip, they remain unreadable. You will never find a mark there. No trace survives. The walls obliterate everything. They are permanently absolved of all record. Oblique, forever obscure and unwritten. Behold the perfect pane thin of absence.

Of course real horror does not depend upon the melodrama of shadows or even the conspiracies of night.

The monster wasn’t amused. It didn’t matter. The alcohol in me had already quickened and fled.  I stood there tingling all over, a dangerous clarity returning to me, ancient bloodlines colluding under what I imagine now must of been the very aegis of Mars, my fingers itching to weld into themselves, while directly beneath my sternum a hammer struck the timeless bell of war, a call to arms, though all of it still held back by what? words I guess, or rather a voice, though whose I have no clue.

Ever see yourself doing something in the past and no matter how many times you remember it you still want to scream stop, somehow redirect the action, reorder the present?  I feel that way now, watching myself tugged stupidly along by inertia, my own inquisitiveness or whatever else, and it must have been something else, though what exactly I have no clue, maybe nothing,

Sleep’s been stalking me for too long to remember.

I was actually thinking about this as I came across this passage. Danielewski does such a great job separating each narrator/author into their own writing style (which I know I and many other writers cannot do well).

Eli Alvah Huckabee

“I told him all those passages were inappropriate for a critical work, and if he were in my class I’d mark him down for it. But he’d just chuckle and continue. It bothered me a little but the guy wasn’t my student and he was blind and old, so why should I care?”

Zoilo Comia

I really liked the ‘main’ plot, but the formatting and pacing was hard to deal with. Core concept very cool in my opinion, just not executed well for me😅

Katherine 

As a reader, this book is most rewarding from multiple readings.

Colleen

4.5 Stars but I'll round up to 5

House of Leaves is unlike anything I've ever read. In a world where many books blend together, this book is an archetype of distinctiveness. I initially knocked off a star for the story sometimes being too dense and lengthy, but I bumped it back up to five stars because of the originality. 

Being unique, it does not slide neatly into any particular genre. It's advertised as Horror and Thriller and Mystery. And while it does have elements of each of those, it cannot solely identify with any one category. Skirting the customary formula that books of those genre follow, House of Leaves boldly stamps its own path. It was a risky experiment, and it paid off.

The premise sounds simple: A family moves into a house only to discover that it is bigger on the inside than on the outside. Slowly, they realize that it is so much more than just a small discrepancy of measurement. There is something sinister in this house; the house itself is sinister. 

Both the story and format of the book start out fairly normal and linear. But slowly, very slowly, you are plunged into a topsy-turvy world of madness. While unreliable narrators and constant jumps in time and place usually deter me from liking a book, in House of Leaves it is done so cleverly that I was captivated. No, not every single moment was riveting, and there were times when I got a little lost. But looking back, I wonder if some of those misdirections were intentionally planted. You start out with something simple, but before you know it, the story sneakily constructs a behemoth around you ensnaring you in its labyrinth. 

And a labyrinth it is. This book has the most unusual formatting I've ever scene. The genius of it is that it perfectly reflects the disintegrating narrative. Before you know it, the normal left-to-right top-to bottom orientation has devolved into sideways, upside down, backwards, spiral. I go some strange looks as I turned my book this way and that reading Luna Lovegood style. This strange formatting might turn off some people, but I would encourage anyone to stick with it. This book is worth the effort. It's about a labyrinth. The story itself is a labyrinth. The words that comprise the story are themselves a labyrinth. 

Time moves differently when reading House of Leaves. I got lost in it. I'd sit down and suddenly find an hour had gone by. Sometimes I'd have only read a few pages, sometimes a hundred. Time does move differently when reading this book. It slips between the cracks and disappears. But that only adds to the aura of strangeness that clings to this book. 

There were other creative choices. Certain words are in red. The word house is always in blue. It's a darker blue that doesn't pop out if you're just glancing at the page. But when you are reading closely along and suddenly come to the little blue word, it causes a little jolt. A little chill.

Throughout reading this book, I kept thinking of Escher's drawing "Relativity." That's the one where a series of geometrically impossible staircases twine together. At first glance, it makes sense. But the longer you look at it, the more you realize that nothing lines up. Figures march up and down staircases completely at odds with each other. Perhaps it would be more accurate to compare this book to another Escher drawing: "House of Stairs." The title can't be a coincidence; there are no coincidences in this House. Each is encased in his or her own gravity, their own sense of what is real. And like that picture, House of Leaves weaves together different threads and different stories in a way that simultaneously makes sense and yet is illogical. 

