Glad I'm not alone. Funny story about House of Leaves if you have the time to read it: I was in a modern literature class in university, and HoL was the book of discussion for like two weeks, meaning I had to pay for a copy as a textbook... But I didn't do that. A friend of mine had told me about it and showed me excerpts before, so I knew I'd loathe the waste of paper. It reeked of pretentiousness. So I mooched off a classmate's copy, reading just enough and picking out enough key phrases to squeak by in our discussions. However, it then came time to write a paper on HoL. The professor told us to connect some referenced imagery or allusion within the book to classical mythology, and how that allusion elevates the text. The example she gave, that she was happy for people to use, was that of the Minotaur in the Labyrinth. Sure, whatever, some pages were set up like a labyrinth. Easy enough. But for some reason, I got it in my head that if I were to follow that prompt, it would be obvious I didn't read the fucking thing. So I went and made it harder on myself. I flipped through my classmate's copy, looking for some other reference to myths or legends, and then I turned to one of the last pages, and there it was: Yggdrasil. In high school I was a big Mighty Thor fan and became obsessed with Norse Myth, so I had a lot of experience with Yggdrasil. I asked the professor if that could be my reference point, and she gave me the go-ahead, seemingly doubting that I could find enough to work with. Constructing the essay was pretty easy though. Just had to find the page that mentions Yggdrasil, and a few studies on old Icelandic that teased out the meaning of the word. One convenient point was that the titular House was situated on "Ash Tree Lane," and what is Yggdrasil traditionally described as? An ash tree, of course. So I wrote nearly twenty pages of bloated, speculative nonsense about how Odin hanged himself from the World Tree to gain knowledge and how that connects to the Navidson record or whatever. All total bullshit. I probably only read about a page worth of material from HoL. And I got a 98% on that paper. The next year I found out she showed it to that semester's class as an excellent example of what she wanted from the assignment. And I never even bought the fucking thing.
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!
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.
I've been inspired to get the book from outside sources. I wanted to study it anyways, I don't mind spoiling it here and there. The positive reviews are a little monotonous, so I look at the negative ones. Okay... ultra pretentious. That does kill it for me. I do get your point, you've dedicated a lot of time into trying to believe parts of the story, yet people on the outside have shined a light on how everything in the book is potentially false. I've had that level of a trapdoor fall beneath me, making me more paranoid of myself and others. It feels like I am weaker, but no, I am stronger because I can now identify the meaning of words better, the way they're said. This trapdoor cannot fall from beneath me in the same way again.
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.
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.
New subscriber. I really enjoyed your review. I actually read House of Leaves about 3 years ago. I suppose I fall in the minority that fell on middle ground with this book. Was it the scariest book I ever read? No. Did I still have fun with its pretentiousness? Sure. Looking forward to more of your videos
I love this book. Ordered a copy when I was in Nepal from tCanada (with much chagrin on part of the family-of-a-friend courier), lost it, and just bought it again a couple of weeks ago in the States. It hits the perfect spot of meta, over-pretentiousness, nerdiness, and taking itself too seriously for me. Perhaps due to having spent some time in academia myself. Regardless, your review was hilarious and very enjoyable. This book is definitely not for everyone, as it states in the beginning. And I took the jacket info to be a part of the exaggerated self importance in the vein of the books itself but I’m highly biased lol. Cheers!
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'm currently on chapter 15 and severely struggling to find the will to continue. But also, I'm falling prey to the sunk-cost fallacy because not only was this book FORTY DOLLARS, but I've been reading it for A WHOLE MONTH. ;--; I just want to be DONE with it already so that I can say definitively that I hate this stupid book and I'm mad that I fell for the hype, but I'm afraid that if I give up now, it'll actually get ridiculously good and things will make sense.
Truant WAS irritating, but sometimes these types of characters make for a good read, like the hitman Vinnie Nasco in Koontz's "Watchers." I recommend "Watchers," "Strangers," "Intensity" and "Midnight." The scrambled text and footnotes were okay-but only this once. One worries this might start a trend like the found footage in films.
