Feicky's Book Club

Out of all of the many books I have read in my lifetime, the one that I would most highly recommend would probably be House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski. House of Leaves follows the story of Johnny Truant, as he slowly loses his mind whilst attempting to edit and transcribe a trunk full of notes left by a dead, blind, old man named Zampanò. Now, this is the part of the story that I can explain while having it still make sense. In actuality, this story is about a man transcribing a critical, analytical piece about a series of tapes which don't exist, about a house that doesn't exist. In short, this book is a complete freaking mindfeick.

So, in order to truly describe this book in a comprehensive fashion, I feel I need to summarize a few things first. I feel the most simple way to do this is to talk about the three main characters, and their relation to the plot.

Firstly, we have Johnny Truant, our drug-using, bar-hopping, primary protagonist. House of Leaves starts out with Johnny looking for an apartment. Luckily, there happens to be an opening in the apartment complex of his friend, Lude, after the previous tennant, Zampanò, passes away, due to an unknown cause. In the apartment, he finds a trunk full of notes, which he becomes obsessed with, and spends the rest of the book copying into book form.

Secondly, there's the closest thing this book has to a primary antagonist, Zampanò. To be honest, little is known about Zampanò, save for he is blind, he is dead, and he is certifiably insane. He wrote the series of notes, collectively entitled House of Leaves, which is an analysis of a series of (nonexistant) tapes, collectively referred to as The Navidson Record, starring our secondary protagonist, Will Navidson.

Will Navidson is a family man, and a photographer, who moves into a house in southeast Virginia. The thing is, this house is different; it's bigger on the inside. This is just one of the many logical and topological discrepencies inherent in the house. The Navidson Record follows Navidson as he explores the ever-changing labyrinth contained within the house.
One of the most interesting things about this book, however, is the authors use, not only of words to convey emotion and meaning, but of text, of letters, of font and format, that gives this story true substance. This also somehow manages to make this book even harder to follow than it would be otherwise.

House of Leaves is a fascinating, brilliant, terrifying, confusing book, and I urge any people reading this blog to get ahold of a copy.