RANT: is HOUSE OF LEAVES worth your time??
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 มี.ค. 2023
- The Scary Story Guy reviews Mark Z. Danielewski's wildly popular, wildly weird debut novel.
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I don't know where you came from, but I am glad you were in my feed today. You are hilarious. "Pickled in Pretentiousness" will be my next phrase to share at the office.
I want to start off by stating: I 100% get your point of view. I'm not trying to dismiss your arguments. I think your review has a good level of quality in it of itself. Everything you said is valid. But I would like to give you my - vastly different - experience with this book:
I bought it because I was intrigued by the same aspects of it as you. Here's perhaps the only thing we have in common.
Read the entire thing without giving it much though in 2 weeks.
Didn't think about it for 2 months. (weirdly enough, the book mentions almost this exact approach to be expected from the average reader)
Remembered the book, browsed it again, then things became absolutely wild, and for the next 6 months I caught myself thinking about this book and studying as many aspects of it as I could. Not in an obsessive way, mind you (I will elaborate below) but the experience is something that showed me this book is not just a good book, it's - i am subjective, of course - an incredibly complex literary work. Masterpiece? I don't like using that word, but it's a piece I hold to very high regard.
Point 1: I do not get the weird cult around this book. I am saying this now just to make sure we're all on the same page. The 'underground' 'cool' 'secret' community that acts as though they opened the gates to some other dimension through this book is very weird to me. But I guess it's just another layer under which this book hides what it's actually trying to do.
Point 2: Here's the absolutely impressive narrative exercise that this book pulls off: This is a weird manuscript written in the form of an academic paper, referencing real articles and people talking about a documentary that never actually existed about a house that is bigger on the inside than on the outside, written by a blind man over the span of 40 years, found and compiled by a tattoo artist with a shitty personality (which POV is entirely questionable), that it then picked up by a weirdly anonymous editorial that also adds to the footnotes of the book (for some reason) and which uses the name of the real-life author to publish it, so that the book eventually end up in our hands. If this is not insane, remember this barely, BARELY scratches the surface. The fact that the author can switch narratives so easily from academic (original author) to barely coherent (Johnny) to the plethora of other contributors to this book is impressive in its own right.
Point 3: Johnny sucks. 100% agreed. Actually, if you get to the end of his contribution to the book, you will end up hating him even more than you did in this video. But that is also the point. You see, Johnny is a compulsive liar, he hides behind his intention of picking up this fascinating story in order to simply push forward his own shitty stories (which I guess he finds cool). But - due to a lot of reasons I won't get into - he cannot be trusted with anything. We don't know if his tragedies we're supposed to empathize with are real, we don't know if his stories about strippers and drugs and parties are real, we don't even actually know if the now dead blind man that compiled the original document is real. The way in which this crappy narrator subverts everything in this book is brilliant in its own right.
Point 4: The most fascinating thing about this book is the fact that the structure of the book is itself a representation of the house mentioned in the documentary. It's a labyrinth in the layout of the pages, in the narrative structures, stories from the documentary echo Johnny's stories (real or not), and the comparisons are accentuated by the original author. It would take another book for me to give you even a few examples, but once you start studying it, it turns your stomach upside down. It did for me.
Point 5: With the above in mind - and I know this sounds pretentious as shit - everything in this book is, from the words, the frustrating structure, the shitty parts that are actually not enjoyable to read (because yes, there are a lot of those), is intentional. They're all pieces of a huge, huge puzzle that does not answer a single question.
TLDR: Do I recommend this book? Not at all. Is it a masterpiece? Is it post-modern ergodic literature with no actual purpose? Is there an actual story behind all the layers? Is this book just making fun of academia? Is it deep? I don't have the answers. I don't think the book does either. But for me, this book changed the way I look at art. Art isn't always made to be enjoyable.Sometimes it's hard to stomach. Sometimes it's dangerous, sometimes it's subversive, sometimes it's meaningless.
I guess the only way to reach a point in which you can say this book was at least worth your time is the moment you realize the Navidson Record (the only thing in this book that everyone almost unanimously agrees is fake) is perhaps the truest part of the whole damn thing. Especially the thing that it points towards: something (in fiction and the real world all the same) is terribly wrong. That's when the real horror creeps in, and it gets under your skin when you start seeing glimpses of that wrongness with the corners of your eyes. - wrote that so I can end on a pretentious note, because I am a pretentious fuck. Not part of the weird fucking cult surrounding this book, as I said. Lol. It's just a book at the end of the day, not some sort of second Bible.
