House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

My friend L suggested we read House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski for our book club. I knew as soon as I picked all 700+ pages up from the library that this had been a mistake. There were pages that looked this

and pages that looked like this

There were footnotes nested within footnotes. There were pages where you had to spin the book around to see what was going on. Every single reference to a house in this book was a different font colored blue. So there's like three or four stories going on in this book. I'll try to explain it, but if it sounds confusing, imagine reading it. 

A filmmaker makes a story about a haunted house. Let's call that the Navidson Record storyline. A man named Zampanò starts writing about the house, collecting evidence and interviews and creating a document about what went on in that house. Unfortunately, Zampanò dies and a young man named Johnny Truant picks up where he stopped by writing an introduction and notes. Meanwhile, there's an omniscient "editor" who occasionally makes comments on Johnny's notes.

And we slow watch the slow descent into madness of everyone - everyone at the house, Zampanò , and, maybe most noticeably, Johnny. 

There's a fair amount of disagreement about what this novel actually is. Is it just a book about a haunted house? Is it a psychological thriller? Is it about the danger of obsession? With its layer upon layer of unreliable narrator, is it just 700 pages saying that nothing is real? All houses are the same house and no house is safe? I don't know the answer.

Our book club discussion about this book was so good because there is no one interpretation. And we kept picking up different lines that we thought were clues. Not just one person actually carefully examined the copyright page looking for helpful hints. When's the last time you read a copyright page? 

Friends. It's fascinating. But I will say that I'm also super confused by it, which is the purpose, I think. I also think we should maybe look in on Mark Z. Danielewski and make sure he's doing okay. 

4/5 stars

Lines of note:

I'd been in the throes of looking for an apartment after a little difficulty with a landlord who woke up one morning convinced he was Charles de Gaulle. I was so stunned by this announcement that before I could think twice I'd already told him how in my humble estimation he did not at all resemble an airport though the thought of a 757 landing on him was not at all disagreeable. I was promptly evicted. (page xi)

This was the very first page of the book and I have to admit that this smartassness made me snort out loud. 

While in the past, live footage was limited to the aftermath - the oral histories given by survivors or photographs taken by pedestrians - these days the proliferation of affordable video cameras and tapes has created more of an opportunity for someone to record a plane wreck or bank robbery as it is actually taking place...

By now it is common knowledge that Flaherty recreated certain scenes in Nanook for the camera. Similar accusations have been made against shows like America's Funniest Home Videos. For the most part, professionals in the field do their best to police, or at least critique, the latest films, well aware that to lose the public's trust would mean the death rattle for an already besieged art form. (page 140)

Egads. This was published in 2000. Can you even imagine what it would be like now in the age of AI?

In 1990 in The New York Times, Andy Grundberg wrote: "In the future, readers of newspapers and magazines will probably view news pictures more as illustrations than as reportage, since they will be well aware that they can no longer distinguish between a genuine image and one that has been manipulated. Even if news photographers and editors resist the temptations of electronic manipulation, as they are likely to do, the credibility of all reproduced images will be diminished by a climate of reduced expectations. In short, photographs will not seem as real as they once did." (page 141)

Ahem. 

King: Symbols shmimbols. Sure they're important but...Well look at Ahab's whale. Now there's a great symbol. Some say it stands for god, meaning, and purpose. Others say it stands for purposelessness and the void. But what we sometimes forget is that Ahab's whale was also just a whale. (page 361)

Moby-Dick! I'm here for a Moby-Dick sighting in the wild!

Passion has little to do with euphoria and everything to do with patience. It is not about feeling good. It is about endurance. Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer. (page 527)

Sheesh. 

Who has never killed an hour? Not casually or without thought, but carefully: a premeditated murder of minutes. The violence comes from a combination of giving up, not caring, and a resignation that getting past it is all you can hope to accomplish. So you kill the hour. You do not work, you do not read, you do not daydream. If you sleep it is not because you need to sleep. And when at last it is over, there is no evidence: no weapon, no blood, and no body. (page 543)

I loved this little bit in which someone gets too detailed about language. In our house, we often talk about how words matter, how symbolism is sometimes the only thing that matters, and how nuanced you have to me at times to get your true meaning across. This paragraph tickled me. 

For those of you who are interested in my "process," it's basically just notes written on random pieces of paper, and Hannah's vet invoices. This book made me feel like a crazy person.

