House of Leaves

Do the words meta, post-modern, or experimental make you cringe when used to describe books? Then turn back now. I feel the need to say that up front because many people seem to go into this book expecting a horror novel and wind up wasting their money. Just take a look at the genres that goodreads lists this as. Horror, fiction, fantasy, and mystery. With inapt labels like that, it's easy to see how people could get the wrong idea. This is not a horror novel, nor is it a mystery novel or a fantasy novel. This book is, among many other things, a personal story about the author's parents presented as experimental literary fiction that's thinly veiled as a horror novel. Confused? Good, stay that way for now, and don't think too hard about what I just said. I'm not that into horror novels, and I generally like post-modern and experimental stuff, and I knew what I was getting into when I bought this. Know what you're getting into, that's all I'm trying to say. Here's the basic concept as clear and concise as I can tell it. There are essentially three narrators that will be addressing you, the reader. 1) Zampano, an old blind man 2) Johnny Truant, a thirty-something druggie 3) The "editors" Johnny's friend, Lude, knows Zampano because he lives in the same apartment building. The old man, ominously, tells Lude he's going to die soon, and does. After the body is gone, Lude and Johnny sneak into the apartment to take a look around at Zampano's things. They find a crazy manuscript, which Johnny takes home with him. The manuscript is a non-fiction book/dissertation about a documentary called "The Navidson Record." The Navidson Record is about a famous photojournalist named Will Navidson and his family moving into a new house that is bigger on the inside. When I say non-fiction, I mean it. It reads like a textbook. On every page there are footnotes about other articles and other books that reference this documentary that, by all accounts, doesn't exist (I'll get to this in a second). It starts out simple at first. After the family returns home from vacation they notice a hallway on the second floor connecting two bedrooms that wasn't there before. They track down a blueprint of the building and see that there is a space between the walls, although it's not supposed to be a finished hallway with doors. Okay, no big deal, maybe they didn't notice the doors before, it's a new house after all and they had just moved in before going on vacation. Then comes the realization that measuring the house through that hallway results in an extra inch that shouldn't exist, and that can't be explained. Then a new door appears, on the first floor this time, that should lead to an empty back yard but instead leads to a long, dark hallway that extends into an endless labyrinth of cavernous, thousand-foot rooms that leads to god knows where and contains god knows what, and the exploration of this door is the main focus of the documentary. So Johnny finds this manuscript, reads it, edits it, adds his own footnotes relating to research he's done on Zampano's life and the manuscript contents (translations of foreign phrases, for instance), but also personal tangents about his own life and stream of consciousness ramblings. In the prologue where he explains how he found the manuscript, he also says that The Navidson Record doesn't actually exist. Johnny's editors also appear in footnotes and in the first say they have never met Johnny Truant in person, only communicating via letters and rare phone calls. Weird, right? What follows is 528 pages of an interwoven, multi-layered story. On the one hand, you have Zampano's non-fiction book about this fictitious documentary, which simmers as a slow-paced "found-footage" horror novel that can be unsettling, thought-provoking, but is likely to disappoint hardcore horror fans looking for adrenaline-pumping scares. Then you have Johnny's story, told through long footnotes, which is more vague and slow to reveal itself, but the basic idea is that although he knows the manuscript is fiction, the act of reading it causes him to lose his marbles. Whether the manuscript or Johnny's brain chemistry is to blame is up to the reader. Whether Johnny is even telling the truth is up to the reader. And, to be honest, Johnny's parts can sometimes be hard to read because he's just pitiable and depressing and the stream of consciousness prose can wear down your focus. It gets Joyce-esque at times, though only for short stretches, because Danielewski is a nice man who wants you to have a good time, unlike Joyce, who hates you and hates fun. Then the "story" part ends, and you have 130 pages of appendices (which you should