House of Leaves: A Book Review

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Welcome to my book review of House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. In this video, I delve into the labyrinthine structure of this novel that has captivated readers with its unconventional narrative and physical form.
House of Leaves begins as a critique of a documentary about a family that discovers their house is inexplicably larger on the inside than on the outside. The text spirals into multiple layered narratives, filled with footnotes and appendices that some find as bewildering as the house itself.
I’ll explore how Danielewski uses typography and page layout in ways that challenge traditional reading paths, forcing readers to turn the book in different directions and questioning the very act of reading. The novel also plays with themes of space, both physical and psychological, and delves into deep, sometimes unsettling questions about reality and perception.
Links to Books Mentioned in this Video:
House of Leaves:
amzn.to/3WJquKg
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1 окт 2024

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Комментарии : 98

@assassin-gz7lu 4 месяца назад

Man i love the extra square footage that my house decided to give me as a present.

@tweegerm 4 месяца назад

literally how the guy in Barbarian reacts to finding creepy ass rooms under his house

@maygorfungus9094 2 месяца назад

Backpackers hostel hahaha upfront payment first.

@PapyrusTheSke1eton 2 месяца назад

I absolutely ADORED this book!! I definitely think its something most people should read at some point in there lives, because it definitely has some gritty reality to it, aside from the incredible house story

@m.c.3541 4 месяца назад

I have had this book for years. Started, stopped, started, you get it. I am going to try it again. I'll let you know how it goes.

@HeyItsTra Месяц назад

I came to this book because I'm a Poe fan. I read it as soon as it came out. I thought it was cool, but I didn't think it was that scary. It's lived in my brain and grown just like the hallway. I think about it pretty often. I've thought about reading it again, but I don't think I should. LOL Welcome to the House of Leaves (cue spooky music) LOL

@chainsawthrower9000 4 месяца назад

Hiya, one of those house of leaves fans here, for anybody reading: I recommend doing TWO reads, the first read diving into the navidson record, the second reading johnnies story, the stories are more intertwined than you would think. i just recommend going at your own speed. this book isnt for everybody, if you do enjoy it you will connect so many dots so little people connect, this isnt exactly a horror book but more like a book thats about human relationships and indifferent cruelty of the universe and cycles of abuse and inherited mental illness and death of the author. the book is less like a book, its more like an art piece

@jshoe3 4 месяца назад

The check mark, Pelafina and Truant to me are the heart of the book/house and everything else is the marginalia to their story. Cheers on the great review

@Shadowstep98 4 месяца назад

Man, I love your videos, you're so enthusiastic and lively about the books you review! Please keep it up!!!!

@PaperbackJourneys 4 месяца назад

Thanks so much, I really appreciate it! Glad you enjoy them.

@TheBookThing 4 месяца назад

The closest I’ve come to ergodic literature is when I physically threw my copy of Hannibal by Thomas Harris at the wall as hard as I could when I got to the end. I must say I’m intrigued. I’ll probably end up buying a copy and staring at it on my shelf for years. Great vid as always. Looking forward to your thoughts on Moby Dick

@PaperbackJourneys 4 месяца назад

Haha nice! Yeah book throwing is a common sport in my house too.

@Millie.C 4 месяца назад

The opening cracked me up. 😆 I read House of Leaves as part of my Halloween reads some years back and I still remember the creeping feeling on my back some of the paragraphs gave me, but I also ended up skimming through parts of the Johnny Truant sections.

@EntheogenShaman 3 месяца назад

It was always about Johnny, so you missed the point.

@Vgamer311 2 месяца назад

@@EntheogenShaman Yes, its about Johnny, and we can acknowledge that at the same time as we acknowledge the fact that from time to time the dude was straight rambling. I mean just a certified yapper.

@dyanstoutenburg9974 27 дней назад

@@Vgamer311 😂🥲🥱

@EntheogenShaman 3 месяца назад

The problem is that people just look at this book as a gimmick. Much like the house, it's deeper than it looks from the outside.

@mckayladurbin3731 4 месяца назад

This is my all time favorite book. I've read it several times and it always surprises me somehow. I always recommend it to people who want something different and challenging. Great video!

@mr.nebula6824 День назад

My theory on the book is that the entire thing was written by Johnny. People that don’t read the Truant sections are missing the point of the book. Johnny is a man developing schizophrenia while editing his book, the sex is repetitive and boring because he’s using it as a vice to distract himself from the pain of losing his parents. He even starts to realize this in the section where he realizes all these girls him and Lude are having sex with might be coping with trauma as well. The Navidson Record and the house itself is a metaphor for him forgetting about his parents over the years. It’s slow, but as “Zampanó” writes, once you stop thinking about something, suddenly it isn’t there. There’s plenty of other evidence that supports this, but that’s my two cents in a nutshell.

