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[RepairmanJack]

It sounds simple of me, but I really don't care to analyse the bits mentioned at the top of my post, not right now, not after the way chapter 4 ended

Spoiler

with that mini-cliffhanger.

Maybe that's Danielewski's way of toying with his readers and testing their attention span.

I would say it's definitely that. I want to say Truant says something to that effect soon after that. He says himself he is rambling and you can skip his footnotes if you want or something like that. I think a lot of it is put in for that exact reason, but I'm also guessing there will be some small important tidbits in those parts at some point.

 

[show me your skeleton]

I would say it's definitely that. I want to say Truant says something to that effect soon after that. He says himself he is rambling and you can skip his footnotes if you want or something like that. I think a lot of it is put in for that exact reason, but I'm also guessing there will be some small important tidbits in those parts at some point.

is that the part where truant says the last anecdote is

Spoiler

all bullshit

? that was great and a real 'ah fuck' moment i had never experienced from reading.

 

[Quikies83]

This is my second time reading this - last time was 9 years ago. Honestly, Johnny's story is just men.. I can't help but just skim through his part. I remember feeling the opposite on my first read through.
On another note, Johnny and I share the same birth date as I've found in the mom letters.
I wish they'd do a movie on the navidson record.

 

[The Outsider]

Finally started! Only read the introduction, but that's soon about to change...

 

[SteveWinwood]

Reminder that if you want to keep up with the schedule you're on page 96 by tomorrow!

 

[Quikies83]

A real beehive of activity

 

[Incandenza]

A real beehive of activity

Eh, we're still just getting started. The real WTF stuff that people will want to discuss is still to come.

Anyway, I haven't been rereading it fully since I'm ass-deep in Malazan right now but I've been going back to some of my favorite bits. Some stuff up to page 96 (and associated appendix entries):

Spoiler

- The footnote describing the death of Johnny's father is one of my favorite passages in the whole thing. The stream-of-consciousness drug trip is great and then the image of the newspaper ink collecting on Johnny's hands just really sticks with you. It was only on second read that I realized the connection between that and his job at the tattoo parlor.

- Speaking of good imagery, teenage Karen practicing her smile in the mirror every day is one that stuck with me too.

- The Echo chapter was probably the hardest one to get through on first read. Especially with the cliffhanger from the previous chapter. It's tempting to skim past it but you definitely get rewarded for paying attention and keeping all the analysis and literary allusions in mind for the rest of the story.

- Decoding Pelafina's message alone in my room well past my bedtime has got to be one of my favorite book experiences ever. Slowly writing out that first sentence and realizing what she's saying letter by letter is so cool.

- Did anyone read through the Pelican Poems? I'm pretty sure it has said to read those by this point. Either way they're pretty disconnected from the main story so the order doesn't matter. I can barely make heads or tails of them though. I'm sure there's some interesting stuff about Johnny to be found there if I could actually parse most of it.

- Also, hell of a cliffhanger at page 96. The book does a pretty good job of teasing you with what's to come to get you through the slower beginning.

I'm really curious to hear what first-time readers think so far and if they have any theories about what might be going on, given that we're sort of standing on the edge of the diving board here.

 

[SteveWinwood]

A real beehive of activity

I'm writing up a thing for tomorrow as I have like 10 pages left for the general deadline. Hopefully that can spur some talk, or others come in and tell their thoughts!

 

[RepairmanJack]

Hard to not break this up a ton to reply, so prepare for a long reply.

Eh, we're still just getting started. The real WTF stuff that people will want to discuss is still to come.

Anyway, I haven't been rereading it fully since I'm ass-deep in Malazan right now but I've been going back to some of my favorite bits. Some stuff up to page 96 (and associated appendix entries):

Spoiler

- The footnote describing the death of Johnny's father is one of my favorite passages in the whole thing. The stream-of-consciousness drug trip is great and then the image of the newspaper ink collecting on Johnny's hands just really sticks with you. It was only on second read that I realized the connection between that and his job at the tattoo parlor.

Spoiler

I have no idea how, but somehow I have missed Johnny's father's death completely. I've been thinking it was some big reveal coming up at some point with how much it's been referenced to, and here I just somehow missed it. Mind telling me what footnote this is?

Johnny's stream-of-consciousness and ramblings is probably my favorite parts of the book at this point. The way certain things get worded and how the words flow just begs to be read multiple times. I'm really liking that part.

Spoiler

- Decoding Pelafina's message alone in my room well past my bedtime has got to be one of my favorite book experiences ever. Slowly writing out that first sentence and realizing what she's saying letter by letter is so cool.

Spoiler

I really liked this as well. I ended up being lazy and not wanting to get up so I just used my phone to try to work through it and it got kind of frustrating. I asked in this thread if anyone had thought to go over earlier letters of hers or some of the longer rambling footnotes of Johnny's. I think I may do that to some parts after I get past this next milestone.

