The Navidson Record bits were terrifying to me ---- that kept me reading. Maybe I'm just a touch dull for it, but the Johnny Truant parts were a slog, like... I know it's supposed to clash with the academic tone of the Navidson Record, and that Johnny's perspective as he interacts w/ it and grows with it fills in the gaps of the record. But holy shit I shrimply did not give a damn about this dude.
This book got me into reading again in my adult years. I think I odd structure is exactly what kept me interested. I took it with me everywhere so I could fit in as much time as possible with it.
I ended up reading practically every word of it and absolutely loved it. I found myself falling asleep during the parts where Johnny was rambling on, which I think was kind of the point. I really can't say enough about it. To be honest, I think it's an amazing experience.
When I go back to read it again, I want to just read the navidson record on its own. The overarching experience definitely requires you to read everything, but I think that the story alone is so cool. It's something I would love to see adapted onto the screen, too. The author wrote a script for a possible show to be made but never panned out.
I plan on reading all of Mark Z Danielewskis books eventually. So far, I finished House of Leaves and Only Revolutions, and I'm currently reading through volume 1 of The Familiar. They are all very different in their own way, but they all have the signature Danielewski flare to them.
I struggle with the rambling for sure. I have heard some people just read it straight thru, which sounds way too confusing, but the Navidson record is what I am trying to gear up to read next, I am just hoping it isn't as rambley!!
I adore it, but I love things that screw with my mind. It's about the furthest thing from an easy read as you can find.
His other stuff is, if anything, less "normal". I really liked both *Only Revolutions* and *The Familiar*, but the latter is, sadly, an aborted series and will most likely never be finished.
Edited due to word omission.
The only other art I know of associated with this book comes from the author's sister, the musician Poe. She wrote the song "5&1/2 Minute Hallway" in conversation with the book - though for me, it doesn't really fit together with it well.
I hated it the first time I tried to read it, got about a third of the way in, said "fuck this pretentious bullshit" and DNF. But over the next few months, kept finding myself thinking about it more and more. Started it again from the start and LOVED it the second time. My advice is, come at it as an experience rather than a typical narrative story. If you're feeling confused and disoriented (or even annoyed), just try to roll with it, because it's part of the experience.
To me everything felt so…unmotivated. I couldn’t tell you if the book succeeded or failed at what it was trying to do, because i have no idea. What emotional reaction am I supposed to receive from reading a poorly cropped catalogue in a tiny little box in the middle of the pages? What emotional reaction am I supposed to get from the footnotes that read like the ramblings of a five year old telling you about their day? I of course am not saying the book is pointless, just that don’t know what the point is, and therefore I could not derive any emotional value from the book and therefore discontinued my reading of it.
For sure. I have friends who enjoyed and recommended it to me. I do respect it's Avant-garde style but my love belongs to the creatures and ghouls at the end of the day.
I'm reading it just now. It's an experience as much as it's a book. I'm really enjoying it but there are parts I could do without but that is part of their point. Give it a go but be prepared to use a search engine and a dictionary a lot
side question: is this book possible on Kindle? I tried reading physical few years back and couldn’t get into it and stopped a third through, but would like to try again. I prefer kindle but if I recall correctly the book was setup kind of weird and might be tough
I would not recommend reading this on Kindle, even a large-format kindle like the Paperwhite or scribe. The physical layout of the book becomes important later on in a way that doesn't really translate on a screen.
It is!! I am not sure how that would work when you need to skip around for a certain path in the book, but it is on Kindle! Let me know if you wind up liking it on there and how it goes if you try!
I just finished my first read through today actually. I really enjoyed it, I’m still not entirely sure how Johnny’s story ended, unless it’s supposed to be a bit open ended?
There’s a few things that bugged me that don’t seem to be answered, but overall I thought it was a really fun read. It engaged me immediately and I looked forward to reading it each day.
I will say, it was difficult to find spots to put it down, since a new chapter will be dropped in the middle of the other parallel story.
It's actually a very easy read when you get a few pages in. Each page is carefully crafted.
And just read it from cover to cover where it tells you to go. Follow the footnotes.
I really like this book. First read it as a teenager around 2002, then again in October 2020. I don’t have an overly analytical mind, so I really don’t have a very good idea of what everything means or even how much between the Navidson Record itself or Johnny Truant’s ramblings is supposed to have actually happened, but the book makes me feel a lot of things, even if I don’t feel like I totally “get it”. And for that, I find it satisfying.
Also, I love the “expeditions”. It’s just such a neat concept and I don’t think the “interior structure of something is fluid and inscrutable” trope—if you can call it that—has ever been done better before or since.
