Honestly, the execution of this book is an impressive feat by the author, but when all is said and done, it was…tedious? It is very complex in its composition but the bulk of it essentially exists in the form of two different storylines: that of the Navidson family and their adventures in a house of terrors, and that of an under matured, lowlife degenerate (Truant) who engages in a bunch of annoying debaucherous misadventures (namely just getting drunk and chasing women) while obsessing over materials he found that someone else compiled about the Navidson house, and slowly descending into unfettered schizophrenic psychosis. 

The parts that followed the Navidsons and the house directly were actually very interesting and thought provoking, and if they had been a book on their own, or at least 90% of the book, I would have enjoyed it more. Most of the bits following Truant, however, felt like such an annoying, rambling waste of time, I ended up barely skimming large chunks of them, and even skipping small sections altogether. While there are a few parallels between the two storylines that could potentially add interest, they are mostly a story about an idiot being an idiot which I found desperately uninteresting. 

Nobody needs 700 pages of this. Even if many of those pages have little to no words on them. Even the physical composition of the book and the complex text arrangements were mostly useless. They were sometimes used effectively to convey spacial absurdities, but often they were just random chunks of necessary text, stuck into odd spacial arrangements which were initially eye catching, but upon reading, mostly pointless, annoying to read, and gave the impression of a self important author, trying too hard to appear as some sort of compositional genius. 

I realize this book has a cult following, and I am trying really hard to not let myself believe it is made up of almost-intellectuals who only enjoy it because it makes them feel as though they have consumed something complex and full of genius and understood it, when in fact, it’s a cool idea about a house that could have been an interesting story if it weren’t encased in swaths of meaningless drivel. I prefer to think I am just missing something that made so many others enjoy it so much.

That said, I’ll certainly never read it again and if someone asks to borrow it, I’ll probably recommend that they just read the Navidson storyline, skip the entire rest of the book, and then keep it because I really don’t need it back.

Inadvertently prepped myself for Infinite Jest, as this is riddled with footnotes on footnotes on footnotes. The book feels rewarding to read when you take your time and read a majority of those footnotes (some are moreso there to fit the academic style of writing the book emulates and some are purely fluff unless I missed an Easter egg in them). I just love reading something and not knowing what the hell will happen next. The ending changes my interpretation of the entire book and made it better. Bummed the television adaptation written by the author never panned out.