Review: House of Leaves
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Kelly: stuck in the house.
Kelly: decides to read a book about a murderous house.
5 stars. This was ... really something. Unlike anything I've read before. I'm so excited to have read it - I feel accomplished - but I also feel ... hollowed out with a spoon. Scarred, scared, maybe a little shaky. Maybe a little traumatized. There are moments from this book that I will drag around with me for a long time (like for example the image of a man trying to read a book by the light of its burning pages … shiver).
I'd say it was worth it for someone like me: willing to put in the work and super interested in unsettling academic horror. GET READY FOR A LOT. YES, it gave me a headache like five times. YES, I had to turn the book upside down and read from different angles. YES, it's a little bit up its own ass. But I'd say it's pretty brilliant, and pretty scary.
Ahhh, how to describe it. Well, there are essentially three stories here: one about a family who moves into a peculiar house, one about an old man who writes about their experiences / their captured film about it, and one about a young man who finds the old man's writing. It's sort of a Russian Doll novel like Cloud Atlas, except the stories are woven together with footnotes, not neatly divided with chapters. And it's gorgeous. Visually.
Like if Kubrick directed a version of Alice in Wonderland.
It's also - delightfully and unexpectedly - funny. There's a lot of satire here and I found myself snorting at Danielewski's brilliant mockery of academia and analysis. It all felt so familiar and so accurate and so hilarious. Very clever. Overwrought in a good way. I also enjoyed, without knowing how or why, feeling like I was in L.A. in the 90's. L.A. is hard to capture but it works here, simply. <- That's a super random detail to pull from such an epic, expansive book but there you go.
I am super, super tempted to dive into an in-depth exploration of how women are portrayed - would love to analyze every female character - but, well, hmm. To offer commentary on something like that would be playing into the books hands ... falling into its trap ... exhuming a skeleton of sorts. Better left alone, I'd say.
Beyond all that though, under the layers, behind the door... this book stretches. It stretches what a book can be, it stretches your imagination, it stretches fear into something really thoughtful and provocative. The author takes primarily intangible, abstract "things:" space, time, walls, a staircase; and makes them profoundly eerie. Ultimately, though, I was left feeling warm. It's not just horror. It's deeply wonderful and romantic.