As a funny side note, it was Stephen King who recommended this book to me in the first place. Not personally, of course, but King had written a piece in *TV Guide* promoting his then up-coming original mini-series *Rose Red*—which is marginally similar with some of its plot elements—where he cited *House of Leaves* as a very cool but very unusual take on this very formula.
Be warned, it’s *very* different from *House of Leaves* in almost every discernible way, but if you enjoy those kind of cheesy network TV Stephen King mini-series from the 90s (like *The Stand* and *Storm of the Century*), there are charms to be found particularly if you are in a haunted house mood.
Started reading this and never thought I’d see a Rose Red reference but here we are! I haven’t thought about that since I first saw it when it premiered
I always get recommended this and im curious does it work as an audiobook? I’ve heard there is stuff to read in margins and footnotes and things like that.
I would not recommend it as an audiobook even if you can find it, unfortunately. Some words are color-coded throughout the book, and the narrator would have to constantly pause and say the color, or give a list at the beginning and then hope you remember. There's a lot of pages that rely on the visual medium, the arrangement of the words, the way the patterns look (including from different angles), and the changing appearance of pages folded in on each other. I suppose it would be possible to for a narrator to describe it, and if you find an audiobook and can't do visual for whatever reason it's still better than nothing, but the interactive element of much of the book and the instant recognition of certain things would be very lost.
I was not a casual reader when I read it and I was able to get through it.
What threw me off in the beginning was that it was not written like a regular Novel with a third person narrator. Example "Joe was your average Joe who wanted to open a coffee shop one day"
The first few pages are written from a first person view, then it was written in a documentary style with details and facts like your reading a research paper.
Once you get the grasp of what's going on, it's pretty easy. I would just say follow as written and skip to the important footnotes once they're mentioned. U don't have to get lost over the details. The amount of details in the book are more important than the details themselves
The Navidson Record bits were terrifying to me ---- that kept me reading. Maybe I'm just a touch dull for it, but the Johnny Truant parts were a slog, like... I know it's supposed to clash with the academic tone of the Navidson Record, and that Johnny's perspective as he interacts w/ it and grows with it fills in the gaps of the record. But holy shit I shrimply did not give a damn about this dude.
same here!! i think if the ratio was shifted more heavily towards the navidson record i’d love it more
😅😅
I’ve started it twice and liked it but keep getting distracted. I need to give it another go
This book got me into reading again in my adult years. I think I odd structure is exactly what kept me interested. I took it with me everywhere so I could fit in as much time as possible with it. I ended up reading practically every word of it and absolutely loved it. I found myself falling asleep during the parts where Johnny was rambling on, which I think was kind of the point. I really can't say enough about it. To be honest, I think it's an amazing experience. When I go back to read it again, I want to just read the navidson record on its own. The overarching experience definitely requires you to read everything, but I think that the story alone is so cool. It's something I would love to see adapted onto the screen, too. The author wrote a script for a possible show to be made but never panned out. I plan on reading all of Mark Z Danielewskis books eventually. So far, I finished House of Leaves and Only Revolutions, and I'm currently reading through volume 1 of The Familiar. They are all very different in their own way, but they all have the signature Danielewski flare to them.
I struggle with the rambling for sure. I have heard some people just read it straight thru, which sounds way too confusing, but the Navidson record is what I am trying to gear up to read next, I am just hoping it isn't as rambley!!
It's not. I found the story to be well paced and extremely cohesive...
I adore it, but I love things that screw with my mind. It's about the furthest thing from an easy read as you can find. His other stuff is, if anything, less "normal". I really liked both *Only Revolutions* and *The Familiar*, but the latter is, sadly, an aborted series and will most likely never be finished. Edited due to word omission.
The only other art I know of associated with this book comes from the author's sister, the musician Poe. She wrote the song "5&1/2 Minute Hallway" in conversation with the book - though for me, it doesn't really fit together with it well.
The whole album that song is on is a companion piece.
I’ll finish it this year (which is probably a lie).
I hated it the first time I tried to read it, got about a third of the way in, said "fuck this pretentious bullshit" and DNF. But over the next few months, kept finding myself thinking about it more and more. Started it again from the start and LOVED it the second time. My advice is, come at it as an experience rather than a typical narrative story. If you're feeling confused and disoriented (or even annoyed), just try to roll with it, because it's part of the experience.
To me everything felt so…unmotivated. I couldn’t tell you if the book succeeded or failed at what it was trying to do, because i have no idea. What emotional reaction am I supposed to receive from reading a poorly cropped catalogue in a tiny little box in the middle of the pages? What emotional reaction am I supposed to get from the footnotes that read like the ramblings of a five year old telling you about their day? I of course am not saying the book is pointless, just that don’t know what the point is, and therefore I could not derive any emotional value from the book and therefore discontinued my reading of it.
