![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Lately I've been reading "The House of Leaves". This book is really well done. It's also very scary and can literally drive you insane. Yeah, it's that good. My greatest source of amusement lately has been watching my friend (who got me into the book) read it. His face changes color. He has to take pauses to gasp for breath. He shudders visibly. And this is not a squeamish person I'm talking about, here.
First thing is this: If you dislike sudden dissertations on the meaning of "Echo" and other such things interrupting the main plot, only to jump back into the plot a chapter or so later, then, and I quote, "This book is not for you". They have a reason for being there. I, personally, enjoy them. But lots of people have no tolerance for this kind of stuff.
Let me tell you about the structure of the book. It's the structure that's mindblowing, really. The book is like the mysterious hallway in the house. It has a main hall, it has doorways that suddenly appear (the numbers that lead you to the footnotes), it has hallways (the footnotes), and hallways coming from those hallways and hallways coming from those hallways and... Most of it, the "Main Hallway", is "The Navidson Record", a criticism of a nonexistent movie that is written (or, rather, dictated) by a mysterious blind man named Zampanó. The criticism, as a legitimate criticism, isn't very good (it's even noted that Zampanó has a strange tendency in writing this "criticism" with so much summary of Navidson's movie). As part of this novel, it's stunning. Then there are the hallways. The footnotes, that is. There are footnotes, by a not-exactly-moral man called "Johnny Truant", "The Editors", and numerous other people, including Zampanó himself. There are footnotes. And footnotes on the footnotes. And footnotes on the footnotes on the footnotes. And... well, you get the picture. It is quite literally possible to get lost in this book while trying to follow the footnotes.
Did I say that was talking about the structure? Okay, then, let's call this the formatting: the formation of words on the page. As the characters slowly lose their sanity the formatting goes crazy. At one point, if you read the whole book through, you will need a mirror. I'm not kidding. The text, which was almost deceptively normal near the beginning of the book, starts to go sideways, upside down, splayed, scattered. It's... just... wow.
Heck, the whole book is just "wow".
First thing is this: If you dislike sudden dissertations on the meaning of "Echo" and other such things interrupting the main plot, only to jump back into the plot a chapter or so later, then, and I quote, "This book is not for you". They have a reason for being there. I, personally, enjoy them. But lots of people have no tolerance for this kind of stuff.
Let me tell you about the structure of the book. It's the structure that's mindblowing, really. The book is like the mysterious hallway in the house. It has a main hall, it has doorways that suddenly appear (the numbers that lead you to the footnotes), it has hallways (the footnotes), and hallways coming from those hallways and hallways coming from those hallways and... Most of it, the "Main Hallway", is "The Navidson Record", a criticism of a nonexistent movie that is written (or, rather, dictated) by a mysterious blind man named Zampanó. The criticism, as a legitimate criticism, isn't very good (it's even noted that Zampanó has a strange tendency in writing this "criticism" with so much summary of Navidson's movie). As part of this novel, it's stunning. Then there are the hallways. The footnotes, that is. There are footnotes, by a not-exactly-moral man called "Johnny Truant", "The Editors", and numerous other people, including Zampanó himself. There are footnotes. And footnotes on the footnotes. And footnotes on the footnotes on the footnotes. And... well, you get the picture. It is quite literally possible to get lost in this book while trying to follow the footnotes.
Did I say that was talking about the structure? Okay, then, let's call this the formatting: the formation of words on the page. As the characters slowly lose their sanity the formatting goes crazy. At one point, if you read the whole book through, you will need a mirror. I'm not kidding. The text, which was almost deceptively normal near the beginning of the book, starts to go sideways, upside down, splayed, scattered. It's... just... wow.
Heck, the whole book is just "wow".
