[color=blue]House[/color] of Leaves

[ASR]

(Yes, I know the color code doesn't actually work in the subject title.)

HOUSE OF MOTHER#####ING LEAVES

This... this book is amazing.

Here's the summary that sold me on the book, swiped from some random forum elsewhere:

Alright, essentially, it's the fictional journal of a guy who found an extensive film review for a film that doesn't exist in his dead neighbor's house. The film documents a man and his family who discover that their house has hallways and doors that, spatially speaking, given the dimensions of their house, cannot exist. It documents their journey into these lightless, blank, shifting corridors, interspersed with notes by the journal-keeper, occasional comments about his life, and how reading the description of this movie is starting to drive him insane.

And of course, it's about a good bit more than that, once you scratch the surface.

I just finished it. Haven't read The Whalestoe Letters section yet but I'm going to tomorrow.

I will push onto others things that I love constantly. If I befriend you, I will force you to watch Shaun of the Dead on multiple occasions. I will sample for you my favorite TV shows during any bout of boredom. I will berate you constantly for not having read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and constantly taunt you with references from it. I will hand you the controller every time I play MegaMan and whisper the challenge "Beat this level. I dare you."

But if I really had push something on you, if only because I went so long without ever hearing about this book and thus it seems highly underrepresented... it would be, right now at least, House of Leaves.

This book blew me away.

I am NOT an avid reader. I read a lot, but I am NOT an avid reader.

I just read the same stuff over and over again. Almost exclusively Douglas Adams books. Sometimes Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. Every once in a while a funny book like Maddox's Alphabet of Manliness or The Darwin Awards.

The most recent new (to me) book I read before House of Leaves was Watchmen, and that might not count since it's a graphic novel. Before that, it had been years since I'd picked up a brand new book of any kind that I actually enjoyed and wanted to read past a few chapters.

I'm very picky.

But enough about that.

House of Leaves is AMAZING.

I feel like Lunche, Edge, and Mike would all definitely be able to appreciate it. Maybe JC.

It genuinely filled me with a very real sense of dread and terror that I hadn't felt stir within me since I was very young and still had nightmares. The feeling of being so disturbed by a nightmare is so familiar, and I remember it after waking up from nightmares or being scared of those dark corners as a kid, but I hadn't felt it in so, so many years until I picked up this book.

You forget what is real when you're reading it, even though you know it's all fiction, but it's written in a way so as to suggest that even the fiction seems so real. Every doubt you ever have about the book's reality is overshadowed by doubts about that very doubt.

And since at every moment it all feels so real despite your better sense telling you that it clearly isn't but your instincts telling you that maybe it possibly very slightly could be maybe just a little bit but obviously never really because it's all impossible but then again maybe?...

...it just affects you so much more.

It's just... it's insane. But never insane.

I've read my fair share of first-person narratives meant to showcase a slow descent into insanity... but NEVER before have I seen such a REAL first-person narrative showcasing a slow descent into insanity.

When I think of Hitchhiker's Guide, I inevitably drift off to thinking of how awesome it would've been to be able to meet Douglas Adams and spend time with the man.

But when I think of House of Leaves, I shudder at the thought of meeting Mark Z. Danielewski. There... there's something horribly wrong, or horribly right, or just plain horrible about him.

Hell, he even manages to make that age-old horror movie cliche of kids drawing disturbing drawings actually scary.

He creates such vivid and haunting passages that arrange the words in such beautifully wrong ways that you aren't even surprised when they images are burned into your mind and you find yourself unable to shake them.

"The Five and a Half Minute Hallway" VHS tape... Delial... the bottomless stairway... the first dream Navidson has...

And just... just the house itself. So frightening.

Please, please, please, do yourself a favor and check this book out. I rarely ever start new topics, let alone one for a book.

I wonder if Hugh Laurie has read it.

[AlexThePenguin]

How well does that command work when you hit a not-light blue panel?

I've been interested in reading this for a while, but I'm not entirely sure if it's up my alley.