I have multiple theories about the meaning of this story and what is the "truth." However, like Escher's staircases, they conflict with each other. Whichever staircase I am on or theory I am considering at a particular moment makes sense. I'm not sure there is one right answer. The story is complex and constantly shifting. I won't even pretend to understand it all. But I enjoyed trying to figure it out. I won't say more than that because this is definitely a journey to be experienced first hand and without spoilers.

One of the things that Danielewski did best in this novel was allow the reader's imagination free reign. He understood the adage of "show; don't tell." He understood that a dark, ominous room is scarier than actually seeing a monster; that your own mind can scare you more when it is left to fill in the details than when blandly being told, "This is scary. Be scared." Instead, he subtlety sets the scene and lets the readers' minds provide the chills.
"There never could have been a moment when only the imagination succeeded in prodding those inky folds, coming up with its own sense, something far more perverse and contorted and heavy with things much stranger and colder than even this brief shadow play performed in the irregular burn of sulfur - mythic and inhuman, flickering, shifting, and finally dying around men's continuous progress."The writing itself is at times profoundly poetic. Yet there are times when it is crude and harsh. Somehow the two veins complement each other and once again it all weaves together into something unique. I wouldn't want more books to be like this though. The novelty would wear off, and it would drive me nuts if more books were this nonlinear. But this book is worth the trip.

Make sure you read it through to the end though, the very end. 

In a few years, I will read this book again. I am sure I will find that the staircases have shifted again, that though it will be the same book, it will not be the same story. Because a good book grows with you and always shows you something new. So I will end with one last quote:
“This much I'm certain of: it doesn't happen immediately. You'll finish [the book] and that will be that, until a moment will come, maybe in a month, maybe a year, maybe even several years. You'll be sick or feeling troubled or deeply in love or quietly uncertain or even content for the first time in your life. It won't matter. Out of the blue, beyond any cause you can trace, you'll suddenly realize things are not how you perceived them to be at all. For some reason, you will no longer be the person you believed you once were. You'll detect slow and subtle shifts going on all around you, more importantly shifts in you. Worse, you'll realize it's always been shifting, like a shimmer of sorts, a vast shimmer, only dark like a room. But you won't understand why or how. You'll have forgotten what granted you this awareness in the first place."

I gotta be honest, this book put me to sleep. After a full month of trying to get into it, the person who bought this book for me was like, "It's okay, if you're not enjoying it, ditch it." I made it about half way through the book, and even that took me a month. What they had enjoyed about it, the breaking of the format of conventional story telling, was something I had explored somewhat during my time in art school so it didn't seem that novel - pardoning the pun - to me. I also couldn't stand Johnny or the font chosen for Johnny. The only aspect I cared for were the actual parts about the Navidson house, and to get to those parts you had to wade through so many gd sex scenes that I wanted to scream. 

This book was not for me and that's okay. I hope, if you choose to read it, that this is more your speed.

Kirsten Simkiss

I gotta be honest, this book put me to sleep. After a full month of trying to get into it, the person who bought this book for me was like, "It's okay, if you're not enjoying it, ditch it." I made it about half way through the book, and even that took me a month. What they had enjoyed about it, the breaking of the format of conventional story telling, was something I had explored somewhat during my time in art school so it didn't seem that novel - pardoning the pun - to me. I also couldn't stand Johnny or the font chosen for Johnny. The only aspect I cared for were the actual parts about the Navidson house, and to get to those parts you had to wade through so many gd sex scenes that I wanted to scream. 

This book was not for me and that's okay. I hope, if you choose to read it, that this is more your speed.

Taylor

This book took me exactly five months to read. And okay, I was a LITTLE busy over the past five months, but when half of a 700 page book is basically pages with three words on them, that’s a long time. So maybe that’s a disservice to this book. 

There were parts of this book that made me physically recoil or say “what the fuck” very quietly on SEPTA or cry on my cat. There were periods where I didn’t want to put it down because the plot was finally getting there(!). And there were chapters that had my eyes glazing over because they read like a particularly dickish academic paper that I didn’t really care about. 

