So in March or so, my friend Hannah Sb. (antimony!) organized a reading group at Haverford to read Mark Danielewski’s novel-like-book, House of Leaves. She got money from the Humanities Center to sponsor it, got maybe 10 people to join, and then started things up. Which was awesome, except I had no time to read, and ended up not going to any meetings.

But I still had the book.

I read some of the book when I was home this summer, but not really all that much, and then I brought it with me to Spain. Last weekend, on the bus rides to and from Salamanca, I read a good hundred-and-fifty pages*, which put me steadily into the book.

I haven’t entirely decided how I feel about it. I wouldn’t recommend reading the wikipedia page unless you’re not at all interested in reading it, because you’ll want to discover these things on your own. If you’ve read the book, there’s a funny XKCD comic parodying it.

The book is complex. Before I even explain the plot, let me explain: I’ve mapped out seven (or so) layers of the book (like Frankenstein, there’s a story-within-a-story). Here they are, from outermost to innermost:
1. Mark Z. Danielewski
2. “The Ed.s”
3. Johnny Truant
4. Zampanò’s typists
5. Zampanò†
6. Will Navidson’s film, The Navidson Record
7. the interviews and documentary footage within the film

† Within Zampanò’s text, perhaps alongside The Navidson Record, there are also quotes from sources: some are real, and some are not. He’s criticizing (or at least playing along with) ideas of literary criticism, here; and sometimes he borrows without citing. (e.g., on page 42, he references a story by Borges, treating it as reality.)

So at every level of this text, we can question the reliability of our narrators. Can we trust the narrators? We certainly can’t trust Truant. And he doesn’t trust Zampanò, who he thinks made up the film. And Zampanò didn’t write his book himself — he’s blind. So he also obviously couldn’t've seen the film. But he says it exists. And supposing it exists, can we trust that it accurately portrays events? And can we trust the video diary entries of its characters? Nah.

Truant is editing Zampanò’s book, but alongside editorial footnotes, he also provides pages of footnotes describing his own life, mostly his sex, drugs, bar-hopping, and the terrifying feelings of being watched and about to die. Zampanò is analyzing, but mostly just describing (not a good critic!), the film by Will Navidson. And the film is about the house where Will Navidson, his girlfriend, and their children live. Which grows a giant labyrinth beneath it. In a classic horror film sort of way. Only not really at all.

This makes it sound interesting but also frustrating, and it is. I’ll set me down and read another fifty pages sometime soon, I’m sure, but this isn’t a book to carry and read on the subway. (For that, I’m starting The Pillars of the Earth. In Spanish.)

I’m sure I’ll keep updating as I read more.

* Admittedly, almost 100 of those pages were the Whalestoe Institute letters appendix, which is fascinating but much easier to read than the normal parts of the book, which tend to be denser and filled with footnotes. The letters are self-contained and go more easily, although they too are complicated.