@effervescent6979 4 месяца назад

I like weird things, so when I saw this book in your hard books video I thought I might be interested in it. I'm not really a scary story/horror person (aka I'm a huge wimp) but I thought maybe. However, the second you described it like thalassophobia it was an immediate no 😂 that's one of my worst fears. Thanks for clearing it up for me! I found your review to be the perfect amount of information on the book 😄

@EntheogenShaman 3 месяца назад

Nah, read it yourself. I have the same phobia, it's therapeutic

@Investmentmessiah 2 месяца назад

To be fair, my romance-nerves also tingled more than the horror-nerves…

@slothszn3682 3 месяца назад

im too illiterate to read this

@sakurinorth8238 4 дня назад

Im missing the point!? I never even thought that it would raise the property value! Lets sell the house and make some money!

@carolinesmercantile4290 Месяц назад

Do you ever analyze titles and Character names? This one seems like a good one for that. I also have a question. Are there any other 'haunted books' that you know about and have read? My husband would get a kick out of a list like that.

@NovelFindsByKassi 4 месяца назад

I'm loving your connections, like the Russian Nesting Dolls and the Blair Witch Project. lol @ loving the drama. I absolutely love your reviews!

@mykaelblank 4 месяца назад

Have you dived into any theories or have you gone back through any pages after reading it all the way through? The more research I did after reading and any times during it almost enhanced the experience even more for me, and I didnt even do too much. Felt like I was almost apart of the book.

@LostLegendTrance 4 месяца назад

I hated Johnny at first. But I think he has a great character arc, I was actually rooting for him by the end and I'm not sure that would have worked as well if I didn't spent the first half of the book thinking "Christ, not this arsehole again" every time his writing appeared 😂 As for how scary this book is; I'm with you. I found it unsettling but not THAT scary, but I suppose if you were in anyway claustrophobic or, as you said, thalassophobic, then this book would be pure nightmare fuel! Great review!

@BooksRebound 4 месяца назад

If you like this, I'd highly recommend Vita Nostra by the Dyachenkos. It's fascinating and has these weird cosmic horror vibes. Check out my review of it. It's such a great book following a character named Sasha as she goes through a terrifying transformation as she learns about the true nature of reality.

@PaperbackJourneys 4 месяца назад

Hey mate! Thanks for the recommendation. I'll have to check it out.

@ChristopherHeidt 4 месяца назад

You should read J.J. Abrams' "S."

@michaelhernandez3499 4 месяца назад

Question… what is the scariest book you have ever read? Maybe a top 5 or top 10 scariest you have read.

@PaperbackJourneys 4 месяца назад

That's a fantastic question and a great idea for a video. I think I'm going to have to take some time to really think it over.

@AlexBeyer-hq1rx 24 дня назад

My greatest personal fear that cripples me, the idea that once there was NOTHING, and something happened to make us, why? I mean, yeah Man has spent its whole existence trying to contextualize that fact and it's terrifying. Are we going back to NOTHING... like true NOTHING, not nothing i the cosmic sense that this just constantly loops around in one theory. Big bang, singularity, big bang, singularity.

@PaperbackJourneys 23 дня назад

New fear: Unlocked.

@ludvanbeethoven1 4 месяца назад

I love your review, makes me want to give this book another chance. But I don’t think I can. I read the first 100 pages and was bored out of my mind. I think the promise that this is “the scariest book ever” is far, far from reality and was massive disappointment for me. 😔

@Grace-ww6wv 3 месяца назад

I would reccomend giving the book another chance, if you have it in you. but I have some caveats. First of all, you don't have to read every single word of the book - that is wayyyyy too much. Do your best, but don't force yourself through anecdotes and footnotes that you don't like. I also don't think the book is scary, per se. but it is...spooky. It's definitely a hard book to get through and I don't blame you for disliking it. I will also say I read this like, 10 years ago when I was 18, and i've had recurring labyrinthine dreams since then. So something about the book stuck in my head. But again - if it's not for you, it's not for you! and that's ok.

@agustinarodriguez7235 4 месяца назад

I really want to read it but i was wondering if it is hard for people that english is their second language or if i should look for it in my native languaje (if you think the translations are good)

@warpathh Месяц назад

What about the Whalestoe Letters??

