House of Leaves is an oddity. Pieces of it are captivating, the rest is a feeble attempt to capitalize on our fear of the unknown.

The best part of the book is its narrative structure. An old blind man, Zampanó, has written a book discussing a film that doesn't exist. The referenced film is a documentary of a photojournalist's time in an unearthly house. Truant, a drug-addicted tattoo shop assistant, finds the pieces of the book in Zampanó's apartment after the old man dies. The book is spread across typed pages, scraps of paper, and layered on napkins with some bits burned, blacked-out, or stained. The book is called The Navidson Report , named after the photojournalist, Navidson, and his documentary. House of Leaves is The Navidson Report as pieced together by Truant with added footnotes and appendices. The footnotes detail Truant's experiences while putting the book together and questioning people that met with Zampanó or are explicitly mentioned in the text as being involved with Navidson. It's a complex relationship and an excellent game of telephone.

The physical layout of the book is exceptional. Danielewski plays with font, color, and text placement to enhance the story being told. The word "house" always appears in blue, there are large sections of red strike through text where we can see references to a creature which have been struck from the text. Navidson's footnotes appear in Courier to make it visually distinct from the old man's citations and notes, making it easy to pick out the alternative narrative footnotes. During certain sections the text jumps across pages, twists on itself, or has footnotes disrupting the flow of the page. I found this to be an excellent tool in mirroring the emotions the characters are facing.

The actual content of the book is more disappointing that the excellent structural devices would lead you to expect. Initially the book sets us up to be deeply unsettled, explaining how Truant has started to question his own reality in reaction to the old man's writing and we may be in for the same. Unfortunately, the book doesn't quite hit the high mark it sets for itself. In the old man's writing we learn of the Navidson house and the expeditions to its dark interior. These are interesting, but in no way unsettling. The house in the documentary shifts and moves, but we are given no reason to question our own reality as hinted in the opening pages.

It's an ambitious project which falls flat in the end. Worth reading to see what can be done with the printed word, but the actual content is nothing exceptional.

i’ve never said “what the hell” as much as i did while reading this

Ничего не понятно, не очень интересно