read) which include things like: Zampano's writings which are not a part of The Navidson Record The obituary of Johnny's dad Childhood letters from Johnny's crazy, institutionalized, long dead mother Poems So what does it all mean? Well, it means a clever and perhaps over-educated man named Mark Danielewski decided to write a novel that experiments with the format of the novel, that pushes the boundaries of what a novel can be and what it can do. While much of it could quite fairly be called a gimmick, and it won't be redefining how all novels are written going forward, it's a gimmick that works, that is unique, that is stimulating, that is discussion-worthy, that makes the world more interesting by existing, and isn't that what good art is supposed to do? It is an unmitigated success at being singular, and because it is singular it will inspire intense love and intense hatred from different people. It means that while there are answers, you will have to work for them. I mean this both figuratively and literally. On the literal side, there is a letter in the appendices that is written in a simple code, which you will have to translate into a coherent message with pen and paper. And that's a code that is plainly said to be a code. There are other codes that are truly hidden. Many sections have weird, cluttered layouts that make the act of reading them hard, and make tracking down the right footnote a scavenger hunt. You'll be presented with footnotes that make no sense until you realize the text is broken up over several pages and presented backwards. There are a lot of elements to the story, little throwaway lines and facts that you need to remember, or write down. How did Johnny's dad die. How did Navidson's dad die. Stuff like that. While it's not absolutely necessary, I'd recommend having a notebook handy starting on page one. I have an amazing memory, took notes here and there, and still wish I'd taken more. Like I said, this book is work. It's fun work though, depending on your tastes and personality. I'm an INTP and I loved it. Your mileage may vary. On the figurative side, the book still won't hold your hand and spell out what it all means in flashing neon. That's up to you to figure out by gathering all the evidence together and deconstructing the book on several different levels by asking yourself what's true and what isn't, what matters and what doesn't, what's literal and what's figurative, what's the metanarrative, what's the subtext. Ultimately it's up to you to decide when you're satisfied with your answer. While this is nowhere near as open to interpretation as most books you'd label as post-modern or modernist, it is still open to interpretation compared to a typical novel, which isn't open to interpretation at all. There are no easy answers, no definitive answers, but there are satisfying answers that I firmly believe are more or less what the author intended, if you're willing to put in the effort to discover them and have a flexible mind that delights in abstract concepts. Alternatively there are, of course, existing breakdowns of it on the internet that you can turn to for some help, although none I've read have gone far enough into speculation. They present facts and evidence, point out what's true or not, but none of them have drawn the kind of final conclusion that I've drawn. That's how it should be. You should decide for yourself. If none of this sounds like fun to you, I recommend giving this one a pass

What makes a good book is how much you put into it. Most good books don't tell you their meaning up front. You have to invest in the book to get something out of it. Mark Danielewski takes a radical approach in challenging the conventions of writing with this postmodern read. The very structure of the book creates visual experiences that convey meaning (even if it's small) in addition to the content of the book. This book explores structure and the style of writing, not just the content. The perfect blend of the two makes it a novel experience in enjoying both the challenging story, narration styles, and structure/form of the story to create a unique experience unlike most other novels you will read. This is not by any means even a moderate read - it is a hard read. But any good book is worth it if you stick with it and really try to understand it. Most people rate it poorly, even if they are avid readers, because it is not an easy read. It takes effort, but so does all good reading. Reading is not always so light and easy. There are books to enjoy that are more towards that end of the spectrum, but this is a highly rewarding text for its complexity. It is highly worth it if you understand that books don't