House of Leaves is a horror novel that was first published in 2000, but somehow I had never heard about it until recently. When I saw how absolutely bonkers the formatting of this book is, I knew I had to read it:

House of Leaves is an experimental piece of metafiction designed to disorient the reader. The whole conceit of the book is that a man named Johnny Truant has come across an unpublished manuscript by a recently deceased writer named Zampanò that is an academic treatise on a documentary called The Navidson Record. The book is told in three layers, the first being Truant’s discovery of the manuscript in a big box after Zampanò’s death. The manuscript is in pieces with many pages missing. As Truant’s puts the manuscript together for publication, he includes his own footnotes, many of which are long, rambling passages about going out with his friend Lude to consume copious amounts of alcohol and drugs, as well as describing in detail is his many sexual escapades. Essentially, Truant’s footnotes are about a man whose mental state is deteriorating as he believes something is out there to get him like he believes it got Zampanò. I could have done without the descriptions of Truant’s sex life, but I still thought it was an interesting, albeit unsettling, account of the decline into madness.

The second layer to House of Leaves is Zampanò’s commentary on The Navidson Record. Zampanò was an old, blind man who lived in the same apartment building as Truant’s friend, Lude. He had people who read to him and helped him with his manuscript. He also used to walk around the courtyard of the building in the evening, petting the stray cats who lived there, until the cats start disappearing. Then Zampanò’s body is found on the floor of his apartment with deep scratches on the floor next to him.

Zampanò comes across as a pedant in his manuscript, and I read online after I finished reading the book that Zampanò’s manuscript satirizes academia, which I guess makes sense (to be honest, I have not read anything academic since uni, so I do not know for sure). The manuscript is filled with long, boring passages about various subjects that I couldn’t care less about, so I ended up skimming over them to get to the best part of the book: the description of The Navidson Record.

The Navidson Record is a film by a photojournalist named Will Navidson who has documented his family’s experiences in their new home in Virginia. Shortly after moving into their new home, Will discovers that the inside dimensions of the house are bigger than the outside dimensions. Then a dark hallway inexplicably appears in one of the outside walls of the living room. Of course, Will explores the hallway and discovers numerous corridors of ash-gray walls, one of which leads into a huge great hall with a spiral staircase that leads down into a dark abyss. The Navidson Record is about exploring this labyrinth, as well as the detrimental affect the appearance of the hallway has on the Navidson family. It is seriously creepy and had me wishing I did not read about it at night before I went to bed.

I love and appreciate the amount of effort Mark Z. Danielewski put into creating House of Leaves. The book is full of Zampanò’s footnotes that reference works that actually exist, as well as works that are clever in their false authenticity (part of the conceit of the book is that Truant is not completely sure that The Navidson Record was made up by Zampanò even though he can find no record of its existence). The layout of the text adds to the unnerving feeling created by the story, but it is also fun having to the twist the book in different directions to read some of the pages. However, House of Leaves is a book for readers who consider reading as more than a hobby. My husband has (jokingly?) accused me of being snobby by saying this, but it is true, I think you seriously need to appreciate literature to be able to get through this one. House of Leaves is one of those polarizing reads that you are either going to like or absolutely hate because you think it is postmodern crap.