Over the past months I've been talking a lot about eBooks. Today I'm going to discuss a book that absolutely has to be read on paper- thick volume weighty in your lap, paper sliding between your fingers. House of Leaves needs to be read right-side-up, upside-down, diagonally. It needs to be read in color. You'll need easy access to the footnotes, or you'll miss at least half the story, and you'll want easy access to the appendices in back. Don't skip parts like this written in red, they are some of the best bits.
The book is a haunted house tale, but if you're expecting ghosts, think again. The protagonist of the story has never even been to the house. He simply had the misfortune of finding a manuscript- presumably the very manuscript we, as readers, hold in our hands. Truant has annotated the manuscript with his own comments and experience, which grow more disturbing and...creative in layout...as the story progresses. The manuscript itself is a scholarly work on the subject of a documentary film which, as Truant tells us, probably never existed. The non-existent documentary is about a house which mistreats three-dimensional space much the way the layout of House of Leaves mistreats traditional manuscript format.
I thoroughly enjoyed House of Leaves. It would be tempting to think all the crazy formats, colors, and footnotes were mere gimmicks to garner attention- but Danielewski proves that he uses each special effect to draw his reader deeper into the story. There is an artful resonance between the printed layout and the plot. No opportunity is wasted, be it a footnote, a translation, an exhaustive list of architects- to blur the line between what is real, and what is nightmare.
The book is a haunted house tale, but if you're expecting ghosts, think again. The protagonist of the story has never even been to the house. He simply had the misfortune of finding a manuscript- presumably the very manuscript we, as readers, hold in our hands. Truant has annotated the manuscript with his own comments and experience, which grow more disturbing and...creative in layout...as the story progresses. The manuscript itself is a scholarly work on the subject of a documentary film which, as Truant tells us, probably never existed. The non-existent documentary is about a house which mistreats three-dimensional space much the way the layout of House of Leaves mistreats traditional manuscript format.
I thoroughly enjoyed House of Leaves. It would be tempting to think all the crazy formats, colors, and footnotes were mere gimmicks to garner attention- but Danielewski proves that he uses each special effect to draw his reader deeper into the story. There is an artful resonance between the printed layout and the plot. No opportunity is wasted, be it a footnote, a translation, an exhaustive list of architects- to blur the line between what is real, and what is nightmare.
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