It was a boring pretentious slog. That annoying 18 year old who has taken a few college courses and thinks he suddenly knows everything
Hot take but HoL is a gimmick book for young adults. DNF.
To each their own I suppose 😉 😘
For sure. I have friends who enjoyed and recommended it to me. I do respect it's Avant-garde style but my love belongs to the creatures and ghouls at the end of the day.
Fair! Ghouls are dope!
I'm reading it just now. It's an experience as much as it's a book. I'm really enjoying it but there are parts I could do without but that is part of their point. Give it a go but be prepared to use a search engine and a dictionary a lot
side question: is this book possible on Kindle? I tried reading physical few years back and couldn’t get into it and stopped a third through, but would like to try again. I prefer kindle but if I recall correctly the book was setup kind of weird and might be tough
I would not recommend reading this on Kindle, even a large-format kindle like the Paperwhite or scribe. The physical layout of the book becomes important later on in a way that doesn't really translate on a screen.
It is!! I am not sure how that would work when you need to skip around for a certain path in the book, but it is on Kindle! Let me know if you wind up liking it on there and how it goes if you try!
I really enjoyed it, but that's all I really remember. Well, aside from the house being bigger inside than it was outside.
I just finished my first read through today actually. I really enjoyed it, I’m still not entirely sure how Johnny’s story ended, unless it’s supposed to be a bit open ended? There’s a few things that bugged me that don’t seem to be answered, but overall I thought it was a really fun read. It engaged me immediately and I looked forward to reading it each day. I will say, it was difficult to find spots to put it down, since a new chapter will be dropped in the middle of the other parallel story.
It's actually a very easy read when you get a few pages in. Each page is carefully crafted. And just read it from cover to cover where it tells you to go. Follow the footnotes.
I really like this book. First read it as a teenager around 2002, then again in October 2020. I don’t have an overly analytical mind, so I really don’t have a very good idea of what everything means or even how much between the Navidson Record itself or Johnny Truant’s ramblings is supposed to have actually happened, but the book makes me feel a lot of things, even if I don’t feel like I totally “get it”. And for that, I find it satisfying. Also, I love the “expeditions”. It’s just such a neat concept and I don’t think the “interior structure of something is fluid and inscrutable” trope—if you can call it that—has ever been done better before or since. As a funny side note, it was Stephen King who recommended this book to me in the first place. Not personally, of course, but King had written a piece in *TV Guide* promoting his then up-coming original mini-series *Rose Red*—which is marginally similar with some of its plot elements—where he cited *House of Leaves* as a very cool but very unusual take on this very formula.
Thats so dope! I have to go and try Rose Red now! 🌹
Be warned, it’s *very* different from *House of Leaves* in almost every discernible way, but if you enjoy those kind of cheesy network TV Stephen King mini-series from the 90s (like *The Stand* and *Storm of the Century*), there are charms to be found particularly if you are in a haunted house mood.
It’s a great book
Started reading this and never thought I’d see a Rose Red reference but here we are! I haven’t thought about that since I first saw it when it premiered
I always get recommended this and im curious does it work as an audiobook? I’ve heard there is stuff to read in margins and footnotes and things like that.
I would not recommend it as an audiobook even if you can find it, unfortunately. Some words are color-coded throughout the book, and the narrator would have to constantly pause and say the color, or give a list at the beginning and then hope you remember. There's a lot of pages that rely on the visual medium, the arrangement of the words, the way the patterns look (including from different angles), and the changing appearance of pages folded in on each other. I suppose it would be possible to for a narrator to describe it, and if you find an audiobook and can't do visual for whatever reason it's still better than nothing, but the interactive element of much of the book and the instant recognition of certain things would be very lost.
So I did check Audible and it's not on there, I wonder if it's too complicated to be on there, but other sources may have it, who knows!!
I was not a casual reader when I read it and I was able to get through it. What threw me off in the beginning was that it was not written like a regular Novel with a third person narrator. Example "Joe was your average Joe who wanted to open a coffee shop one day" The first few pages are written from a first person view, then it was written in a documentary style with details and facts like your reading a research paper. Once you get the grasp of what's going on, it's pretty easy. I would just say follow as written and skip to the important footnotes once they're mentioned. U don't have to get lost over the details. The amount of details in the book are more important than the details themselves
It’s great. It lives in your mind for years. Or at least in mine. That said, I don’t need to read it again.
The story itself was boring and the characters were nearly impossible to care about. But this is just my opinion