[ASR]

I have a feeling you'd especially enjoy it.

[AlexThePenguin]

Did the book affect your dreams? I have a habit of not registering a lot of things whilst reading, but then they come back strongly in my dreams.

[ASR]

I was really hoping it would give me nightmares (I know, not the sort of thing people usually hope for), but nope, nothing. I rarely remember my dreams in recent years so nothing in the regular-dream-department either.

Oh, and I should clarify: the book isn't scary in the normal terms of being scary. It's just this overwhelmingly unsettling and darkened atmosphere that swallows you while you read it entirely unlike anything else. But there's really no other way to describe it.

Fear is something I really love to explore. It's just such a real and raw and powerful emotion, and even though it's a different kind of fear than what most people are used to, fear is fear nonetheless. Danielewski really understands fear. It's evident in the way he writes so many of the haunting passages throughout the book.

I guess my point is that... scary movies never ever scare me. Horror stories or ghost tales and all that malarkey never phase me.

And although this book didn't necessarily make me jump or frighten me in any immediate way, it achieved that same final feeling of dread that I so vividly remember from those few nightmares every kid has after a night left alone in the pitch black.

I have this entirely vivid image of the house in my head and I can imagine myself alone in there, and that is a feeling of at least some form of partially real terror to me. The closest I've felt in years, at least.

Everything about never-ending labyrinths, and the nothingness and emptiness of darkness, and how fragile the mind is... it's all very appealing material to me and perfect fodder for fear.

[Vinchenz Rock]

I never read books. I'm struggling reading a 200 page novel right now. The only books I've ever been so engrossed in was the Harry Potter books, and I'm not sure why. I was very addicted to them.

But if I see this book sometime, I will probably buy it just because you heavily recommend it. But I probably won't finish it. :/

[Johncarllos]

Sounds like an entertaining read.
If only it was available at any library near me....

I COULD buy it for $16 at Barnes and Noble.

If it was available at out campus library I'd go get it and read it right now though.

[Snare]

It's in my house but I haven't read it.

SELDOM DO I READ.

[ASR]

Oh, and everyone says that you want the full-color hardcover edition for $40 because it offers a much better experience than the paperback one which only has the color blue for the word house, but even though there will be a noticeable shift in how some parts of the book will be experienced, it hardly justifies a $25 difference in price.

I got the hardcover on sale on Black Friday for just $22 but otherwise I wouldn't have paid the full $40 for it. If you really want to read the full-color version, I reccomend just seeing if your library has it or something. The paperback should suffice.

Apparently the paperback version's cover is a 1/4" smaller than the pages themselves, so the pages are all peeking out, parallelling how the Navidson's house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.

[Johncarllos]

That's neat about the pages sticking out.

Does the color add much?

[Mikero]

Nice topic title, spermbucket.

[Majikn]

The only coloured text in my book seems to be red strikethrough. But that's all I notice when flipping through the pages quickly, which is all I've done so far.

It says "Remastered Full-Color Edition" at the top of the front cover.

[Johncarllos]

(Yes, I know the color code doesn't actually work in the subject title.)

[ASR]

Thanks, JC.

And Majikn, is the word house colored blue? Or just the red strikethroughs and red word Minotaur?
house house house house house house house m.d. house house house house house
Haha. It's invisdabull!
I'll stop.
house house house house house casa maison hause hugh laurie
There's also one sentence of purple in Chapter 13 and I believe one other color somewhere else.
house house house house house house house house house house
And yeah, the color adds a darker and ominous tone to the setting, and I'm glad I read it that way first, but never in a million years does "an added darker and ominous tone" justify $25 more for a colored version of a book.

[Mikero]

(Yes, I know the color code doesn't actually work in the subject title.)

Yes, I read that.

[Majikn]

I thought the difference in "experience" was more than just the colour. Anyway I have one with colours, but I've yet to see any blue text at all. It's always possible that I just haven't come across the word house in any of my page-flippings. Otherwise, the word House is a light blue on the front cover, as it is on the back. Not the 0000FF blue, more like a 9999FF or something like that.

