House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski

House of Leaves is a strange novel to try to summarise, it is a mixture of so many different stylistic strengths that coalesce in such a weirdly magnificent way that to try and explain why it works would blunt the sheer visceral effect that the novel has upon the reader.

The novel begins innocuously enough, introducing the different narrators that the story will focus upon; Will Navidson and the film he makes about his house, 'The Navidson Record', Zampanò's academic deconstruction of this film, and Johnny Truant who is transcribing the mess of notes that Zampanò left behind after he dies, which is the novel that we are reading. However it soon becomes clear that not all is right with this paper as the true horrors of 'The Navidson Record' begin to reveal themselves.

What begins as a fairly standard academic paper quickly devolves into a mess of footnotes, frequent interjections by Johnny Truant and a genius use of space and layout to convey a feeling of upset and disorientation. The reader is slowly taught how to read the novel, with the introduction of footnotes, these quickly become more and layered, ultimately leading onto other footnotes; which eventually culminates in the sheer genius of Chapter IX. A chapter structured around the idea of a labyrinth, with footnotes leading back to already read footnotes, causing the reader to quite literally become lost within the chapter. Danielewski continues to use this labyrinth motif throughout the novel, even going so far as to end Chapter XX with a footnote back to the very beginning of Chapter IX (almost 400 pages previously at this point).

The main narrative thread is that of Will Navidson trying to come to terms with the impossible house which he finds himself in possession of, and it is House of Leaves most interesting narrative through line. The exploration of this seemingly infinite house is conveyed on the page in a way to echo the events that are occurring on the page. Words will appear in a variety of angles, they will be compressed or stretched or sometimes there will only be a single letter on a page. This use of the visual brings an almost filmic attitude to the novel, creating far more vivid images of what is occurring than if the text had remained static.

However, the issues that do arise within House of Leave seem to centre upon the problematic characterisation of Johnny Truant . Whilst occasionally his descent into paranoia and insanity is a genuinely gripping and enthralling read in contrast to the calm and collected writings of the actual ‘Navidson Record’, there are other times where it feels needlessly obtuse. Occasionally Truant will interject at moments where the reader just wants to find out what is occurring within Navidson’s house rather than endure another 5 page discourse into the breakdown of a man’s psyche. Truant’s interjections do add to the feeling of paranoia that pervades the later portions of the novel, but they are nowhere near as effective in this as the examination Navidson’s house.

House of Leaves is an easy novel to get lost within. Even after the final chapter there is so much more to experience, hidden codes littered through the text, hundreds of pages of supplemental reading. It always feels that there is more to decode, more subtext to be found. To some the postmodern way in which this novel has been constructed may be a turn-off, however the way that the book is written is perhaps its greatest strength. Tales of haunted houses have been told thousands of times, but never in this way. Never has a haunted house felt so tangible and real, and all of this is thanks to the way that the layout quite literally draws the reader deeper and deeper into the novel.

Danielewksi shows real skill at being able to increase tension using little more than blank space on a page and House of Leaves is frequently a terrifying read. Whilst not every stylistic detour that he makes throughout the novel is effective, the moments where it does work, work so well that it is easy to forgive those where it feels lacking. The haunting labyrinthine footnote work of Chapter IX is as amazing as anything I have ever read that I can forgive the incoherence of some of Truant's interjections. House of Leaves is not a perfect novel but there are enough moments of insanely brilliant writing that make it a novel that needs to be experienced.

By Benjamin Phillips