Psychological horror that weaves itself into your psyche (House of Leaves - Mark Danielewski)

Member Name: paperaeroplane

Product:	House of Leaves - Mark Danielewski
Date:	13/06/09 (82 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Gripping, subtly and suitably disturbing and incredibly well written

Disadvantages: A bit long but I promise you wont notice!

Okay this is my first book review so bear with me...

House of Leaves is an easy book, please don't be put off (as have some of my friends!) by the sheer volume of it. If you love Poe, Jorge Luis Borges, Dave Eggers, and Lovecraft you will definitely go for this, if not then I urge you to read it anyway.

The plot starts from the first person perspective of Johnny Truant, a tattoo parlour assistant living on the fringes of an L.A alternative scene whose life is presented as having difficult and confusing relationships with the people around him. When searching for a new apartment his friend Lude takes him to the apartment of Zampano, an apparently blind man who has recently died.

Whilst looking through the contents of the apartment he finds a series of notebooks, napkins, scraps of paper and other assortments that detail both a film called The Navidson Record and a reportedly factual account of the Navidson family's experiences. House of leaves then switches between different perspectives, Johnny Truants, Zampano's academic study and theories, and from the Navidson family themselves.

The film the Navidson record, came into life as Will Navidson and his former model wife (Karen Green) move to a new home in Virginia, intending to settle down with their two children. Originally intended to document their family life and explore the relationships between them the shocking events in the house take over the Navidson Record whilst Zampanos document remains an indepth exploration of the interpersonal relationships.

When the house begins to develop new hallways and corridors seemingly at random Navidson and others decide to explore them.

I don't want to give too much away so I will leave the central plot for you to find out more about and now tell you a bit more about the format of the novel itself.

What starts off as a simple first person perspective narrative quickly evolves into having multiple narrators and in the case of Zampano - whose 'voice' is only ever heard through his academic work or accounts of him recalled to Johnny Truant - a seemingly endless series of footnotes and commentary. Some of the pages are littered with seemingly unimportant descriptions of different types of architecture, some pages have only word standing alone on the page.What I thik is so wonderful is that the experience of reading the book mirrors the situations the protaganists find themselves in. Bewilderment, claustrophobia, panic and despair are all translated into the readers experience of finding their way through the text. This is done extremely effectively.

The 'academic' footnotes also give the story a strong realistic basis, rooted in myth and literary interpretation. This has the positive effect of weaving the fiction of the book into the fact of your everyday life whilst reading. Indeed this is what happens to Truant as he uncovers more.

The relationship between Navidson and Karen and the house is what makes this a true psychological horror and brings to mind The Fall of The House of Usher. Poe is a great favourite of mine and I believe him to be a strong influence on Danielewski.

I cannot recommend this book enough, I was lucky enough to discover it by accident in a charity shop and whilst looking for other copies to give as presents I've often found that it needs to be ordered but it is available on Amazon and other internet retail sites.

Please Please read this book if you get the chance.

Summary: 10/10