I just highlighted your post, you son of a biiiitch

[ASR]

My friend brought up a good point: if a character in the book was named Casandra, would it appear as Casandra?

Haha. I thought that was funny. Even though I know Cassandra is usually spelled with two "S"s.

Anyway, I just read a great observation that "leaves" can be considered pages, so the book itself can be considered the house. (Told you I'd stop.) There's so many layers and so many unreliable narrators that the book exceeds just being a book and becomes a never-ending concept.

It's written in such a labrynthine manner that even though you can never truly answer and describe the book, you can at any point answer and describe it in an infinite number of ways and be truly satisfied.

There are so many parallels and references and trickery... oh, I can't explain. You really have to read it.

But the comparison of the book as being the house itself was great.

[Captain Sanoguchi]

tl;dr

Isn't House of Leaves the book that's written with all the paragraphs flipped around in weird ways and stuff?

[ASR]

Answer:






Though of course the whole book isn't like that. In fact, most of it isn't.

[AlexThePenguin]

Oh, god. I couldn't read that.

Dyslexia is NOT fun with alternate formatting.

[Panda]

Lovecraft, Mieville, etc.

I thought House of Leaves was great in the same way Donnie Darko was. They abandon proper storytelling method in order to tell a story properly.

Edit: I feel House of Leaves is a bit overhyped, though, and everyone goes on and on about how fantastic it is as though there's no other books in the world; it's harry potter all over again.

[ASR]

Well, it's hardly Harry Potter. Whatever hype there is for House of Leaves should be forgiven since hardly anyone has heard about it. It's just people trying to spread the word.

[Edgecrusher]

The blue coloring on the word House and your fascination with the show of the same name lead me to believe this topic was about it.

It sounds pretty interesting. I get %40 off at Barnes and Noble this week, so I'll go pick it up after my 1400 class today.

Thanks for the suggestion!

[ASR]

It's actually funny, because as much as I love the TV-show House, and even though he's one of my favorite characters on TV, I make absolutely no effort to follow the show or catch up on it. I just watch it if it's on.

But yeah, I got mine for 40% off too on Black Friday via an online sale coupon for any book.

[Majikn]

I can't see how it's overhyped. I mean, the only reason I had heard of it was xkcd, where it was being mocked in parody. I looked it up and decided it would be an interesting (if not necessarily amazing) read, so I bought it. ASR only validated my choice in buying it.

I'd complain about Twilight. That's Harry Potter level hype, or very close, it seems.

[Edgecrusher]

And the movie was terrible.

[ASR]

As I've already said, Twilight is my favorite thing to hate right now.

[Yubi Shines]

I'll try it, and it seems to have elements of things that I want to see in books, but I can't swear that the weird typographical experiments won't turn me off. Mrf. But I will give it a go.

[Mikero]

E. E. Cummings, a poet, uses interesting typographical stuff like that in his work, and it's good. I think it works if it makes sense that it's there, and it seems like it does for this book.

I thought House of Leaves was great in the same way Donnie Darko was. They abandon proper storytelling method in order to tell a story properly.

And Donnie Darko isn't like that?

I can't see how it's overhyped. I mean, the only reason I had heard of it was xkcd, where it was being mocked in parody. I looked it up and decided it would be an interesting (if not necessarily amazing) read, so I bought it. ASR only validated my choice in buying it.

I'd complain about Twilight. That's Harry Potter level hype, or very close, it seems.

Except whether or not you like Harry Potter, people enjoy it legitimately. As in, even if people don't like it, it's more because it's not their thing rather than it being bad. Where as the Twilight (movie) is just reportedly a bad movie, and then the actual story of it (and book) are only apparently liked by a small niche of 14-year old think-their-individuals-but-really-REALLY-aren't group of girls.

At least Harry Potter bridges across different age groups and types of people, which can't be denied whether someone personally likes it or not. The movie of Twilight only really blew up like it did because of hype (which begets hype) and then people actually saw it and realized it really wasn't their thing. Still, it'll play out for all the movie because enough little girls think it's awesome now since someone told them it was.

