House of Leaves

House of Leaves was the debut novel by writer Mark Z. Danielewski. It became a legend before its 2000 publication when it was first released in various formats on the Internet, gaining a cult following. On its release it quickly became a best seller.

House of Leaves was best described by one critic as "an existentialist horror novel."

Contents

1 Plot summary 2 Reality 3 Typography and format 4 Follow Up 5 External links

Plot summary

House of Leaves deals mostly with the Navidson family, consisting of the photojournalist father, who may have been loosely based on Kevin Carter, the model mother, and their two kids. They soon discover that the house is somehow bigger on the inside than on the outside. As the house seems to keep inexplicably growing inside, they eventually find a closet door that leads to an entirely new and almost separate part of the house. The father, along with his brother and some colleagues, are compelled to explore, photograph, and videotape its seemingly endless passages, eventually driving various characters to insanity, murder and death. The father released everything he had filmed as the documentary, "The Navidson Record."

A blind man named Zampanò wrote a very academic criticism of the documentary, and called it The House of Leaves. (The Hispanic or Latin Zampanò is probably based on the famed Jorge Luis Borges, another blind man obsessed with an invented world interacting with the "real" world.) When Zampanò dies, the manuscript and notes are discovered by a Los Angeles club kid named Johnny Truant, who was hired to clean Zampanò's apartment. This is where the actual book begins. The book itself is mostly Zampanò's narrative, with footnotes by Zampanò, Johnny, and the editors.

Zampanò's narrative is littered with all manner of references, some quite obscure, others indicating the Navidsons' story achieved national and even international notoriety. Such prominent figures as Stephen King, Ken Burns and Camile Paglia were supposedly quizzed as to their opinions about the house. But when Truant investigates The Navidson Record, he can find no history of any of its events or even the house's existence beyond Zampanò's text.

An alternate story line develops in Johnny's footnotes, detailing what is progressing in Johnny's life as he is assembling the narrative. Zampanò's and Truant's narratives are printed in separate fonts, partially to make it easier for the reader to follow the sometimes challenging novel.

Reality

One of the major devices in the book is the different levels of reality, and how they interact with each other. At the very bottom there is the story of Navidson's exploration of the house and the Minotaur, that story is told through the Navidson Record documentary. The story of the Navidson Record is told through the blind Zampanò's written criticism of it, and Zampanò's written criticism is told through Johnny's rewrite of it with his added footnotes about his own life. Johnny's rewrite is told through the editors/publisher which we barely know of through a few scant footnotes. All of this is actually written by Mark Z. Danielewski, and finally it is read by us, the reader.

What's very interesting is when different levels of reality interact with each other. The most obvious is how Zampanò is believed to have been violently killed, presumably by the minotaur, which then haunts Johnny. At one point in Zampanò's criticism he refers to himself in first person as being in the Navidson house (p.320). Another well-known part is where Johnny's mother, in the one of the letters she sends him from the asylum, includes a coded message addressed to Zampanò (p.615). There is also the similarities between Johnny's revelations about losing his mother, and the original partial release of the Navidson documentary, the 5 1/2 minute hallway.

A heavy amount of interaction also exists between the house and the book, from the very beginning with the title of the book, House of Leaves, where leaves is a synonym for pages. The book House of Leaves is also the same title that Zampanò used for his manuscript. At the end of the book, when Navidson is falling down through nothing, he ends up reading the book, House of Leaves.

It's possible that that one of the most telling aspects of the story doesn't even exist in the story itself. There are many similarities between Danielewski's work and Borges' work, who was also obsessed with labyrinths. One similar story in particular "The Garden of Forking Paths" contained the line: "The book and the labyrinth were one and the same." ("The Garden of Forking Paths" is even mentioned in footnote 167.)

Typography and format

The text of the book is arranged on the pages in such as way that the method of reading the words sometimes mimics the feelings of the characters in the novel. While characters are navigating claustrophobic labyrinth-like sections of the house's interior, the text is dense and occasionally confusing, but when a character is running desperately from an unseen enemy, there are only a few words on each page for almost 25 pages, causing the reader's pace to quicken as he tries to discover what will happen next.

The unorthodox typography and arrangement of chapters or sections is similar to works by Milorad Pavich, allowing the reader to jump around from section to section at will while following footnotes or the multilayered narrative.

It's been noted that the actual font used for the narratives of different people is relevant. In particular, Johnny's font is Courier.

One interesting feature of the book is that the cover of the book is slightly smaller than the pages themselves, which parallels the Navidson house in that inside is larger than the outside.

Follow Up

The book was followed by a companion piece called The Whalestoe Letters, a series of letters written to the character Johnny Truant by his mother while she was confined in a mental institution.

House of Leaves was accompanied by a companion piece, a full length album called Haunted recorded by Danielewski's sister, Ann Danielewski, known as Poe. The album features a track by the same name as the novel.

External links

• The official House of Leaves forums
• An interview with the author
• The Modern Word - House of Leaves - an excellent review
• Readers Companion to House of Leaves - Questions to think about.
• The Idiots Guide to House of Leaves - An interesting discussion and some answers to a few questions.