Things I looked up:

nom de guerre (page xii) -  is a pseudonym or "war name" used to disguise a person's real identity, commonly adopted by soldiers, fighters, revolutionaries, or dissidents

deracinated (page xvi) - pulled up by the roots or separated from one's native culture, homeland, or social environment

rebellion on the 1973 Skylab mission (page xx, 137) - This is a bit of an urban legend. During this mission, there were a lot of rookies and they had tight schedules. This led to a period of time of roughly a day in which communications were limited (non-existent) with mission control. It wasn't really a mutiny - more of a miscommunication. Regardless, there was then a conversation with mission control that led to a rescheduled workload. 

Maginot Line (page xx) -  a massive system of advanced concrete and steel fortifications built by France along its border with Germany during the 1930s to prevent a direct invasion

Joel-Peter Witkin (page xxi) - an American photographer who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His work often deals with themes such as death, corpses (and sometimes dismembered portions thereof), often featuring ornately decorated photographic models, including people with dwarfism, transgender and intersex persons, as well as people living with a range of physical features

Kirlian photography (page 3) - a high-voltage contact photography technique that captures luminous corona discharges around objects placed in a strong electric field

Ted Serios' thoughography (page 3) - Chicago bellhop known for his production of "thoughtographs" on Polaroid film. He claimed these were produced using psychic powers.

Alexander Gardner's photograph of the Union dead (page 3) - Gardner wrote poignant narratives to accompany his photographs, occasionally inventing stories to make his point. In his Sketch Book, Gardner used two photographs of these dead soldiers, identifying them first as Confederate and then as Union.

amaurotic (page 21) - n adjective that means relating to or affected by amaurosis, which is a partial or total loss of sight without any visible physical damage or injury to the eye

camera lucida (page 27) - an optical device used by artists and scientists to superimpose a ghost image of a real-world subject onto a drawing surface so it can be accurately traced

talaria (page 44) - manufactures high-performance, lightweight electric dirt bikes known for instant torque, quiet gear drives, and low-maintenance off-road maneuverability.

aphonia (page 58) - is the medical term for the total loss of voice, where a person cannot speak above a whisper or produce any voiced sound at all

footnote 75 (pages 64-67) - Looking this up is when I discovered that this book has its own subreddit. This footnote contains a list of over 700 names of visual artists. There is a debate in this subreddit about whether or not there is a code in this list. 

Khumbu Icefall (page 68) - a treacherous, constantly moving section of the Khumbu Glacier on Mount Everest, located between Base Camp (5,364 meters / 17,598 feet) and Camp 1 (5,900 meters / 19,357 feet)

serac (page 68) - a large block or column of glacial ice formed by intersecting crevasses on a moving glacier

Margaretha Geertruida Zelle (page 69) - , better known by her stage name Mata Hari, was a Dutch exotic dancer and courtesan executed by a French firing squad for spying during World War I. It literally never occurred to me that Mata Hari was a stage name, but OF COURSE IT WAS.

piton (page 81) -  a metal spike or peg driven into rock or ice cracks with a hammer to serve as an anchor or handhold during mountain climbing

anfractuosity (page 115) - the state of being full of twists, turns, windings, or intricate channels

atrabilious (page 122) - gloomy, melancholic, or persistently irritable

Nupart Jhunisdakazcriddle (page 125) - fictional author created by MZD for this insane novel 

footnote 182 (page 139-141) - list of documentary filmmakers

aporias (page 143) - an expression of real or feigned doubt, or a logical impasse and philosophical puzzle that defies resolution

Pink Dot (page 149) - a quick delivery prepared-to-order grocery store based on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California

muntin (page 231) - narrow strip of wood, metal, or vinyl that divides a single window sash or door into a grid of smaller glass panes

postils (page 265) - collections of sermons or explanatory commentaries on scriptural readings arranged for the church year

gamboge (page 313) -  a deep, luminous golden-yellow gum-resin extracted from Garcinia trees native to Southeast Asia, particularly Cambodia

Floyd Collins in the Kentucky Sand Cave in 1925 (page 334) - an American cave explorer who became trapped and died in what became Mammoth Cave National Park. On January 30, 1925, while working to enlarge a small passage in Sand Cave, Collins became trapped in a narrow crawlway 55 feet (17 m) below ground. The rescue operation to save him became a national media sensation and one of the first major news stories to be reported using the new technology of broadcast radio. After four days, during which rescuers were able to bring water and food to Collins, a rock collapse in the cave closed the entrance passageway, stranding him inside, except for voice contact, for another 10 days. Collins died of thirst and hunger, compounded by exposure through hypothermia after being isolated for a total of 14 days, three days before a rescue shaft reached his position. Collins's body was recovered two months later.

