Reviews

House of leaves is a labyrinthine, three pronged nested tale of a deadbeat reading an academic study by a blind man of a home movie filmed by a photographer exploring an endless, dark maze spreading beneath his house. The novel circles and jumps between these three perspectives constantly, with the ominous, otherworldly house as the horror focal point, the work of academic criticism about it an often very entertaining satire of the bluster and navel gazing nature of art academia, and the deadbeat reading about it after the fact a juxtaposition of crass vulgarity cutting amongst the more erudite writing of the other two sections.

The post modern, ergodic structure of the book, a narrative that moves in fits and starts, the story and pages themselves spreading and contracting, falling apart and reforming in strange ways, all work wonderfully to inform the horror and suspense of the story itself. And these first two layers, the horror of the house itself and the dry, sometimes funny, sometimes thought provoking academic survey of it’s aftermath and meaning, are really fantastically realized, and could serve as one of the best literary horror works ever written.

Could is the big operative word there, since the third throughline, the drug addled, sex crazed Truant sections of the novel are unreadably bad at times. Seemingly written to give the novel some lurid pop in between the better written sections, we are forced to read about Truant’s many, many sexual dalliances, written by someone with apparently a very remote understanding of how such acts actually transpire. The first book I think I’ve ever read that made me audibly groan, these juvenile attempts at palette cleansers alongside Truant’s falling into disarray as he delves into the mystery are thematically consistent with the novel as a whole, but really bring down with sophomoric fixation what is otherwise a well done story. All in all House of Leaves is equal parts impressive and disappointing, certainly a book that I think will provide diminishing returns as its prospective reader grows in age and maturity.

strawb3rries's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I loved it but don't think I've ever been more confused in my life

avesmaria's review

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3.0

This book is, in short, about a supernatural spooky old house that is bigger on the inside than on the outside, and the man who documents it on film while his family is settling in. The book's narrative consists of testimony from a man who had found a written account of the house occupants' video footage in a dead person's apartment, plus some of the written account of the footage, plus additional summaries/text from the book's "editors." Lots of layers of storytelling.
When I started this book, it seemed amazing. When I finished it, it was not as exciting, because I had spent some time finishing up a book whose characters were uninteresting and petty, and the story was okay, but I still thought it was great. And the longer I thought about it after having read it, I realized I was wowed by an incredibly creative, inventive narrative structure - the story-within-a-story that you sometimes see in enchanting Borges tales, and really interesting type layout. It's a structure that holds up a plot that is only mildly interesting, with very unsympathetic characters, and some vulgar sex scenes thrown in, I guess to keep people's (or, um, heterosexual males') attention. The more I think about this book the more I feel like the author hoodwinked me with an interesting layout and an average suspense-horror story. Also (spoiler) the ending is disappointingly anticlimactic.

sandwarlock's review against another edition

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challenging dark slow-paced

4.0

davidporter's review

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challenging dark mysterious sad medium-paced

4.5

adisal's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes

5.0

I read this book last year and it still gnaws at my brain randomly, can't escape it ! Must read again

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