always have immediate sense to it. That is what makes it a postmodern book, a book that challenges everything we know to be true and sensible in a "novel." I have read the entirety once and will do it two times again this next quarter in university and I look forward to it so much. Allow yourself to fall down the rabbit hole and discover a radical challenge to every convention of writing you know. An amazing book if you understand that you have to give yourself to a book in order to be impacted and changed by it. An amazing text if you approach it with an open mind. That is the only thing that is constant in this novel - open to the chaos, madness, and sheer beauty we find in Danielewski's vision of what is possible in a piece of written art. Art does not always make sense. Just as Oscar Wilde writes in his prologue to The Picture of Dorian Gray, "All art is rather useless." If you seek to understand the wicked truth in this novel, you will look into the abyss and the abyss will look back into you. There is beauty in the ugliness, there is peace in the chaos, and logic in the nonsensical rollercoaster of a ride this text is. It is a postmodern text that uses the conventions of the English language/syntax/grammar to break the conventions of English, showing its absurdity. It is truly amazing. So worth it if you allow yourself to be humbled and open to learning from a text as an intellectually honest person. A lot of people who read a lot of books become arrogant and lose their ability to have a growth mindset that can adapt and learn the value (or create value where you can't seem to find it readily) of a text that challenges what they expect or want out of a text. In school, college, university, and throughout life we learn to be skeptical, cynical, and rebellious to all things we encounter. While this can be useful and healthy, most everybody never learns to balance it out with an inquisitive, open, and empathetic side to it which helps you to not just tear down everything you don't understand but helps you to see the value in something novel. I feel bad for the other people who did not have a good experience reading this text and rated it poorly. A lot of them sound like they either gave up because it is a difficult text to read (not a very healthy way to read, which is to challenge and grow yourself while also enjoying the pleasure of prose and verse) or they were unable to see the value of something that seems immediately harmful because it challenges your worldview and assumptions as to what "good" (or what is safe) to read. Not all of them, but some of them are close-minded and do not allow themselves to adapt and change, to learn and grow from this text, even if it challenges everything you know to be true and good. Identify yourself with our amazing ability to change and adapt and to be smart, and you can't go wrong. Even "bad" texts can teach us something. Take the leap if you dare. With the right mindset, there is so much in this text to experience and to learn from. A truly challenging and amazing text to read. TLDR: it is so worth it. Open your mind to it, and let it break down everything you know to be true and good in our Western mindset, and in our limited English sense of grammar. Have the growth mindset and an inquisitive attitude and you will be fundamentally changed by the power of this book to restructure the way you think, freeing you from the captivity of our modern conventions of thinking. Radically changing book.

House of Leaves is not just a novel—it’s a psychological labyrinth disguised as a book. Danielewski crafts a multi-layered narrative that challenges the reader’s perception of reality, language, and storytelling itself. At its core is The Navidson Record, a documentary about a house with impossible architecture: hallways that stretch into darkness, rooms that shift, and a closet that opens into a void. But this story is filtered through the obsessive notes of Zampanò, a blind academic, and later through Johnny Truant, a tattoo shop apprentice whose descent into madness mirrors the house’s own unraveling. The novel’s experimental formatting—footnotes within footnotes, upside-down text, pages with only a few words—forces readers to physically engage with the book, echoing the disorientation of its characters. It’s a haunting meditation on trauma, grief, and the instability of truth. The house becomes a metaphor for psychological depth, loss, and the unknowable spaces within ourselves. This is not a book for passive reading. It demands patience, curiosity, and emotional resilience. But for those willing to enter its maze, House of Leaves offers a profound, unsettling, and unforgettable experience.