The Navidson Record was excellent-something Peter Straub would have written. I think you'd like Straub. Dig "Ghost Story," "Shadowland," "Floating Dragon" and "Koko." I think at the end Truant's mom is implying an ending like "Identity" or the final ""Twilight" film. I hate those kind of endings. By that point I'd lost interest in this book.
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.
I have got a copy and do plan to read it but I was definitely not willing to buy new... I waited for a reasonably priced second hand copy to come available haha :) Eventually I will read it when I'm in the right headspace to tackle this journey haha
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.
Not hating or anything. But you found out jhonny annoying... Because you didn't finished it. I read a lot of people saying they would skip jhonny footnotes... Well spoiler free as much as this can get, jhonny is the protagonist. Its his story. Navidson record really doesnt matter much. But dont force yourself, this book can be frustrating and disorienting. The books doesnt want you to feel safe and confortable. This book is not for you
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
You're missing the point of the first paragraph of the jacket. It's actually part of the story. You find that out at the end of the story. They're referring to House of leaves by zampano
In his conceit at his own supposed cleverness, the author has forgotten that at its core a novel needs to actually develop a *story* The book ultimately doesn't say much and the main plot is thin and never goes anywhere or explains anything. People say it's a difficult read, but TBH the litany of jumbled info and obfuscation ends up being a frustration. The difficulty in reading wasn't in understanding, it was more of persevering with the preponderance of dislocated ideas which distract from the narrative. Certainly some asides in a narrative can keep it interesting, but in this case the book is 90% asides which have little to do with the main plot. Worse, as noted in this video, the characters are absolutely vaccuous and can't be empathised with in any way. The character development is legitimately retarded. All that said the caveat is, I have to admit it has a super intersting style and is filled with fascinating snippets of information and mystery. If the main plotline and characters had been better developed and the info more relevant and coherent it could have been really *quite* brilliant. It's strange to say following what I have just summarised, but it's definitely worth reading because it's certainly original and refreshingly different. The frustrating thing is it makes me feel that it could have been so much more.
i personally dont agree with you but youre hella funny ill give you that. i defintely see y people dont like it. I often want a change from the mundane repetition of stuff which is mainly why I read it. I am the same with movies. As long as they at least try to be creative, thats often enough for me. Can't stand these lame superhero movies and stuff.
@@JakeTheScaryStoryGuy In many ways you're lucky - I've been 82% bald since 1997 and have been actively hoping to drop dead for almost 30 years. We're all connected.
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.
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
I watched the whole video as I wanted to see if you swerved but you just kept right on finding new ways to say: "It did not hold my interest." I get that you make videos and need to put in jokes and whatnot but to call a book wasted paper when you meant that it was wasted on you seems like a bad precedent for a writer to set for themselves. Also, if part of your critique of the book is what the publishers did to market it more than two decades ago, it seems like you were sort of reaching. You didn't like it. Nothing wrong with that. And since I watched the whole vid you earned some engagement. But I would give more thought to how you want to portray yourself as a writer. Anyway best of luck!
Glad I'm not alone. Funny story about House of Leaves if you have the time to read it:
I was in a modern literature class in university, and HoL was the book of discussion for like two weeks, meaning I had to pay for a copy as a textbook... But I didn't do that. A friend of mine had told me about it and showed me excerpts before, so I knew I'd loathe the waste of paper. It reeked of pretentiousness. So I mooched off a classmate's copy, reading just enough and picking out enough key phrases to squeak by in our discussions.
However, it then came time to write a paper on HoL. The professor told us to connect some referenced imagery or allusion within the book to classical mythology, and how that allusion elevates the text. The example she gave, that she was happy for people to use, was that of the Minotaur in the Labyrinth. Sure, whatever, some pages were set up like a labyrinth. Easy enough.
But for some reason, I got it in my head that if I were to follow that prompt, it would be obvious I didn't read the fucking thing. So I went and made it harder on myself. I flipped through my classmate's copy, looking for some other reference to myths or legends, and then I turned to one of the last pages, and there it was: Yggdrasil.
