May '03 House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski

fucking amazing, my new favorite book. one thing that really scar(r)ed me was, why was Navidson reading House of Leaves?, when i read that i jumped .

Navidson wasn't reading HoL.... I don't think. Where did you read that?

yeah he is towards the very end when he makes the last journey. it says he turns his attention to the only other thing he brought with him HoL. it describes it too, how thw hell do you miss that xchuck?

I don't know...Holy shit! Your right... I don't know how I missed that. Intristing.... Well, DID ANYBODY ELSE READ THIS BOOK??? PLEASE POST HERE!

its been bugging me forever, how could he read that, man? It just shows how Danielewski can make you think about it forever, that book is incredible

The book was incredible. I just can't talk about it now. Other than the fact that it had me in a bizarre state of mind and mood during the duration of time that i read it.

But I can't talk now. I just saw The Matrix Reloaded and holy shit I have to think. Fucking amazing.

He was reading a book of poetry, that was also called house of leaves. I can't exactly remember, that was the book that he read a page at a time using one match as light, right?

yeah

I liked it well enough, but I really don't see what the big deal is. Sure, the experimental structure is admirable, but it wasn't particularly [i]enjoyable[/i].

When I first got it I skipped the introduction & footnotes and read the first 3 chapters and was completely engrossed. But when I went back and read in the introduction that the movie didn't really exist (in the book's fictional world) it ruined it totally.

And Truant's footnotes were BOOOOOOOOOOORING. The book should've been seen wholly through Zampano, not Truant's uninteresting life (though the Whalestoe Letters section was magnificent).

It could've been a contender....

AHHH! The author says you don't have to read the footnotes, and you should have read the intro first! AHHH! And we don't love it just because it is "experimental", but because it is pure genius. And I accept you opinon...

GoodFella, it hardly surprises me that Navvy was reading House of Leaves, because the book never explains why the book is called House of Leaves, and that's probebly the reason. And, do you remember that in the later part of the book Johnny is talking about when he found the book, and Lude handed "a brick of paper on it, and it said: House of Leaves
by Zampano
With introduction and footnotes by Johnny Truant.
And that was the first time Johnny had seen the book. Course, no one ever said Johnny's last name was Truant.

Siege, when does it say that House of Leaves is a book of poems?

well of you read the part where navidson is reading, the narrator says "the book is so large and impossible to read cause of the setup" something like that, which suggests its house of leaves the actual book youre reading. Danielewski is just fucking with your mind, is what i think, and it works. it never says its a book of poems either.
also Ozymandias, by reading it how you did completely messed up your experience of the book.

Xchuck house of leaves is in one of zampanos poems n the back of the book, remember theres a poem that uses house of leaves

Danielewski is fucking genius. And his sister wrote and released music to accompany the book. She goes by the name of "Poe." Anyone hear it?

I've heard the album but it isn't really supposed to accompany the book, they just toured together. (i.e. book/cd sighnings).
And the reason they say it goes together is because she was reading his book while she wrote the songs, and listened to the songs as he wrote the book. But it doesn't actully go together, I tried it. I listened to Poe's album Haunted(the one that supposedly goes with the book) while reading HoL and it didn't seem to click. I felt much more into the book when I listened to Elliot Smith's self-titled album: Elliot Smith.
I don't know. It might just be me...

GF, I know it is one of the poems, but I still think that the book is called House of Leaves because of what Navvy is reading. Anywho, Mark Z. isn't trying to fuck with your mind, but make you create your own story. He once said in an interview that he is scared of floating fish, that are upside down. But that is irrelevent. Here is my point: He once said in an interview that the point of the many different parts of the story is so you can create your own backround story. YOU get to choose if Johnny's mom knew Zampano. YOU get to choose if he is just fucking with your mind. YOU get to choose if Johnny's real last name isn't Truant. YOU get to choose if The Navidson Record really happened. YOU get to do everything you wanted to do with a book, short of actually writing it, with HoL.

And, yes Leo, Danielewski is fucking genius. But, I think he is so much more. Hehe, he's a punk rocker from L.A. I think he's the only best-selling author I know of that has blue hair.

Just finished House of Leaves. It's about 2:30 in the morning, will post more tomorrow. Just reading from above, where do you get that his mom knew zampano? Also, it's too late for me to think straight but the whole part about Dr. Nowell and the baby and the mother, confused me slightly even though I think I get it, will think more tomorrow when alert and somewhat sane (though that's a rarity to begin with).

Also, I've figured this whole thing that's a comparison between this and Mulholland Dr. which I'll post later.

must sleep....

Best book ever.

In history. Beats the classics, hands down.

Replaced Rand's Atlas Shrugged at the top of literature for me.

The scariest part? When Navy's daughter comes in and asks if he wants to play always, and always is the echo of hallways. I just got fucking chills typing that.

Does anyone else occasionally have a HOL nightmare too? Weird, because I thought it was lame to begin the book the way it did, with the warnings, and then I had one.

Also, did anyone else read the appendices when they were footnoted? And if so, after reading the Whalestoe Letters, did you notice the checkmark at the bottom of the first page of the next chapter. (Page 94, I think)

WHY THE HELL WAS THAT THERE???!!!!