[Edgecrusher]

They're making a sequel.

How sad is that?

[Mikero]

Very sad, but not so sad I want to bother thinking of a synonym for very sad.

[ASR]

Donnie Darko 2: Electric Boogaloo?

[Majikn]

I was actually pretty surprised at the range of people who read and liked Twilight. Older than 14, too. In some cases much older. But maybe it just seems that way because of that hype.

I haven't read it, myself. I looked at a few pages and decided it would be okay to read, but the writing itself seemed rather weak. I can't vouch for the characters/storytelling.

I'm sorry, ASR, I'd love to talk about House of Leaves, but I guess I don't have much to say until I finally get to it, which may not be for quite a while. It's next up to read anyway.

[ASR]

Haha, don't worry about it, man.

So, anyway, my neighbor from a room across the hall has been hangin' out in my room for about 3 hours just talking at me, but at one point we were telling scary stories and he was talking about this abandoned aslyum he and some friends explored, and how he was afraid of the dark now.

I started telling him about House of Leaves and I showed him part of the book, and I opened up to some of those weirdly formatted pages to show him.

Now, I posted this picture up there, but here:



The pages look like this for a while. On the left column of these pages for about 15 pages, there is an extremely massive list of buildings just pulled from every possible source. On the opposite side on the right, there is another column reading upside down with an extremely massive list of architects just pulled from every possible source.

So, I'm open to one of those pages, and the kid's like "Yo, slow down. Go back. Go back."

And I had already explained how #####ed up the book was and how much it messes with you.

He takes the book, and now he's sitting there holding the book pointing at part of the page.

He's like "That's my grandfather's name."

His grandpa is an architect, but he didn't understand why it was in there and was freaking out. Still really coincidental. Freaked him out.

[Panda]

Note: I loved House of Leaves, I just don't like how people think it's the only/best book of its type.

I thought House of Leaves was great in the same way Donnie Darko was. They abandon proper storytelling method in order to tell a story properly.

And Donnie Darko isn't like that?

Yes, it is like that. That's my point.

Except whether or not you like Harry Potter, people enjoy it legitimately. As in, even if people don't like it, it's more because it's not their thing rather than it being bad.

This is completely untrue. I enjoyed reading Harry Potter, but it was terribly written; sometimes the writing was painfully bad. Read the epilogue in Deathly Hallows and tell me again that it isn't as bad as Twilight.

[Mikero]

Sorry Panda, I quoted the wrong part. I meant;

"

House of Leaves is a bit overhyped, though, and everyone goes on and on about how fantastic it is as though there's no other books in the world

And Donnie Darko isn't like that? "


Anyway I agree that I hated the epilogue, and that the series doesn't have the best writing on the planet or even close, but the series as a whole is not just awful, and it's at the least engrossing enough to give you the atmosphere of it all. There are books I read today where I'm very #####ing aware that I am reading a book at that moment in time, and it's usually the fault of the writing itself. J.K. Rowling's writing isn't awesome, I never meant that, but one can at least argue that it is NOT as completely stupid as Twilight.

[Panda]

I agree with both points.

[Yubi Shines]

The best I can put it is that Harry Potter is not particularly good writing, but it's fun to read.

Reading Twilight is not fun, unless I found projectile vomiting from purple prose overload "fun."

[Majikn]

I think I'm the only person in the world that didn't have any problem with the epilogue, as compared to the rest of the series.

[Slugkid]

No problem with the epilogue? At all?
....
The name of the kid is Albus severus!
Come on...Albus severus?
Just imagine...
"MY NAME IS ALBUS SEVERUS, HELLO THERE!"

[Johncarllos]

I want to read what happened in between .

[ASR]

Albus Severus and the Unprecedented Second Heptalogy.

[Mikero]

We must have different ideas of the word "unprecedented".

I want to read what happened in between .