In high school I was a big Mighty Thor fan and became obsessed with Norse Myth, so I had a lot of experience with Yggdrasil. I asked the professor if that could be my reference point, and she gave me the go-ahead, seemingly doubting that I could find enough to work with. Constructing the essay was pretty easy though. Just had to find the page that mentions Yggdrasil, and a few studies on old Icelandic that teased out the meaning of the word. One convenient point was that the titular House was situated on "Ash Tree Lane," and what is Yggdrasil traditionally described as? An ash tree, of course.
So I wrote nearly twenty pages of bloated, speculative nonsense about how Odin hanged himself from the World Tree to gain knowledge and how that connects to the Navidson record or whatever. All total bullshit. I probably only read about a page worth of material from HoL.
And I got a 98% on that paper. The next year I found out she showed it to that semester's class as an excellent example of what she wanted from the assignment.
And I never even bought the fucking thing.
Amazing lol
That was awesome lmao
You legend. I'd like to see you write a bestseller, probably a walk in the park for you bc there's tons of people who would eat that up.
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.
TLDR
@@db7610 Providing TL:DR; of OP:
Book is Goncharov.
I've been inspired to get the book from outside sources. I wanted to study it anyways, I don't mind spoiling it here and there. The positive reviews are a little monotonous, so I look at the negative ones. Okay... ultra pretentious. That does kill it for me. I do get your point, you've dedicated a lot of time into trying to believe parts of the story, yet people on the outside have shined a light on how everything in the book is potentially false. I've had that level of a trapdoor fall beneath me, making me more paranoid of myself and others. It feels like I am weaker, but no, I am stronger because I can now identify the meaning of words better, the way they're said. This trapdoor cannot fall from beneath me in the same way again.
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.
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.
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.
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 :(
Were you ever able to get your time back?
" Our lady of run-on sentences."
😂 did not know I was part of this church, but okay
Nothing edgy, hard-living rebels on the fringes of society love more than reading someone's awful, fake dissertation on a fake movie.
New subscriber. I really enjoyed your review. I actually read House of Leaves about 3 years ago. I suppose I fall in the minority that fell on middle ground with this book. Was it the scariest book I ever read? No. Did I still have fun with its pretentiousness? Sure. Looking forward to more of your videos
I love this book. Ordered a copy when I was in Nepal from tCanada (with much chagrin on part of the family-of-a-friend courier), lost it, and just bought it again a couple of weeks ago in the States.
It hits the perfect spot of meta, over-pretentiousness, nerdiness, and taking itself too seriously for me. Perhaps due to having spent some time in academia myself.
Regardless, your review was hilarious and very enjoyable. This book is definitely not for everyone, as it states in the beginning. And I took the jacket info to be a part of the exaggerated self importance in the vein of the books itself but I’m highly biased lol. Cheers!
As a dyslexic person, you can’t imagine how hard it was to read the book 😅for me
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.
Sounds to me like “What if unedited found footage was a book?”
Sounds like Goncharov but solo.
I'm currently on chapter 15 and severely struggling to find the will to continue. But also, I'm falling prey to the sunk-cost fallacy because not only was this book FORTY DOLLARS, but I've been reading it for A WHOLE MONTH. ;--; I just want to be DONE with it already so that I can say definitively that I hate this stupid book and I'm mad that I fell for the hype, but I'm afraid that if I give up now, it'll actually get ridiculously good and things will make sense.
Truant WAS irritating, but sometimes these types of characters make for a good read, like the hitman Vinnie Nasco in Koontz's "Watchers." I recommend "Watchers," "Strangers," "Intensity" and "Midnight." The scrambled text and footnotes were okay-but only this once. One worries this might start a trend like the found footage in films.
Writing a review for a book you haven't read is absolutely disqualifying, glad you told people not to watch
The Navidson Record was excellent-something Peter Straub would have written. I think you'd like Straub. Dig "Ghost Story," "Shadowland," "Floating Dragon" and "Koko." I think at the end Truant's mom is implying an ending like "Identity" or the final ""Twilight" film. I hate those kind of endings. By that point I'd lost interest in this book.