And for the record, in one of the appendices the last line of an untitled poem is (pg 593) "a house of leaves, moments before the wind."

Prototype, I just about think it is time for you to venture into the land of [url]www.houseofleaves.com.[/url] A gigantic forum, created by the man himself.

Great site. I posted there once. I may go there more often now.

Hey, if you wanted to know my posts are labelled The Active Restraint.

some of the people there can be assholes,unlike here of course.

Yeah, fatwoul has this weird idea that I'm Chuck Palahniuk's son, and that I am mentally retarded.

Yeah, I happened to see that thread. And when I read your post (before you posted here what your username was),I kinda had this feeling it was you. Oh yeah, now I remember.

It was because you said you were in seventh grade.

The people there all think they're as smart as the smartest, or even Will Tupper, so I wouldn't recommend stating that you're in seventh grade, just for the sake of not making people think that you're their bitch or anything.

Just a word of advice.

i keep on trying to read this book but i cant lol theres so much!!!!! now i know you dont havta read the foot notes, but should i read the ones that johnny writes?

You should read all of them, the book is much more enjoyable that way.

Leo, I only said I was in seventh grade because someone asked.

Read the footnotes. You can't read the book without them, it's like eating cake without the frosting.

Without the footnotes and appendices this would be half the book it is.

And I don't just mean girth wise.

Proto, have you visited [url]www.houseofleaves.com[/url] yet?

Sorry, sorry, I'm getting there. I'm a tad busy lately...

Recently, a friend of mine asked me if I knew about the book House of Leaves... I jumped up and down, out of shock of her finding out about HoL on her own. She then borrowed my copy... I now have gotten numerous people to read HoL. How woderful.

Ive given copies as bday presents

I turned in a copy as my final exam in a class called Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (anyone who's read that will know why: QUALITY) and I got an A.

My question is, on page 320, it says of Tom drinking "He might have spent all night drinking had exhaustion not caught up with me."

Is this a typo or am I missing something?

Yeah! I noticed that too. It confused me. I asked my brother, who had also read it, and he's an idiot so he said, "I think your Tom."

But this is another part of Mark Z.'s grand master plan, to make you create your own story behind the story.

The whole point of the book is that everyone interprets it differently.

Yes, that is the point.

I was thinking, this movie seems to be one of the most impossible to turn into a movie. I really cannot imagine this made into a movie.

Am I the only one who has this bizarre driving urge to go drive to the east cost and try to find this house, and the letter by the guy in jamestown, regardless of the fact that neither one exists. I've also had this urge to start checking footnotes, to see if the books are real. (I know a few are, but how many, and what exactly does he refrence?)

Also when Navidson was burning the pages of House of Leaves to read, I really half expected the begining of the book to begin burning.

I told my friends that HoL was a book on crack, but I think I was wrong. HoL might as well be crack.

HOL really fucked me up while I was reading it. I was much more paranoid than normal, and was in a bizarre mental state everytime I would read, for the duration of reading as well as a few hours after. It's like a bad trip, honestly.

As far as it not being able to be made into a movie, you just have limited imagination, I can't stop thinking of the different ways this could make a great film.

Only in the hands of a great director and writer. I honestly feel Stanley Kubrick would have done this book much justice.

And it's the kind of work he would desire to adapt, in my opinion.

It's really too bad he had to die.

I couldn't stop laughing when I found out there was an "interview" with him in the book

About this sentence:

"He might have spent all night drinking had exhaustion not caught up with me."

I read it as Zampano referring to himself. He's writing this fictional account of a documentary, pretending it's real - but this is the one instance in which he hints that the story is all in his head. He's writing the scene as it happens, so he could have had Tom spend "all night drinking"...but Zampano gets tired and cuts the scene short.

There's no other standard to judge this by though, since this is the only time he breaks the illusion. Danielewski could have planted it there as a "screw up"...perhaps a persoanl note Zampano made and never intended to be in the final book. I was expecting a footnote from Johnny there, but he didn't mention it. Maybe we are supposed to believe he overlooked it.

I just went into the "Chuck's Favorite Books" section of the site. I never realized that "House of Leaves" was one of his favorite books! That's so....cool. I never knew that.

I read halfway through this book. I didn't feel any different from the way I always feel during or after reading pages in the book. I stopped reading because it was a lot of work for me. I think it was a little boring at parts but I kept reading hoping it would get better. It was very odd. This book only fits certain types of people I suppose.

I didn't think much of it either. But thats just me.

Just a recap: This book is still unmatched.

XChuck- you disappear for a month and then return to say "just a recap, this book is still unmatched"? Could you maybe rant a bit about it too?

Who needs to? It's already become a recognized classic here.

Hey, I just noticed that in Panic Room, when the real estate agent asks Jodie Foster why she finds the room creepy and she replies "Ever read any Poe?" the real estate agent replies "No, but I loved her last album." Funny, yes, but interesting that a House of Leaves reference (indirectly but perhaps deliberately) be included in Panic Room. It seems quite fitting.

Never really liked Panic Room. Even though Jared Leto and Forrest Whitaker are awesome.