I'll try not to repeat what others must have said, and others after them repeated, probably a thousand times by now. 1. The book is not as big as it appears (opposite of the HOUSE!) Many pages have just a few lines written on them, or the formatting is such that you can blow right through them. So don't be intimidated. It's actually a pretty quick read. 2. The main story (about the Navidson HOUSE) is by far the most intriguing narrative going on in the book. It's like a Twilight Zone episode written by an unusually sensitive Rod Serling, if you can picture that. In fact, the idea underlying "The Navidson Record" closely resembles a Twilight Zone: remember the one where the little girl gets lost in her own house? Which a couple decades later influenced the movie Poltergeist, and even later a Halloween episode of the Simpsons? Not that, but like it. 3. The Truant story is mostly forgettable. It gets in the way at first, because we want to hear about the HOUSE, not this apparently sexually-obsessed club kid hopping from liason to liason. He's kind of sweet sometimes, but mostly crude, and not well-spoken, worth listening to only when he writes about Zampano or the book. There are some neat touches at the end concerning him, in the Whalestoe Letters section, but that's about it. At one point, he goes on a journey to -- find the HOUSE? Sort of, but mostly to rediscover the secrets buried in his past, which we are not very interested in. It would've been a much better book had he found some version of the HOUSE somewhere and disappeared into it. Or at least the narrative about him would have been more satisfying -- and yes, I am aware that maybe Danielewski didn't want it to be satisfying (because the HOUSE never satisfied an expectation). But I am just saying how I felt reading it. And I would have liked a different ending for Johnny. 4. The best scenes take place in the HOUSE. You never want them to end. Great fun, thrills and chills galore, and even intellectually engaging (something few other suspense novels can manage). Zampano's footnotes are a brilliant device -- they slow the narrative up in order to increase tension; but not with pointlessness. They're almost always immensely satisfying; firing the intellect just as the HOUSE fires the imagination. There's a fantastic two-step going on here that always keeps you turning pages, breathless for more. 5. Unpredictable storyline. As it unfolds, you will probably begin taking stabs in the dark about what will happen next, and after the third or fourth time of being completely wrong, will find yourself, like me, charmed by the writer's inventiveness. 6. Psychologically perfect. One of the keys to good storytelling is including realistic characters who possess the totality of real human minds; otherwise, all you've got is a neat idea through which mental puppets stumble. Everyone here, however, is so well-constructed that the whole suspension of disbelief thing happens almost automatically, and you're nearly instantly engaged. 7. Why isn't this a movie? 8. Smarter than any other scary book I've ever read (and I've read quite a lot). And scarier than most of them, too. 9. Not really an "experimental novel," as has been touted. It's told in a kind of multi-layered way, and has some different approaches, but nothing too radical. The idea of footnotes that refer to fictional sources might be the most original aspect of it. But it is mostly a linear tale. Other devices are gimmicks, I think, unless you write the whole thing using them. Or maybe not gimmicks ... Just neat little devices to poke the reader a little bit, keep him/her interested. 10. What killed Zampano? And all those cats? Was Johnny's journey to Whalestoe what kept him from a similar fate? 11. The real footnotes about labyrinths, caves, mythology, and etc., were so fascinating (and frightening in their implication) that I felt there should have been much, much more. Like how Melville stopped and wrote a dissertation on all the known varities of whales and so made Moby Dick a larger figure. 12. The blending of fiction and reality, which has been done many times before, is done here with considerable artistry. I was blown away at times by just how well it was done. Yes! this, this is why I love literature, I often thought, for moments like these, because of books like this. Unlucky 13, containing a spoiler. If the HOUSE is history (which only non-entities inhabit, not even ghosts), how many, many nights it kept me up thinking about how the various minds shaped it? I can't even count them. Can't think of another book that disturbed my sleep so much, in other words.