I only kind of do. Not for Harry, as I really pretty much stopped caring, but for the Weasley's and Hermione.

No problem with the epilogue? At all?
....
The name of the kid is Albus severus!
Come on...Albus severus?
Just imagine...
"MY NAME IS ALBUS SEVERUS, HELLO THERE!"

I also hated that name SO much. But Severus is probably his middle name. Either way, I was disappointed in the name for multiple reasons.

The best I can put it is that Harry Potter is not particularly good writing, but it's fun to read.

Reading Twilight is not fun, unless I found projectile vomiting from purple prose overload "fun."

Yes yes, exactly.

[Yubi Shines]

o hello i named all my kidz after dead pple i am v. cr8tive

[Mikero]

I mean, it's normal for him to name the kid after someone important to him. That's almost Muggle-y in it's mundane obviousness (not that I don't want to do it too, assuming the universe ever decides to actually let me date again).

And as an aside, I do think "muggle" is a slur, it's basically the goddamn N-word for non-magic using humans, as if they are somehow lesser for it even though their bullets would cut through one of my Avada Kadavra's any day. And I do the best Avada Kadavra's on the block. Trust me. I even beat a 5th grader's!

But Albus Severus? I literally said, out loud as if I was talking to a person and not a book, the word "Really?"

I mean, sure, Albus was important to him. He did a lot "you didn't know about at the time" (it was pretty clear) for Harry throughout the series, but I think if I put my head to it (and I won't) I could render a list, in order, with reasons, of names that would come before that as picking for first names. Albus rolls off like a middle name anyway, and would make more sense since it's completely in the style of how he seemed to work; Just hidden in there, in the fabric, like dust mites.

And Severus? OK so he did a bunch of good that "you didn't know about at the time", but even at the end did Harry even LIKE him? No, I don't think so. I think he was thankful, sure. Maybe he even admired him a bit. But this was not someone he loved. This wasn't Ron who put his life on the line like clockwork every year for seven straight years because he believed in Harry. This wasn't even Neville who cowboy'd the ##### up in the Department of Mysteries and kicked a rather surprisingly whole lot of #####ing ass because he believed in Harry. This is actually the only character who wasn't a bad guy that not only never believed in Harry but CONSTANTLY treated him like dirt and ENJOYED it almost sexually. Even Cedric deserves more place in that kid's name.

And, correct me if I'm wrong, isn't his other son named James? Like he even #####ing knew James? Like they met, had some tea once and talked about... Oh that's right, I can't think of anything they could possibly talk about. Even if they had met they'd have had dick in common as they were from two completely different worlds. It would be worse than every conversation Harry had in the first book when he knew nothing about anything in this place. Here's a mock-up;

James Potter: "Hullo Harry."
Harry Potter: "Hullo dad."
James Potter, flicking his hair around like a colossal asshole: "You know, when I was a kid we didn't have Bertie Botts' Every Flavour Beans! We had to port key 80 kilometres in the snow through a Frost Giant camp to buy Thagilda Bagilda's Sweet Lolly Lippersnaps!"
Harry Potter, scruffing hair like a nervous capuchin: "I like Coldplay."


So no. I don't think so, Jaaammmmes Potter II. Clearly, he didn't let his wife have any say in the names of their kids unless he just won whatever wizards have instead of rock-paper-scissors (because they replace EVERYTHING with their own thing, instead of just having something in common) every time. Though he is constantly the dumb-luckiest kid, I guess.

This is has been FAR too much text about this.

[ASR]

yah basically u coulda just said "yeah dudes albus severus is a dumb name yo"

[Majikn]

Yup... I'm the only person.

[Johncarllos]

I don't think it's horrible.
:/

[Vinchenz Rock]

I didn't give it a second thought.

On the matter of J.K. Rowling's writing, I did think it was bad... but there was something about it that kept me addicted to the books.

I guess I just prefer bad writing to incredibly detailed writing. Which I think I do.

[AlexThePenguin]

Severus is a weird name in general.

In Latin, it directly translates as "Grumpy."