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.
Your fanciful turn of phrase has enticed me to subscribe. Great video!
I presumed the whole origin story is part of the whole thing as a joke. I don't think that it was meant to be taken literally.
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
Sounds like the author was trying to combine Nabokov's Pale Fire with the conceit of the Necronomicon in the Lovecraft/Howard/Derleth circle.
I loved Johnny. My favorite part of the book.
I have got a copy and do plan to read it but I was definitely not willing to buy new... I waited for a reasonably priced second hand copy to come available haha :)
Eventually I will read it when I'm in the right headspace to tackle this journey haha
It's a satire of epic proportions. Even the editor can't be trusted. I mean that's just hilarious.
I needed this. I felt the same way exactly. It's paper poop
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!
Not hating or anything. But you found out jhonny annoying... Because you didn't finished it. I read a lot of people saying they would skip jhonny footnotes... Well spoiler free as much as this can get, jhonny is the protagonist. Its his story. Navidson record really doesnt matter much. But dont force yourself, this book can be frustrating and disorienting. The books doesnt want you to feel safe and confortable.
This book is not for you
I feel better now that its not just me.
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
You're missing the point of the first paragraph of the jacket. It's actually part of the story. You find that out at the end of the story. They're referring to House of leaves by zampano
"public opinion of this book seems to be overwhelmingly positive which osrt of catfished me into liking it "
Don't let reviews setup your expectations
In his conceit at his own supposed cleverness, the author has forgotten that at its core a novel needs to actually develop a *story* The book ultimately doesn't say much and the main plot is thin and never goes anywhere or explains anything. People say it's a difficult read, but TBH the litany of jumbled info and obfuscation ends up being a frustration. The difficulty in reading wasn't in understanding, it was more of persevering with the preponderance of dislocated ideas which distract from the narrative. Certainly some asides in a narrative can keep it interesting, but in this case the book is 90% asides which have little to do with the main plot. Worse, as noted in this video, the characters are absolutely vaccuous and can't be empathised with in any way. The character development is legitimately retarded.
All that said the caveat is, I have to admit it has a super intersting style and is filled with fascinating snippets of information and mystery. If the main plotline and characters had been better developed and the info more relevant and coherent it could have been really *quite* brilliant.
It's strange to say following what I have just summarised, but it's definitely worth reading because it's certainly original and refreshingly different. The frustrating thing is it makes me feel that it could have been so much more.
I can't understand why this 760 page shortstory is so beloved. It is so far the worst book I never finished
Agreed waste of time
I agree. Reading this book was an absolute slog that honestly was not worth the effort
i personally dont agree with you but youre hella funny ill give you that. i defintely see y people dont like it. I often want a change from the mundane repetition of stuff which is mainly why I read it. I am the same with movies. As long as they at least try to be creative, thats often enough for me. Can't stand these lame superhero movies and stuff.
Are you balding or am I simply shamefully unaware of how large foreheads can grow?
It's a disease where my forehead grows larger over time. Doctors say I will die of it in about five years
@@JakeTheScaryStoryGuy In many ways you're lucky - I've been 82% bald since 1997 and have been actively hoping to drop dead for almost 30 years. We're all connected.
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.
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?
Yea you're right about I need someone to at least read the book to give a review of it 😂😂😂
69tth like on this video. Nice.
Nice.
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!
overhyped garbage
I watched the whole video as I wanted to see if you swerved but you just kept right on finding new ways to say: "It did not hold my interest." I get that you make videos and need to put in jokes and whatnot but to call a book wasted paper when you meant that it was wasted on you seems like a bad precedent for a writer to set for themselves.
Also, if part of your critique of the book is what the publishers did to market it more than two decades ago, it seems like you were sort of reaching. You didn't like it. Nothing wrong with that. And since I watched the whole vid you earned some engagement. But I would give more thought to how you want to portray yourself as a writer.
Anyway best of luck!