@PaperbackJourneys Месяц назад

Yes the Whalestoe Letters were probably my favourite part of the book. I can't remember but I think I refer to them in this review, though not by name. This isn't intended to be a spoiler review. I found those letters one of the scariest parts! 😱

@warpathh Месяц назад

@@PaperbackJourneys There’s a whole separate book filled with Whalestoe Letters, as a compendium to the book. Have you read them?

@jamielynn1724 4 месяца назад

This book is SO hard to explain WHAT makes it scary - but its the only book I’ve ever had to put in the microwave at night when I went to bed haha

@PaperbackJourneys 4 месяца назад

HAHA That's hilarious. I love that. Was the microwave a little larger on the inside when you opened it the next morning?

@ukchanak Месяц назад

So interesting, I was exposed to one of the songs from that album by Poe without ever hearing of this book until recently. I always found the last lines "welcome to the house of leaves" very creepy sounding.

@PaperbackJourneys Месяц назад

Oh that's so cool that you found the album first. Have you read the book?

@JosephAquino1430 Месяц назад

Book changed my life. Besides the Holy Bible, House of Leaves is the only book I read over and over again.

@PaperbackJourneys Месяц назад

Amazing! Yeah it's an interesting one that you can pour over again and again.

@lennyrex1 24 дня назад

Very Lovecraft the idea of something that we can’t see or comprehend that is indifferent to our existence

@PaperbackJourneys 21 день назад

You're right. It's very Lovecraftian in a sense. The fear of the unknowable.

@UrbanwarriorTheSOV 23 дня назад

I got to that part in the book of the use of the Kevin carter photograph. I was wondering if it was based upon that

@PaperbackJourneys 23 дня назад

Yeah you're right! The protagonist is loosely based on Kevin Carter.

@kevinriley962 4 месяца назад

I've owned this book for like 3 years now, I want to read it, but first I have to finish reading all of Stephen King's books! Maybe I'll take a break somewhere in between and finally read this though. Love the channel!

@PaperbackJourneys 4 месяца назад

Oh yeah Stephen King always comes first. That's standard haha. Thanks for the love mate. I appreciate it.

@valliyarnl 4 месяца назад

i did in fact read this book bc i am a weirdo. i can confirm. i loved it. great video as always! I loved hearing your thoughts!

@PaperbackJourneys 4 месяца назад

Oh I knew that about you haha. I'm glad you encouraged me to read this one. Thanks!

@angelwalker979 2 месяца назад

I really need to read this! I'm a weirdo so I'll probably like it😂

@PaperbackJourneys 2 месяца назад

Oh great. Weirdos are my favourite people haha. I hope you enjoy it.

@seandalziel7414 Месяц назад

The "Hey Pretty" by Peo connection blew my mind because I hadn't read HoL until 2020.

@georgekowalski8715 28 дней назад

Loved it. It’s one of the few books I’ve finished. I just loved the concept of the house, and the characters’ drive into insanity were done very well

@lukethomas216 4 месяца назад

I love this book. I read when first published and it got passed around my mates. It still has the handwritten decoded letters tucked in there. I have to admit that when I occasionally reread it I only do the Navidson stuff. Have you heard the BBC radio oddity based on it?

@PaperbackJourneys 4 месяца назад

Nooooo. What's that?? I'm about to go down a BBC rabbit hole now aren't I?

@lukethomas216 4 месяца назад

It’s called ‘Recordings recovered from the House Of Leaves’. Its on RU-vid. It’s pretty good if I remember 😁👍

@DrinkerOfWindex Месяц назад

This book is about one man's inability to properly use a tape measure.

@PaperbackJourneys Месяц назад

🤣

@davidleonard8547 4 месяца назад

House of Leaves! Shall I critique your critique? I shall not. To do so would require me to reveal too much of what makes this book great. Like Johnny Truant.... What can I say about him? Nothing that will not spoil the experience of this journey. I agree with you wholeheartedly, though. This book is not for everyone. It is a puzzle, a mystery, horrifying, and yes, a love story. But it is also philosophy, too. It also reminds me of the film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, for reasons I will not mention. What is most important about this book is what you take away from it, what you believe is happening; that may reveal more about yourself than the deeper mystery occurring within, to which Mark Danielewski has suggested that no one has yet deciphered. Can you tell whether I loved this book?

@nightreader1264 2 месяца назад

I had this book and then gave it away. I just ordered a new one today. I am compiling the books that are hard to read according to You Tube.

@TheSuperrespect13 4 месяца назад

I am holding off on watching this video because I bought the book and want to read it first and immediately watch this video right after!!!

@chellelaw667 3 месяца назад

I also see it as a love story...but not a romantic love story. I see it as a love story between mother and son; monster and progeny.