If you read all this, you're deranged. And cheers!
Well shit now I guess I’m deranged 😅
Read some of your points. I got the book. Tbh Johnny's introduction was intriguing, so as the first article.
But whenever I pick up the book I feel like having read it and the talk surrounding the book is actually far more interesting than reading House of Leaves as of right here, right now.
Which makes me feel like it's a waste for me.
There is an itchio game that is times and times shorter and has just strong punch with the same theme of a paranormal house. It's called ANATOMY by Kitty Horrorshow. I really suggest playing or watching an LP, it doesn't take long and will likely unlock a new fear.
Oddly enough, you’ve made me even more excited to start this book, which I have owned twice over the last seven years, tomorrow!!
Thank you so much for this review. I almost bought this book. You have saved me.
Nothing edgy, hard-living rebels on the fringes of society love more than reading someone's awful, fake dissertation on a fake movie.
I can't understand why this 760 page shortstory is so beloved. It is so far the worst book I never finished
As the book begins: this is not for you, especially when you review something you have not finished. Loved this book, and the brilliance of the book. A lot of people miss the nuance to it, but that’s plus of opinions.
Very much agree, couldn't stand Johnny or care about his 'edgy' life. I'm relieved to finally see this book being fairly criticized and not gushed over.
Subbed and now am a proud 420th subscriber.
I feel better now that its not just me.
I thoroughly enjoy this book but the edgy, pretentious crowd that I found it through detract from it. I never thought it was incredibly deep or mindbending in any way but I did think it was an original idea and engaging in a way that no other book has ever been. Not saying that validates it at all but everyone who talks about this book acts like it’s an ancient manuscript with the secrets of life in its words if you can decipher them. It’s obnoxious. I think this is a fair review. I suggest you finish it honestly.
I had the same experience. I started this book because so many people talk about how great and scary it is. A writer I like a lot has it on his rec list too so I had to try it. I could not even get to the halfway point. I really wanted to like this book but I could not engage with it at all. So many people raving about this book made me feel like I was in the twilight zone lol I don't get it though it's cool if other people love it but I cannot understand why. I am glad to just find someone with a more critical take. It did intrigue me for a little bit then it faded as fast as it happened.
And yes, Johnny sucks. When readers finally get a break from the academic drawl it then switches to enduring Johnny being obnoxious. Especially with his rants/tangents. I noticed the run on sentences too, one was like a page 1/2 long. I turned back to see where the sentence started to see if I wasn't imagining there wasn't any breaks. I think I'd have tried to endure more of this book if Johnny was absent or just had a different personality/cut some of the fat off that bloats the book.
“More critical” = agrees with you lol
I appreciate your review. I thought I would enjoy it too because I read a lot of absurdist plays. I thought something was wrong with me for hating this book.
You are not alone!
Oh my god! I wanted to throw the book too only I was listening to it as an audiobook! Lol!!! 😂😂
quick question: How is the audiobook? How do they deal with all the footnotes?
All I can say is, THANK YOU. You said everything I was feeling about this book. Unfortunately I did read the entire thing and I want my time back :(
I agree. Reading this book was an absolute slog that honestly was not worth the effort
Jfc bro, you missed the whole point. The word that is always in blue is house. That’s because this book is not about a house at all. That’s why the “blue” is the same blue they use in movies so that they are able to edit in a new background. Chromakey
Like you were, I'm about halfway through and had to search TH-cam to find out if I was missing something. It's tedious to read with no real value it seems. I don't care about Johnny or his anecdotes. I refuse to waste my time reading footnotes for fictional sources I'm never going to look up so they are absolutely pointless. There are pages and pages that can just be skipped! I mean, who is going to actually read every single footnote, including the ones that run up the edges of the page and are just lists of names, movies, other books, or buildings known for their architecture. Honestly if you read all those footnotes, you're an idiot. I feel like this book was Danielewski trolling us by seeing just how pretentious and "weird" he could be and how many suckers would fall for it.
House of Leaves is not only boring AF, but a pointless waste of time.
Yea you're right about I need someone to at least read the book to give a review of it 😂😂😂
You’re right, I should have stopped watching because I definitely don’t respect an in depth review of someone who didn’t even finish the work, missing a great deal along the way. Not a part of the cult following, just thought it was an interesting visual art piece, and an interesting dissection of literary structure
Well, the good news is, you didn't stop watching - so now you're allowed to have an opinion on my video!
69tth like on this video. Nice.
Nice.