[UA] House of Leaves

Mark Fender markf at spcare.com
Wed Nov 8 09:57:44 PST 2000


As someone who's been following this conversation in the same way a 
drowning
man follows the surface of the water, can someone please tell me exactly
what this "House of Leaves" book is?

By Mark E. Danielewski (I hope I got that right), House of Leaves is a book 
about a young man who discovers a book written by an old blind man. The 
book is about a documentary never filmed regarding a "haunted" house. As 
you can imagine, there are several concurrent stories running throughout 
the novel. One involves the young man's steady descent into madness, the 
other revolves around the record of the documentary and what occurred in 
the house.

The reason I even noticed the book is the extremely odd layout. The entire 
book is laden with footnotes, some important, others detailing entire other 
facets of the story. Appendices abound as well. The text of the book 
generally relies on standard forms of layout, but occasionally it changes 
to words written across other words, footnotes that appear in the middle of 
the page and continue across several pages, backwards writing, sections 
written sideways, and any other typewriter trick you can imagine. One 
memorable section matches the shape the house's hallways make as the 
protagonist explores the house.

All in all, an interesting novel. It's one of the three books in my entire 
life that scared me, so I guess it's a good thing. I'm still deciphering 
passages of it. 

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