@sarahmcdonald9624 4 месяца назад

Loved The Blaire Witch Project. Kinda wish it was real👻

@okiejewels4560 4 месяца назад

I think what got me was my scribbled notes and decoded letters stuck in various places of my book. Research or ramblings of something “not meant for me.” So unsettling. Like nothing I’ve ever read. Thanks for the review!

@HipCee Месяц назад

Just stumbled onto your channel and I absolutely love it! Love the format and love the way you engage with your audience. You've just found yourself a new follower! I've put this book off for a long time now and you've pushed me to read it. I've always found that "The Unknown" is much more terrifying than the bond style villain that explains everything that he's planned for years and years hahaha. Sometimes people are just unhinged and disconnected with the real world, for no rhyme or reason haha! Much love from the North East brother and keep pumping these videos out please! ✌️✌️

@HipCee Месяц назад

Currently starting a book series that I've been intimidated by for years... A GAME OF THRONES! A few hours in and I'm loving it, it's nothing I expected at all. I tried the show a couple of times and it's just not as engaging to me. I'm free to chat about this series if you've read it yourself (I for some reason assume you have hahaha) ✌️✌️

@zmudilago 2 месяца назад

I feel really intrigued to read this book but I'm moving to a new house next week so to not get completely overwhelmed by nightmares I think I will have to wait a couple of months, haha

@PaperbackJourneys 2 месяца назад

Oooooh you're right. When moving into a new house it could be either the worst or the BEST time to read it.

@ccf_photomode 2 месяца назад

What I love about this book is it can be interpreted so many different ways. Some are terrified by it, some read it as romance. Myself, it felt to me like a long treatise on grief in a lot of ways. I ended up liking Johnny by the end, but it definitely did not start out that way.

@PaperbackJourneys 2 месяца назад

Oooo sometimes someone has such a good take and I just love it. This is one of those times. Thanks for your thoughts on this. "It's a treatise on grief" HOTTT! Can't say that I felt the same way about Johnny by the end, although he was sympathetic in some ways.

@evandavis3678 4 месяца назад

have you read "Little, Big"?

@PaperbackJourneys 4 месяца назад

Hey Evan! No I haven't read it. Someone else mentioned it to me recently. Was that you? 😂 If not you're the second person to bring it up.

@evandavis3678 2 месяца назад

@@PaperbackJourneys i don't think it was me - but it will blow your mind. people either love it or hate it... but its best to read in one sitting if you have a saturday to kill or something. Go in blind, the less you know the better

@xynael3900 Месяц назад

After I read the one letter in the index I tried to read part of the books in the same way to not miss hidden massages. At least I found one WHIM.

@PaperbackJourneys Месяц назад

Yeah, the letters of the back are some of the most deeply affecting moments in the book. I'm sure there's so much that I missed in my first readthrough. Thanks for the comment.

@johnsilver8059 4 месяца назад

I could be very wrong, but it sounds like HP Lovecraft taken several levels up.

@ahhhhhhhh8228 4 месяца назад

Definitely not a huge far cry

@Yesica1993 4 месяца назад

Thanks for the warning about the sexual content. I had no idea this book had that kind of thing. Guess it's not for me. Sigh.

@PaperbackJourneys 4 месяца назад

Yeah there's a lot of it, and Johnny isn't exactly delicate in the way he talks about women. I know he's supposed to be a dirt bag but I've heard it spoils the book for some people.

@Yesica1993 4 месяца назад

@@PaperbackJourneys Thanks.

@siouzsie 4 месяца назад

I have to say, I was disappointed after being so excited to read it.

@PaperbackJourneys 4 месяца назад

Oh no! I'm sorry you didn't like it. Yeah I thought it was a unique experience but I'm not going to be one of the dedicated community surrounding it either. Thanks for the comment.

@Scoop8333 4 месяца назад

What is the youngest age that you think this book would be fine to read.

@davimbos9351 2 месяца назад

Because of some of Johnny's footnotes and the complexity of some parts I'd say at least 14

@PerfectCell9 4 месяца назад

Great video as always man!

@PaperbackJourneys 4 месяца назад

Thank you! I appreciate that.

@generalbradley6421 4 месяца назад

King did it, congrats 👏🏻

@PaperbackJourneys 4 месяца назад

HAHA Cheers mate!

@painbow6528 4 месяца назад

A mediocre book embodying style over substance. 'Ooh, backwards writing.'

@sonicchica 4 месяца назад

I been curious about this book now thanks to a very great review of a DOOM mod called My House.wad and a random tweet of new book coming out in October called “COUP DE GRÂCE” by Sofia Ajram. The trailer for the book gave me House of Leaves’s maze feels.