I could see an abridged version of this book that gets things done in a tight 250 pages being a much better read. It wouldn’t be a feat of literature or a brave new world of horror fiction, but it also wouldn’t be a joyless slog. Mark Danielewski hmu!!

And I almost forgot - @ people comparing this to the Blair Witch Project, the horror movie that defined a generation: who hurt you??

This did not live up to the hype I had kept hearing about at all. Plainly put, the story was unique but staggered far too much with its pace. Character-wise, I did not enjoy any of them. I didn’t care when Johnny had sex, I didn’t care when Karen and Navidson loved and then didn’t love and then loved each other again. I only liked Tom and that, I’m sure, was quite intentional by the author. I was a fan of the spiraling chapters but they ended up with a lot of useless footnotes instead of passages really worth reading. To me, visual cues in a book don’t really pop unless I’m enjoying what I’m reading.

Ley Stanton

I don't even have words for this book right now. It was like nothing I've ever read. Perhaps I'll write a full review when I stop feeling like something - or someone - is standing just out of my line of sight. This book thoroughly creeped me out.

Ken Yuen

I finished reading House of Leaves. it was difficult. It was full of a bunch of stuff that was distracting or hard to process. It was haunting and it kept me searching the dark, looking for answers that might or might not be there.

Brad Mitchell

Nothing I say will do this book justice, I don't even think it can justify itself.

Kaitlyn Schmidt

I really enjoyed this book, although at times it did drag along. This book is one I'll have to re-read because you can decode a lot if you paid close enough attention. I did leave this book feeling very confused and it didn't have such psychological affects on me as it did my friend. 

I liked Truant's point of view but again, I am very confused about the ending of his section. My favorite points though were the house explorations (obviously) and how it affected the people inside of it. 

I only gave it 4 stars because although I enjoyed it I just didn't enjoy it as much as I expected to. My friend talked it up a lot and it just didn't quite live up. Also, it was slow at points and found myself skimming. And lastly, I left this book very confused and kind of wish it ended more bluntly with everything laid out clear.

Devin Ware

I feel like I rate everything five stars, but this book makes me so happy, in a deep-in-the-soul sort of way. I've heard that Danielewski denied that it was a horror novel, and instead claimed it was a love story. I think it's both, and this only makes it more gorgeous. Terrifying, surreal, and so damned lonely.

Jessica Williamson

I don't . . . words?

I'm going to leave this at a 4. I may come back in the future with more thoughts but this book is ugh... different.

*added 10ish hours later*

Ok so the thing about this book is that I totally get why people love it. I also get why people hate it. So let's talk about it in some broad strokes, yeah?

Firstly, it's not scary. Not really. I'd say more unsettling or uncomfortable than scary. Now, some people DID find it scary and found themselves looking behind them while reading to check for monsters, but that just wasn't my experience with the book. I was just a little creeped is all. 

The treatment of women: it's shit. There's not a single woman in this book who I think was treated in a fair light. Not one. Every woman on page is sexualized and broken down until really all they are is their occupation, level of promiscuity, and/or their past sexual trauma. That's to say I was like "oh boy, another gratuitous sex scene where everyone is drunk and high. Cool." it was decidedly not cool, and honestly I hated reading it. I was more uncomfortable from that than the aforementioned scary parts. However, when you look a bit closer into the book and what the narrator is telling us, I think it actually makes sense for this story. That's not to say I like it any more now than I did while reading it, but I kind of . . . get it?

Johnny. Why is he even here? Johnny's narrative was a shit show. It was one drug fueled haze after another and I HATE reading things like this. That sex, drugs, and rock and roll attitude is just not my jam. It is so middle-aged white man from 1970. Again though, when looking deeper into the book (and without naming spoilers) and paying close attention to the letter's from Johnny's mother that can be found in the appendices, there's a lot more going on in this book than what meets the eye. 

If you read this book and you thought it was an absolute waste of time, that's a valid feeling and I don't know that I have anything more for you. If you read this book and thought, "Hmmm that's interesting but I don't know why any of this is relevant to the actual story being told." then I am here for you. I think taking a deep dive into the copious forums about this novel can help deepen an understanding of why a lot of the negatives of the reading experience were actually needed to tell the full story.

There are a lot of theories about this book and one of them is that Johnny tells you that the book can consume you. You can fall into it and never truly find your way out, and that's absolutely true for us as well. It's all very meta. SUPER meta in fact.

