House of Leaves

The most important thing to know about this book is that it gives you homework. If you actually want to get much out of the book, you have to solve its puzzles, and check the appendices, and cross-reference all the footnotes, then check the appendices again, then get a Ph.D. in House of Leaves and write a dissertation about it (I'm only exaggerating a little).

If that sounds like a good time to you, then this could be your favorite book. As I understand it, it's many people's favorite book.

Otherwise, it's a decent couple of interconnected stories with a few strange twists wrapped inside an incredibly tedious "academic" review of a documentary that may or may not have existed (note: this is not a spoiler, it's literally said in the introduction).

This is easily one of my all time favorite books. Full of world-building, hidden information, and connections that will make you feel a little like a mad detective with your red string as you read. The unsettling nature of this story creeps up on you slowly, leaving you pensive and breathless when you least expect it. It walks you hand-in-hand through the suspension of your own disbelief, culminating in an experience that's creepy, disturbing, and strange. It is part sci-fi, part mystery, part classic horror, and part mythos. A long commitment that's well-worth the time spent. A closet that's larger on the inside than physically possible. A strange warp of physics and reality, and it's play on human relationships as they dramatically tangle and untangle.

This is a book that challenges the reader and pushes the boundaries of what a book can be. I'll be thinking about it for a long time.

I will open by saying that my estimation of this book may have suffered from its reputation. I generally try not to expose myself to a lot of hype around books I'm interested in, but that was how this one even ended up on my radar. I will also say that it may appeal more to fans of horror (which is not a description I would apply to myself). That is not to say that this is strictly a horror story, but I think it overlaps more with horror than anything else. I was mostly interested because I like weird stuff, and the way this was described made it sound like it qualified there. I suppose it does a bit, but I expected more.

That said, I will give the author some credit, as I imagine this took some thought and effort to put together. I think the presentation …

In pretty much every sense of the word. And I'm so glad I got it on paper. This is an experiential read... I'll have to retry someone, I think.

There's a lot of purposeful filler in here, but it serves the same purpose as the blanks on a canvas -- it adds to the composition. That said, my expectations were a bit high going into the book after watching the myhouse.wad videos on youtube -- the mod was much more dynamic, and the book feels flat in comparison. Still an excellent read, worth your time.

The typesetting stuff in House of Leaves is unique, clever, impressive from a technical standpoint, and certainly not like anything I had ever seen before. Unfortunately, it is often little more than a gimmick — some of the most striking and complex printing in the entire book is used for what amounts to filler, never used for anything with more depth than adding some visual flair to a linear text. That might be enough for some, but it was hard not to be disappointed after hearing so much about the the novel's legendary reputation.

I enjoyed the book. I enjoyed the academic/informational presentation of the main text, I enjoyed the house and the analysis surrounding it, and I enjoyed some of the narrative around Johnny Truant, even if I found his footnote interjections mostly tedious and annoying, particularly earlier into the novel. I don't think I would have enjoyed …

I didn't like this book, so I didn't finish. It's very difficult to keep up with, and once I got the idea, I decided that it was too out there for me. An interesting idea, but very arduous to read. The way the text jumps between the recovered notes and the main character's marginal notes makes the story proceed very slowly, and every time something interesting happens, you have to wait for several pages before you get to read what happens next. In between, there's jumbled academic nonsense about this and that.

I can't stop thinking about what a nightmare this book must have been to design and print. I'm not sure any book will ever give me the sort of awe and revulsion I felt seeing a sentence span across the spine over two pages. It's obscene.

I didn't know much about House of Leaves beyond it's infamous typography, so it was surprising to learn it's functionally a book equivalent to found footage horror. It trades documentary "authenticity" for dense citations and pervert French, but conceptually I find a lot of similarities (both are primarily interested in the mechanics of their medium and how our trust in those forms can be exploited). How successful HoL is depends mostly on your willingness to indulge its most excessive elements, following footnotes to smaller footnotes and spinning the book around like it's the world thickest centerfold.

HoL slots into a weird segment of media …

This book was a slog, and there's a lot to roll one's eyes at, but I'm glad I read it given its influence on other works I enjoy and its relationship to interactive narrative.

I read about 30 pages...an appallingly pretentious crack at postmodernism. Another reviewer said this is probably what drove David Foster Wallace to suicide, and although irreverent, it's a good perspective on the book. It's embarrassing to think about equally pretentious college professors teaching this as a substantive piece of literature.