House of Leaves

I enjoy the House portions more than the other stuff, but I agree. I think Danielewski crafts the object of the book more than he writes the story it contains . Only Revolutions was a trainwreck to me, I quit after 8 pages when I realized it was just going to wander endlessly like that. But I definitely enjoyed house of leaves, moreso when I started ignoring many of the footnotes.

This. Only Revolutions was a mess, I put it down after a couple a chapters.
I like House of Leaves, its pretty good, not the best ever but entertaining.

Ummm, I didn't like revolutions...couldn't even read it. House of leaves frustrated me, too (ZAMPANO SHOULDVE HAD MORE!!!! Completely agree.) but I think that's why I liked it so much. I think it's main attraction to me, however, was that I kinda think that David Czuchlewski may have written it, just under a sort of mixed up name. He wrote this amazing debut novel several years ago (which apparently no one but me liked) that went out of print like, five minutes after being published cause no one bought it. The writing styles are VERY similar, and it just hit me, this seems like Czuchlewski.

The Muse Asylum is the book, if you've not read it, it's FUCKING BRILLIANT. It's my favorite book, which is saying a lot because I rarely read contemporary authors, much less like them. I guess the reason House of Leaves interested me as much as it did was because I kept looking for more similarities.

I'm probably assigning way more meaning to this whole situation than was ever intended.

But his original book, if in fact he did write both, was about a reclusive author that wasn't widely read, but then published a book so sensational that everyone became a fan. The end result was that someone took killed the original author and took his place, writing under his name...

Whatever, I'm going out.

Muse Asylum is absolutely a great book. I loved it. So, it sold at least two copies!

But no, MZD is his own man, brother of singer Poe.

SAD! That would've been kinda cool and oddly poignant. Anyway, I'm glad someone else read that, too. Beginning to think I imagined the whole thing...

His follow-up, Empire of Light, was also pretty decent, but I don't think he's done anything since.

just found a copy for 3 bucks shipped. i'm excited to take this trip once i'm done going crayola commando on mike's book.

i bought this book and I didn't even try to read it. I looked through it and thought, hell no.

I think House of Leaves is one of the greatest books written in the last ten years. I could go on and on about how it changed what it meant for a book to be a book and how it changed the shape of literature, but i'm too tired.

Also, Only Revolutions is one of the most beautiful and poetic books ever imagined. Granted, it takes about sixty or so pages to really get into the groove that it's singing, but it has a few of the most perfect pages that i think have ever been written. Especially the chapter where the front and back stories cross, and then the last forty or so pages are so beyond brilliant.

Danielewski is a fucking mastermind and one of the true originals of our time. He's extremely experimental so i can see why there are detractors and i understand it. And that's not me pretending to be a more sophisticated reader or anything like that. It's a preference thing, but, for me, he's perfect. He's just about everything i could ever hope to be when it comes to words on a page.

This is one I am looking forward to getting. I like books that annoy people with their formats and structures. I like frustrating books.

I've attempted reading Only Revolutions, but gave up fairly quickly. No thanks, definitely not for me.

I've also read the beginning of House of Leaves several times. My boyfriend has the book (2 versions of it). Maybe I should read the whole thing sometime.

I have always heard about his books. I am intrigued now!

I'm kinda halfway about House of Leaves. The tattooist (is it Johnny Truant?), his sections don't work for me anywhere near as well as the rest of the book. The idea's great though. I think the book's insanely clever but it never really "got" me like my favourite books do.

I should probably give Revolutions another try...unfortunately, I think I'm in a non-reading phase, which I think is so odd given how much I love it, but...

I liked the way House of Leaves made me feel just as lost as the old hermit, the guy searching for meaning in his life, the guy trying to discover what the fuck is happening with his house, the woman desperately trying to get her husband back...

Did anybody get into the whole code with the letters in the back? Maybe I have a weird edition, but I didn't even know where to start. Plus, why was the whole Minotaur chapter lined out? I dunno. Some parts still really confuse me.

I didn't find it frustrating, just annoying. It was a fine enough book without the weird formatting which gave me a headache more than once. I don't like books that make me pop Tylenol just to get through it.

I'm so glad some one finally said how great revolutions was. I love how abstract and endless it is. It is definitely something you have to work at to appreciate, but if you do it right you can get something completely different every time. For anyone who quit prematurely, it is much easier to get through it if you read it in the right rhythm. If you hit the right notes the story is so much more powerful.

also, i recommend, "...said the shotgun to the head" by: Saul Williams. So good.

I would like to share this opinion with you. You can have custody monday through thursday. I'll take weekends. Should either need it with pressing urgency (say, a pub debate, TV literary quiz appearance, or on an internet forum), we can come to an arrangement.

The Truant sections were a little dull. The subconscious house of hell with hard-to-paint big black walls was great.

I hate House of Leaves. It's like an introduction to metaphysics for highschoolers.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Metaphysics is an introduction to House of Leaves for assholes!