I'm going to keep with the four star. I don't think this is the best literary masterpiece of our time, but I also GET IT. I can see myself picking this up again in a couple of years and spending more time with the footnotes and mysteries. I definitely spent more emphasis on the Navidson account in this first pass than I did on Johnny's story, but I can definitely see how the two both need to be told together to make the whole thing make sense.

Paola C

So, you want to read this book? Don't. Full review up on my blog! https://paolareads.blogspot.com/

Patty M.

This is more than a book. This is a work of art. Masterful and brilliant. House of Leaves will stay with me for a very long time.

Emily

3.5 stars.

Reading this book became much more enjoyable once I realized you can just read the parts you want to read. Seriously. Don't bother reading every word of Johnny's verbose tangents, or every analysis on the psychology of the characters from made up sources, and definitely don't bother reading every word of the countless lists of random names and materials scattered throughout. There is a compelling narrative (or a few...) buried within all the excess, and I'd recommend just reading that part (or whatever parts interest you the most). 

This book is definitely unique, I'll give it that. It can be interpreted in an infinite number of ways, yet I don't think I even have a solid interpretation myself. I enjoyed the Navidson story the most out of everything, though I wish we were given some more concrete answers. I know that's not the point, but the ending left me wanting, not more because oh god I could not get through even more pages of this, but something else. I did read the majority of Johnny's story as well (and all of his mom's), but I found that portion much less rewarding.

I also didn't really find this book to be all that scary. Sure, if I was in these characters' situation, I would be horrified, but nothing ever felt like it was a horror I would experience in the real world. That's what scares me the most in books— a horror that I feel like I may actually encounter. However, though the big, black void of nothingness is scary (especially to be eternally trapped in), I don't exactly have one of those in my house. 

I'm glad that I did try out this book, because I've always been curious about it. While it ultimately didn't completely amaze me, I found some of it to be very strong. I will definitely never be reading it again because I can't imagine putting myself through that exhaustion for a second time. This book is honestly so draining, so tiring to read, and not just because of its density. Yes, it is written as a dissertation, with countless other branches of narrative and references jumping back and forth, but it's also just a massive book physically that requires you to hold it upside down and sideways. So, while I was (almost) prepared for the amount of mental strain this book would bring upon me, I don't think my arms were ready for that workout.

Luisa Mallory 

This book was recommended to me as the most grasping book that must exist. My expectations were high when I started reading it. The layout definitely is like no other book I have read before. At times I was really deeply sunk in to the story, but all in all it was a hard read, as the line of thought kept being interrupted with sometimes "nonsense" that didn't seem to contribute to the story. After all I couldn't bring myself to finish it, because more exciting, "easier" books were waiting for me. But I plan to try again one day and give this book another chance.

Daniela V.

This is not just a book.
This is art. I knew it when I opened the book and saw this heart-wrenching phrase:



I haven't read something this complex since Don Quijote de la Mancha. The Navidson Record (a lot of messy papers that pretend to be an essay about the homonymous film) is found by John Truant and his friend Lude on Zampanò's appartment. Zampanò was an old blind man that presumably saw the film and became obsessed with it.

The film was made by Will Navidson, a famous photojournalist, and it's about a very creepy house. When Will Navidson moves to Virginia with his wife named Karen and their two kids, they start to notice that the house often shifts, that long hallways appear where there used to be a closet, etc. Inside that house, there is only darkness.

John Truant often interrupts the Navidson' story to tell us a lot from his life... a lot of lies. He's clearly an unreliable narrator. John Truant's character is perfectly developed, since he is supposed to be insupportable, for interrupting our line of thought repeatedly. And I can assure you... he really is unbearable.

But House of Leaves isn't the story of a haunted house. It's a story of damaged people and how they overcome their grief. (view spoiler)[Navidson feels he is guilty for Delial's death, Karen fears darkness because of the well where his stepfather placed her before raping her, Truant was damaged by his mother and his several foster families, Zampanò for being confined in darkness and having an awful life, etc. (hide spoiler)] It's as if we are hearing the same stories, again and again. 

