I couldn’t put it down. Rather, that’s not entirely correct. I could physically put the book down, but it wouldn’t get out of my head. I kept thinking about it, the temptation to start measuring my surroundings building up in me. I’ve started closing off parts of my apartment just to make it so that I can’t see more than I have to.
A friend told me about this documentary, the Navidson Record, about this house out on Ash Tree Lane. This photographer, Will Navidson, bought it. But it was all weird like, ya know? All of a sudden a closet appears between a couple of the bedrooms. The inside kept changing, but the outside stayed the same. Anyway, my friend hadn’t seen the movie. He was talking about a paper examining the record by this blind guy named Zampano. But, this other guy, Johnny Truant, he found it after the old man died. Put it all together into this book, House of Leaves. Put it online, so people could find it up there. This whole community formed around it, and eventually it got published.
That’s what I got. A beaten to hell copy of this paperback* book filled with footnotes and diagrams, all leading into level after level of madness. Everyone that had read the book before me had added something, notes scribbled within the margins, Post-It notes creating yet another book within it.
There’s nothing like a good book that really gets under your skin. House of Leaves, by Mark Z Danielewski does that exceedingly well. Written as several stories at once, this experimental title takes readers down three main plotlines. We watch helplessly as the Navidson family rips itself apart inside the house, are taunted continuously by the mysterious Zamapano, and are pulled into a world that most of will never experience as Johnny finds out more about himself than he ever wanted to know.
House of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski. Random House.
*It took me forever to actually find a full color edition, so long that I didn’t think it existed. Another joke, I supposed. Most of the paperbacks are 2 color editions, with the hardback being in full color. It’s gotten a bit easier, now.
Danielewski’s Site
(Originally published in the Shoreline Community College student paper, the Ebbtide)
Posted Tuesday, January 30, 2007