Spoiler

- Also, hell of a cliffhanger at page 96. The book does a pretty good job of teasing you with what's to come to get you through the slower beginning.

Yeah, I couldn't wait.

I'm really curious to hear what first-time readers think so far and if they have any theories about what might be going on, given that we're sort of standing on the edge of the diving board here.

Spoiler

At this point I keep thinking there is too much pointing toward Johnny being a good storyteller and an unreliable narrator to ignore, but at the same time it seems way too easy and dumb for it to all just be made up by him. I think some of it has to be embellished or changed by him. I almost think he's going to end up being someone in the Navidson Record but I think it'd be hard to figure this out at this point. Even by the end I could see this being hard to distinguish because facts could easily be changed which has already been pointed out multiple times. Ultimately all of it makes me think there will be nothing to point at by the end as 100% fact. I don't know how I feel about that yet.

 

[Uzzy]

Picture that. In your dreams.

So yeah, Chapter 9 is kinda interesting...

 

[Incandenza]

Spoiler

I have no idea how, but somehow I have missed Johnny's father's death completely. I've been thinking it was some big reveal coming up at some point with how much it's been referenced to, and here I just somehow missed it. Mind telling me what footnote this is?

Johnny's stream-of-consciousness and ramblings is probably my favorite parts of the book at this point. The way certain things get worded and how the words flow just begs to be read multiple times. I'm really liking that part.

The core of it is in Footnote 41, although some of the details get clarified in other places.

 

[Uzzy]

So, I got up to page 312 a few days back. I think my favourite parts of the book so far are Johnny's streams of consciousness, the section about The Atrocity was especially great.

There was a funny part where I was sure the book was trolling me, and I could have just pictured Mark Z. Danielewski laughing. I was at the point where they discussed mutinies, and the story of Quesada and Molino. A footnote lead me to Appendix E and the song of Quesada and Molino, so I tried finding my bookmark which had gotten lost, tried finding the page without reading anything else that might spoiler me. I guess it being 2am didn't help matters, but it took like two minutes to find the damn page. Only to discover that the song is 'missing'. Just sat there looking at the blank page, picturing the author laughing his head off at me being led down a blind alley.

The format of the book is a big plus in my mind, it's really helping with giving me the impression of being in an everchanging maze, or labyrinth. The stretched out 'two frames' between page 194 to 205 were particularly memorable, and rather cinematic.

 

[Cyan]

I'm pretty slow. On the Echo chapter now. Love the Borges references.

Not a big fan of Mr. Truant's dull asides.

 

[Uzzy]

Page 320

Spoiler

'He might have spent all night drinking had exhaustion not caught up with me'

What. That line feels like the most important line in the book.

 

[Cyan]

Caught up to the last milestone. Man, the segment with the crazy meaningless footnotes all over the place was kind of annoying. I get what he was going for there, with the parallels to them running through all these bizarre meaningless rooms all over the house and things continually changing, but man, kind of a chore. Good thing I can read backwards and upside-down.

I preferred the openness of the next bits, which of course was also doing something similar, but was much appreciated as a reader!

 

[RepairmanJack]

Caught up to the last milestone. Man, the segment with the crazy meaningless footnotes all over the place was kind of annoying. I get what he was going for there, with the parallels to them running through all these bizarre meaningless rooms all over the house and things continually changing, but man, kind of a chore. Good thing I can read backwards and upside-down.

I preferred the openness of the next bits, which of course was also doing something similar, but was much appreciated as a reader!

The ones that were mirrores were the only ones all that annoying for me. I just had to read every last word just to make sure nothing was different. So basically doing exactly what he was probably expecting.

 

[Incandenza]

The ones that were mirrores were the only ones all that annoying for me. I just had to read every last word just to make sure nothing was different. So basically doing exactly what he was probably expecting.

Did you read all the names too?

Spoiler

Actually, I've never checked the names/lists with Pelafina's code. There may very well be something there.

 

[RepairmanJack]

Did you read all the names too?

Spoiler

Actually, I've never checked the names/lists with Pelafina's code. There may very well be something there.

I didn't, I just sort of ran over them to see if anything stood out. I was wanting to look up if anyone had taken her code through some of the other parts of the book but I was worried about seeing spoilers. If I get done with the book and am still interested I will probably go back and look around. The more rambling parts of Truant's parts is what I'm curious about the most.

 

[Cyan]

So now that I've finished the book...

I still don't know what to make of this book. The underlying story portrayed by the documentary is chilling, but the literary analysis of it is unreadable bloviating verbosity for its own sake, and the author's annotations and story add nothing of value.

But it's still probably the best use of the medium I've ever seen, it literally doesn't work in any other form than as a printed book.

Though I wouldn't mind a film adaptation of the documentary part alone...

