House of Leaves - Summary and Analysis 

Someone watched night mind

Thanks so much for the tip! Will be listening

also, super useful video- i can have pretty shit reading comprehension and it’s useful to have a summary/framework. i’m rereading the book after a year but this video made me realize i missed a lot of content during the first round

@@oksanarose6879 Exactly! Case in point… Chapter IX (labyrinth). 🤯 As I was reading it I was thinking “how am I going to remember where I left off and how to get back there?” And leaving a post it (as a breadcrumb) to help me find my way back. Then I literally laughed and realized… I GET it!! That chapter was chef’s kiss.

PS I'm looking forward to your Infinite Jest video. ;)

I don't think Johnny could write that well as a 25 year old guy going crazy

@@cyrusr2209 Johnny is a great liar/writer. There's so much to back this idea.

You won't regret it

@@coaldoubt2879 will look crazy reading it in public turning it in a circle while flipping pages

Wut

Yea, the beat of Johnny spitting out a story of him boxing for a russian money launderer (I think that's the gist) is important and makes everything that he's the only anchor for suspect. Zampano might exist, but maybe not. A monster probably didn't kill him though, escaping from a book he was working on. Our narrator is not only unreliable, but very good at building worlds that seem like they might be real, which is fun. Kind of reminds me of "Synecdoche, New York", a movie you might like if you liked the book.

Thanks for the kind words! I read a lot, but I don't usually dip my toes into anything that is too experimental. Neal Stephenson's Anathem is the first thing that pops into my head that I have read already (and may read again soon) that I really enjoyed. It's not as abstract as House of Leaves or Infinite Jest, but it has an interesting format that puts it in a similar category, you might enjoy it! I appreciate anything you want to talk about or bring up about the book! I did read a bit more about it after the video, but really I just needed a break. The thing I missed that you mentioned was that the book formatting mirrors the house, making the reader feel kind of anxious the way the characters do. I registered it subconciously, but that was the blunt "Oh, duh," thing that just didn't connect for me. A book has a format it's supposed to follow, like a house has a structure it's supposed to follow, and the rules are broken in parallel. To the other points you brought up, Johnny's relationship with his mother has some clear ties to the story he is telling, and I feel like if I talked through the things we find out about his mother, more would become clear. Like I realized that his mother and Halloway both lose their minds and try to kill loved ones/co-workers and they both take their own lives, but I don't know that I hit that point in the video. Now that it's been a bit, I might find some other youtube videos on it and see what I missed from other sources. I've been putting off making another video, even something simple, because this was a lot of work. But I have all of the equipment and I will get better if I continue to make them. Thanks for your kind words again, and next time I am bored I may set things up to record something else. Have a great day!

@@IsaacHaddox Thanks for the reply but just to make things clear: 1. I meant the part about the formatting as a further level of depth you could have included in the video. 2. I meant Mark's mother as in the author's mother - it's something you'll probably come across if you do look up analyses. Since I didn't mention it earlier, let me say I hugely appreciate your "first impressions" approach. I'm the kind of guy who eats up all the extra material I can find right after finishing an intricate work like this - so it's great to be able to re-live again that (very short, for me) period between my own takeaways and diving into the more in-depth general public discussion, even if it's through someone else's eyes and first impressions! This is a fantastic deliberate approach to making videos about books (and anything else). People are too afraid to put out an hour-long video that might turn out to be naive or woefully wrong in retrospect, so I applaud your bravery to bring us an honest first take like you've done! All the best, sir.

@@tukkekAh, I was light on the formatting other than "it's pretty cool" like you said, and I didn't realize that Mark Z Danielewski himself had issues with his mother that were reflected in the book. I really need to check out some other videos/articles people have made on it, it's been long enough to do that now :) Thanks for the insight on the first impression idea as an angle for videos in general. We live in a world where questions and further understanding of almost any subject are a few google searches away. Another book, "Amusing Ourselves to Death" springs to mind for me, and I actually might make my next video on this subject. The ability to find the best information out there makes people "google smart," they get the rewards of the hard work other people have put in almost instantly. This is seen as a pure positive, but there are downsides, and exploring that is interesting. As a meta-narrative for the video I could have my first ideas about the pros and cons, then see what kind of research there is out there beyond the what I already know, doing a bit of research, then doing a deep dive, perhaps recording a summary at each step. If I do end up following this idea through, I'll give you a shoutout for the back and forth that lead to the idea. Thanks again!

@@IsaacHaddox And the "give your initial impressions then (possibly) do a deep-dive later" is perfect in that you lose nothing by delaying the deep-dive, it's not like all the information will be lost in time or something. The only downside is literally the risk of getting things dramatically wrong - but that doesn't invalidate one's first reaction, even misinterpreted (as in "death of the author").. I know I will never refrain myself from reading up on all the discussion as soon as I finish a work of art that I'm intellectually invested in - but again, perhaps this is exactly why this format is interesting to me, as someone too eager to get the full-picture rather than let those initial ideas sink in. There are many ten-minute-long reviews of the book on RU-vid and a few full-course analyses. This was a refreshing in-between! I'd highly appreciate a ping if you do upload a follow-up video, thank you for the kindness!

Great video!

*loser