One thing I will say about House of Leaves: it's ambitious in its experimentation. Maybe too much. It has a unique quality, is different than anything I've ever read, or ever will read. It's also a difficult book to put in one genre because it has many elements: it has horror, a bit of humor and satire, erudition, research and footnoting, has building suspense and elements of the supernatural, contains a romantic story, has shifts in time, place and narrative, and skews the line between reality and illusion. It's structure that not only moves from different vantage points of narrator and time, but also forces you to turn the book upside down and sideways to read, flip to the appendices at the end of the book, and puzzle over ambiguous clues. In many ways, the narrative flow of the book mirrors what takes place. In short, this is one bizarre, but entertaining read. There are several focuses in House of Leaves. We learn of a mysterious Navidson Record from one of the narrators, Johnny Truant, an aimless, slacker type, a bit of an unreliable narrator because of his reckless, wild, and somewhat erratic state of mind. The Navidson Record, discovered in an apartment that Johnny is renting, is an account of a perplexing documentary of the Navidson family, whose home is the basis of some bizarre happenings. The Navidson's home has a mysterious space where there was once a wall. As Will Navidson begins to explore and discover this, this odd phenomenon takes on a life of its own (in both the story and the pages), and becomes the source of inquiry from Navidson and a few others. This account is all documented extensively in research that is included in Zampano's manuscript, which is a source of Johnny's narrative. The new dimensions of the home, and the subsequent explorations that take place, have an emotional and physical toll on those who are involved. As Truant gets further and further into the details of this manuscript, he also details his own instabilities--past and present-- and the many issues he deals with: delusions, drug abuse, depression, alienation. Within the framework of the narrative, we have details told from Johnny's point of view, but also from Zampano's document. There are also letter from Johnny's mother as well as interviews about the infamous house and the Navidson Record. At many points, things become a little muddled as we try to put many of the pieces of this account together; we are even sent on an occasional wild goose chase moving back and forth through the book. I'm not sure if this can be classified as pure fiction or literature, as there is a certain level of artistic quality (some may see this as gimmickry) that overrides aspect of the plot. I'll admit that I was a bit annoyed at points, especially with all the erudition and overblown research that had me using more than one bookmark while reading, flipping back and forth from narrative to appendix. Still, though, somehow this all is fitting and appropriate for House of Leaves. In House of Leaves, format is as important as its story, and both are reflective of each other. What the author does exceptionally well is make all aspects of the novel work, both the structure and mutli-layered storylines. Another positive is simply the level of mystery involved that we have to carefully follow--the author is adept at withholding key revelations. For sheer inventiveness and creativity, House of Leaves is an interesting read, one that will make you think (sometimes too much). Ultimately, House of Leaves has many levels of storytelling and is very experimental. In the end, I found the payoff to this bizarre, poetic, inventive ride to be a rewarding one.

Will Navidson knows that. Zampanò knows that. Pelafina knows that. And, I suspect you do, too. While many have attempted to describe this book, I believe that words fail in the face of a request for synopsis. The headaches implicit with just attempting such a feat can be debilitating. I've heard it described as, "A story about a guy who may or may not be real that finds a dissertation written by a guy who may or may not be real about a man who may or may not be real who discovers that his house hosts a labyrinth." I believe that's still putting it generously, but causes a headache in-and-of itself. The darkness that haunts the halls of House of Leaves is beyond the simple lack of visual stimuli that we encounter in the stories of Will Navidson and Zampanò. From the beginning, it is certain that es muss sein.. After all, while it was the evident strangeness of that place that drew all three (or four? or five?) of our principal characters into the shifting, dark halls of that place, it was their own torturous lives that kept them there and led them through to the end. Johnny Truant is the name of our introductory character, who for all intents and purposes can be considered our secondary narrator. For the purpose of this review, I will be referring to the Editors, who can arguably be considered to be Mark Z. Danielewski himself, as our principal narrator. The final version of our story is distributed at their hands, and the compilation of appendices and the index serves as that proof. Johnny Truant would be our secondary, as previously stated, followed by Zampanò, the author of The Navidson Record. While Pelafina's letters and influences are felt all throughout House of Leaves, I hesitate to call her a narrator, unless you belong in the camp of [Pelafina