This book was recommended to me by someone whose taste I admire and respect, so I eagerly dove into it only to be driven back by daunting footnotes, multiple narratives, and an impenetrable darkness that was as intriguing as it was terrifying when I let my mind follow its dangerous course of descent. That made for one of the most challenging reads I’ve had in many years, one that haunted me at times in the best of ways, and one that I’m sure only gleaned a small percentage of what was intended.
‘House of Leaves’ was written by Mark Z. Danielewski with painstaking detail and wonderfully-intricate complexity, offering a multi-media maze of descriptive and sometimes meandering prose that fully engulfs the reader in a world of claustrophobic yet endless tunnels of possibility, darkness, terror and loss. It tells the tale of a house that contains a door leading to an endless space of darkness and seemingly-impossible expansive dimension, the family that has moved in and is experiencing this space, along with narratives of a documentary on the experience and those who have analyzed and been touched by the dangerous story in their own way. It’s a reminder of the lethal power of an idea when it gets seeded in the brain and begins to grow.
Like its labyrinthine subject matter, the book is a veritable deep-dive into multiple tunnels and narratives, each winding along a sketchy edge where what is real or possible pushes against what we thought we understood to be impossible. At times, I found it difficult to follow, but rather than give up, I pushed through, taking the words and the footnotes as they came, being sure to read everything, even when it didn’t seem to make sense, and even by the end I’m not entirely sure if I got anywhere near to everything that was expressed. That seems to be part of the point too, and perhaps if I’d come closer to truly understanding it I’d be a little closer to a darkness my heart might not find comfortable or enjoyable. There’s enough darkness in the real world to more than adequately deliver such dangers. This book is an entertaining glimpse into the mysteries of the mind, and all that they might unleash if you’re not careful.