rebarbative (page 339) -  is an adjective that means repellent, unattractive, or causing irritation and annoyance

Lhotse Face (page 344) - a steep, 1,125-meter (3,690-foot) wall of glacial blue ice on the western flank of Lhotse that climbers must scale to reach the South Col on Mount Everest

semiotician (page 349) - an expert who studies how signs, symbols, and cultural codes create and communicate meaning

Artaud (page 361) - Antoine Maria Joseph Paul Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud, was a French artist who worked across a variety of media. He is best known for his writings, as well as his work in the theatre and cinema

Kevin Carter's 1994 Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a vulture preying on a tiny Sudanese girl (page 368, FN 336) - The Vulture and the Little Girl, also known as The Struggling Girl, is a photograph by Kevin Carter which first appeared in The New York Times on March 26, 1993. It is a photograph of a frail famine-stricken boy, mistakenly believed to be a girl until 2011, who had collapsed in the foreground with a hooded vulture eyeing him from nearby. The child was reported to be attempting to reach a United Nations feeding center about a half mile away in Ayod, Sudan (now South Sudan), in March 1993, and allegedly survived the incident. The picture won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography award in 1994. The photographer died by suicide four months after winning the prize.

(I'd put the photo here, but it's NSFL, if you know what I mean.)

Homer Simpson's brother Herbert (page 371) - It's his half-brother. He's voiced by Danny DeVito. You know, there's just a lot of Simpsons lore I just don't know. 

Gabriel Langfeldt (page 379) - a Norwegian psychiatrist whose research centered on schizophrenia and forensic medicine. He was involved as an expert during the trial against Hamsun (Nazi writer), and wrote a book about Quisling (Nazi collaborator).

The curse tree, the ghost of Miss Evelyn Byrd, Lady Ann Skipwith, ghost alley... (page 409)

    Curse tree: In Jamestown, local legend, carried forth by a caretaker named Sam Robinson, states that the tree grew between two lovers, Sarah Harrison and James Blair; it pushed their graves far apart, all at the behest of Sarah’s mother.  

    Evelyn Byrd: Evelyn Byrd was the elder daughter of of William Byrd II and his first wife Lucy Parke. When she was 18, Evelyn was sent to London and presented at court, and sometime thereafter, she fell in love with a Englishman, some say a Catholic. Her father, William Byrd II, disapproved of the match AND brought his daughter home to Virginia, where she died of a broken heart. Since her death, she has made a number of appearances around her family’s old plantation in Charles City County, often dressed in white. A gentle specter, she is reported to drift about in a quiet way without scaring anybody.

    Lady Ann Skipwith: Maybe she committed suicide after learning about her husband's infidelity? Maybe she died in childbirth? She's said to haunt Whythe House in Williamsburg. 

    ghost alley: "Ghost Alley" in Virginia is the local nickname for Matthews Lane at Fort Monroe National Monument in Hampton, a historic military site known for frequent sightings of a spectral "Lady in White"

bartizan (page 437) -  a small, overhanging turret that projects from the wall or corner of a medieval castle or fortification

goraks (page 466) - level 145 melee monsters in Old School RuneScape and RuneScape

ecdysiast (page 511) - formal or facetious term for a striptease performer or exotic dancer

Ohio bed (page 519) - I cannot figure this out. What is it? Like a crib? A toddler bed? 

Hat mentions (why hats?):

black cowboy hats (page 12)

cowboy hat (page 13, 14)

Make no mistake about it: over here his kind enter a bar with a smile and leave with a barstool for a hat. (FN 90, page 83)

...equipped with Hi 8s, down parkas, hats, Gortex gloves, powerful halogen lamps...

ever present hat (page 144)

fella in the white hat (page 324)

wool hat (page 403)

hat tip to anarchy (page 466)

hard hats (page 505)

woolen hat (page 527)

Petitgas hat store (page 575)

Putting out his hat (page 579)

insiDe the hat (page 622 - capitalization intentional)

kettles hat hops (page 633)

hat (in the index, page 678)

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Who's in to ergodic literature like this? Do you know what an Ohio bed is? Do you think this would be a good book club selection?