authoring the entire story herself as a way to cope with her own grief. (hide spoiler)] Johnny gets a call one day from his buddy Lude, whose neighbor, the aforementioned Zampanò, has passed away. Upon their inspection of his apartment, Johnny and Lude stumble on to a trunk containing the scattered pieces of writing that form The Navidson Record. As we proceed throughout the story, we are presented with our concurrent narratives running (mostly) in tandem via the use of footnotes. Our main story exists within TNR, which already includes its own footnotes (sometimes real, sometimes not, sometimes presented as not existing when they really do). Johnny's footnotes detail his horrific childhood, sexual conquests, the compounding deterioration of his mental state, and his attempts at discovering more about who Zampanò is while also seeking to validate the authenticity of TNR. Zampanò's, on the other hand, exist to provide reference for the material in TNR, but sometimes also to serve as dead-ends or recursive pathways that put you right back where you started for no reason besides to confuse, disorient, and ultimately distract the reader in the ways that the characters within TNR are as well. TNR's central story is that of Will Navidson and his family moving into a house on Ash Tree Lane and, upon their return from a wedding, discovering a space that did not exist before in their home. Upon inspection, Will finds that the interior dimensions of the house exceed the exterior, and so he sets to work to "eliminate that fraction of an inch." He is ultimately unsuccessful, even with the assistance of his brother, Tom Navidson, and friend, Billy Reston, a renowned University professor. Eventually, the house even offers up a more confounding enigma in the form of a hallway appearing in their living room that stretches into a space far beyond any of the outer limits of the home. We see Explorations staged, a crew formed, and the slow, maddening fray of familial bonds take hold as the house exerts its will upon Navidson and everybody else. It draws him in to a maze of ever-shifting walls, standing as though to say that its existence was never a question, but its purpose can never be found. Our appendices, the index, and Pelafina's letters provide a deeper understanding of some of the recurring themes throughout both of these stories, while also continuing to call in to question which aspects are real or if all of the characters really participated in this authorship, which ultimately leads to the question of - does it really matter? We are treated early on to Johnny making the bold declaration that he [added the word "water" in to TNR before the word "heater." (hide spoiler)]. Authorship has lost its sacred hold on authority, and even the "contrary evidence" to TNR's seeming non-existence calls in to question just who is the liar here. The pathways that we are taken along are presented to us in such a way as to force us to feel the way that the story moves, not just read it. We feel the helplessness, disorientation, distraction, boredom, hope, melancholy, and sorrow of these characters because we are following the same paths as them in an attempt to understand what is, in all truth, beyond understanding - ourselves. Our guilt and our grief. Who is real and who is not doesn't matter - the toll is just the same. I know that such a book can either seem daunting or contrived to people that have no interest in unconventional literary presentation and execution, but this book offered to me the ability to find myself within its pages time and time again. It first read as a horror story, then a love story, and now greets me like an old friend after I return home each day, offering me comfort when there is none to be found. This is not for you. But it is for me.

House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski is very hard to define in terms of genres. It is most often attributed to horror books because of the story's mysterious nature but House of Leaves can be classified as anything from fantasy, mystery, or even a nonfiction book if read through the right lenses. There are several reasons why House of Leaves is so difficult to define, but one of the most prevalent reasons has to do with the book's overarching narratives. Essentially, the book switches between a report written about a film called The Navidson Record and the perspective of a character named Johnny Truant. The report was originally written by a character named Zampanò. Zampanò is an old blind man who lived as a hermit, and through the use of transcribers has created a report on a possibly fictional documentary called The Navidson Record. Zampanò has died from unclear causes and his report was found by the character Johnny Truant. Johnny starts to edit the report back together and as the book goes on we start to see Johnny slowly fall into mental instability. Johnny is both the main editor of the book and the main protagonist. To convey both of these storylines simultaneously Zampanò’s report is written in times new roman and is the main focus of the book, while Johnny writes in courier and keeps the majority of his story in the footnotes section of each page. While this form of writing is unorthodox, it helps convey a sense of mystery, while also preventing the audience from getting disorientated. The Navidson Record, as described by Zampanò, focuses on Will Navidson and his family moving into a new home