I have an interesting theory. The book starts with the phrase "This is not for you" written in Courier (John Truant's font) So he is telling us the book is not for us... Maybe it is for him. There are a lot of possible ways Johnny and Zampanò could be related. The option I like most is that Zampanò is (view spoiler)[Johnny's father (hide spoiler)] and that Truant made up the story about the truck. Also, he might made up his Obituary. We know that he liked to invent stories and that his mother was taken away to Whalestoe, so maybe he felt terrible (view spoiler)[because his mother and father abandoned him (hide spoiler)] and he made up the truck thing to survive. As he points out: 


  "(...)We all create stories to protect ourselves..."


Or maybe... (view spoiler)[Zampanò is Johnny's biological father and Donnie isn't (hide spoiler)]

As for the word House being written blue all over the text, think how blue is used in movies. A blue screen is used for special effects. On a symbolic level, a blue screen has potential to be anything or nothing. Notice how the phrase "out of the blue" is used several times. Anything can come out of the blue, or the blue screen... Another interpretation is that a blue screen is used to create different settings, so this might imply that the house isn't real, that it is a special effect.

The Minotaur pasages are crossed out (because Zampanò tried to get rid of them) and written in red. This might be a glimpse to the infrared portion of the spectrum of light, that is not visible. So this creature is invisible for the people that inhabit the house.

I'm overwhelmed. I'm speechless. This book was incredible... And I think it's going to become an obsession, and of course, my new favourite book.

Tori Carrillo

I have no idea why I kept reading this book other than I wanted to know how it ended - and it wasn't a satisfying ending. Gave it 2 stars because I was interested enough to continue but now that I'm finished, I did not like it at all. I can see why some think it's interesting, but it was just too much for me with not enough reward at the end.

Melea Mullican

4.29 on CAWPILE.

I can see why people love this book. My brain is simply too logical and too linear to really appriciate or enjoy it. Rather than being captivated by the footnotes and the exotic writing style, I was taken completely out of the story. Parts were intriguing but I never found anything at all terrifying. This book is for a specific reader, and that reader wasn't me.

Kerri McDonald

Anyaconda

This book is hard to review. Definitely one of the weirdest books I've ever read. Creepy and dark. I wasn't a fan of all the footnotes, and strange added texts, poems and documents, but the main story about the house and Johnny was interesting enough to finish the book. 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Rachel

I DID IT! I somehow got through this book despite being scared to read it at night, but i pulled through and DID IT!

House of Leaves is a total mind bender. It several stories in one. The main one being around Karen Green & Will Navidson moving into a house that is bigger inside than it is outside. It causes additional strain on their marriage and they are documenting the strange addition to their house as Navidson and a team of men go explore the darkness. Except this is actually a movie, that isn’t real and created by an older blind man, Zampanò in his book that is analyzing the Navidson movie. He does into great detail to make the movie seem like it actually existed, he uses a mixture of real sources and made up ones (including fake interviews with Stephen King) to pull this off. Except Zampano is dead and his work got into the hands of Johnny Truant who decides to edit and add his own notes about his life and his findings. His life spins out of control and he’s wondering if its happening because of the book. Confusing right? But it’s not! The notations and fonts really keep you on track of what is happening to who. I don’t think there was a moment where I was confused.

The book is scary, but it’s also about relationships, the main one being the relationship between Karen Green and Will Navidson (husband & wife), the strain before the house, the additional problems because of the house and then eventually clarity that leads to repairing their bond. The other focus is on what the hell is going in the house, why is there this never ending room that expands and shrinks, multiple theories are thrown out there, but then you remember this is a novel about a novel about a fake movie that is being edited and the editor is also wondering is this somehow a real house and movie and is it making him crazy. He is not a reliable character at all and that just adds to it. Ultimately the ending is up in the air, the reader is left to make their own conclusions about Navidson’s house and Johnny (view spoiler)[(which is actually expected given some of the things said about the hallway, some people have to know and become obsess, while others can walk away from it and not care they don’t know the reason for it) (hide spoiler)].

No doubt House of Leaves is intimidating, it is a long book and sounds complicated, but the layout of the book actually makes it shorter (many pages only have a few words), a good 200 or so pages are not part of the plot, but made up of index, exhibits and 2 appendixes. As for complicated, as I said I never felt confused about what was going on and was able to keep track. Mark Z. Danielewski is just a fantastic writer I guess, because I cannot believe he wrote something so in depth that was still easy to follow. It sucks you in, it plays with your mind and spits you out. Just amazing.

Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves

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