in Virginia. The house starts normally, but as time goes on, the house starts to grow in a way that defies laws of space. After a trip to Seattle, Navidson realizes that the interior of the house is larger than the exterior of the house (rooms of the house are larger on the inside than they are on the outside). At first, this phenomenon is confined to only a small portion of the house, but it soon grows. One day, the family finds a new door on an external wall of the living room. The door should lead outside, but instead, it goes to a cold, dark hallway that seems to go on forever. Navidson and his family hire a group of explorers to go into the hallway, to get a deeper understanding. Going into any further detail on the Navidson Record would lead to spoilers, thus, instead of going on with detail, I will go into detail on how parts of the book made me feel. The book is very confusing. The book asks plenty of questions and the book never answers the juicy ones and that can annoy some of the readers. Other than that, both of the main storylines will often invoke a feeling of intrigue. For example, as the Navidson Record progresses, I never got bored. There was always something that gave me the drive to read on. The same is true for Johnny’s storyline. The audience gets to see how Johnny’s mind is slowly degrading and how he starts to develop symptoms of mental instability, leaving the audience to wonder if he’ll be able to finish his work on the report before he loses his mind. All in all, I would recommend that you read House of Leaves. The book is by far one of the more interesting novels I’ve ever read and was one of the few books that kept me engaged from cover to cover. On top of that, House of Leaves is one of the few books that you can read multiple times and still discover new secrets hidden within the text. Secret messages and hidden meaning can be found throughout the book, making it one of the best bang for your buck books that you can buy. However, House of Leaves will leave you with more questions than answers, and you always be wondering about what happened at that house on Ash Tree Lane.

This book came into my possession in 2003. I was stationed in Iraq, hanging out with a battle buddy. He and I were hanging out in the recreation tent at Baghdad International Airport (BIAP, aka Camp Sather) watching DVDs and perusing books. Sam, my battle buddy, hands me a battered copy of this book, and says, "I tried reading this-- but I think it's more your speed." We parted ways in November. I was headed home, he went to another location. I was on a layover at an airbase in Al Udeid when I started reading this book. And by "reading this book", I meant devouring it, like Bastian did as he holed himself in the attic of his primary school, surrounded by food, covered in a rough blanket, sequestered from the rest of the world, pouring through a mighty tome about a story without an end. I didn't put the book down save to sleep and trek out to the latrine to do what needed to be done every few hours or so. I usually burn through a book in a few hours, but this one demanded time and attention, lest I run over vital. I was taken by the unreliable narrator of Johnny Truant, and I was enthralled by the journey Navidson endured in reclaiming his life from the horrifying macguffin that was the house his family lived in (and people died horribly in). Navy and Johnny were two sides of the same coin, bound together by the mysterious scratches of a dead, Milton-esque man. Their stories were so disparate and yet so interconnected. The fabric between them was everywhere from rough and roughly hewn to diaphanous and metaphysical. The footnotes of footnotes were layers upon layers -- toying with the reality in which the contents of the book existed. Rules were set up and broken, and yet, everything was cohesive as long as the reader had the endurance to follow along. I've seen a LOT of the One-Star reviews complain that they weren't snagged within the first 100 pages. Pity-- Not everything is a slamming action-fast-paced piece of NASCAR fiction that grabs one by the genitals and rips them off in the first two pages. If you aren't in for the slow burn, then the first five words of the book ring true: This is not for you. House of Leaves became a seminal event in my life when I finished reading it. The darkness in my life, punctuated with walking away from a war with my life and body in tact, became that much clearer from the light-- and I somehow began finding awe and inspiration with greater ease. Some have said that it's a story about people coming to grips with loneliness and/or depression. Some have said it's a love story. No one is wrong in their discovery. The only wrong that may be done is to criticize a book unread. To that end, I've ended up buying different copies of this book, like a madman collecting any copy of JD Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" they could get their hands on, or a person who absolutely could not would not leave the house without a pair of gloves to shield their hands from the world. Whenever I mentioned the book to a friend, they usually ended up being the recipient of the copy I bought. The original copy I received, the one Sam gave me, is in a fireproof safe. Well-worn with a hand-written note scribbled on the front page, I refuse to part with it. But at this point, I'm considering buying a new copy so that I can read it again.