This more or less sums it up for me. The underlying story was interesting and almost 3spooky5me, especially early on. Zampano was fine to read when he was describing the documentary, less so when he got into random literary tangents and footnoted foreign language passages. Johnny Truant was basically uninteresting all the way through, with a few exceptions such as the "gotcha!" unreliable narrator part, and the weird aside where the book turns up inside itself (interesting that the same thing happened in the inner narrative a little earlier).

It's sort of an odd literary toy, as duckroll said, which to some extent elevates the main story by surrounding it with all this stuff that implies it's important and interesting, but also causes it to drag if you actually read the side stuff.

I'm sure there's a lot of stuff I'm missing. I've seen people talking about codes, and I've noticed stuff like the SOS pattern in the writing, etc. Maybe some of this is cool and interesting, but honestly I'm not sure I have the patience to go back and look at any more of this. Still, I'm glad to have read it, since I've been curious about the book for years.

 

[Mr.Swag]

I stopped reading this, but ill get back into it soon. Liked everything I read, just didn't have time for it with the semester starting.

 

[Mike M]

So now that I've finished the book...


This more or less sums it up for me. The underlying story was interesting and almost 3spooky5me, especially early on. Zampano was fine to read when he was describing the documentary, less so when he got into random literary tangents and footnoted foreign language passages. Johnny Truant was basically uninteresting all the way through, with a few exceptions such as the "gotcha!" unreliable narrator part, and the weird aside where the book turns up inside itself (interesting that the same thing happened in the inner narrative a little earlier).

It's sort of an odd literary toy, as duckroll said, which to some extent elevates the main story by surrounding it with all this stuff that implies it's important and interesting, but also causes it to drag if you actually read the side stuff.

I'm sure there's a lot of stuff I'm missing. I've seen people talking about codes, and I've noticed stuff like the SOS pattern in the writing, etc. Maybe some of this is cool and interesting, but honestly I'm not sure I have the patience to go back and look at any more of this. Still, I'm glad to have read it, since I've been curious about the book for years.

Most of what you're missing is probably just Easter eggs, red herrings, and dead ends. There's stuff like

Spoiler

the first letter of each footnote by each author eventually spelling out their name

, a message from Johnny's mother to

Spoiler

Zampato

, there's an argument to be made that

Spoiler

Johnny's mother is the author of the whole thing since the title page is in her typeface and color

, but for every interesting thing you dig up, there's something else that will contradict it.

I think that's what sits so poorly for me with all literary labyrinthing, there's no actual exit. And it's not even a matter of being too open-ended, it's almost as though every possible interpretation is explicitly countermanded elsewhere so that no cohesive explanation is even possible.

 

[Cyan]

I think that's what sits so poorly for me with all literary labyrinthing, there's no actual exit. And it's not even a matter of being too open-ended, it's almost as though every possible interpretation is explicitly countermanded elsewhere so that no cohesive explanation is even possible.

Oho! So even the explanations are a metaphor for the endless labyrinth of the house! It's so meta!

 

[Inkwell]

Somehow I never noticed any book club threads. I would love to participate, and it might help me choose some books to read. I tend to stick with Sci-fi (mostly catching up on classics), and a little bit of fantasy and horror. There's just so many books to choose from, and it would be nice to read something different (and have it chosen for me).

I have read House of Leaves though. Might have been around 3 years ago. I really enjoyed it, though it wasn't nearly as good as I was expecting it to be. I thought it would take a bit more work to read too, but it was actually fairly straight forward given all the strange formatting and stuff.

I do have an observation about the book though. Also, it made a profound change in the way I view certain tropes in media. I think I'm saying that right. I have a small vocabulary, especially with literary terms.

Spoiler

Nothing in the book can be taken at face value, or as being true within the world of the book. This goes for Truant's comments, Zampano's manuscript, as well as the supplementary reading in the back of the book. There's plenty of evidence, but I'm too lazy and tired to look it up. If people are honestly interested I can maybe make another post later, but it's nothing you can't find by simply using Google. It kind of comes down to meta-commentary about Danielewski fabricating everything (because he's the actual author of it all).

Anyway, this got me thinking. I could be upset about this, and see it as a waste of time. Instead it changed how I view stories that use the "it was a dream" trope (or similar devices). I used to hate these kinds of stories as I imagine many people do. You feel cheated since none of it was real. That's where my views changed. Who cares if it's fake within the actual world of the work. The writer still penned it out with appropriate plot points and character development.

Christ, this all probably sounds really really stupid. The truth is I'm not too bright, so sometimes it's hard for me to elucidate my point. I still like to discuss these things, and I've wanted to discuss this book ever since I read it 3 years ago.

 

[Uzzy]

And finished. Fun fact, I developed a cold during the reading of this book. Clearly it's the house's fault.

 

[HORRORSHØW]

I do have an observation about the book though. Also, it made a profound change in the way I view certain tropes in media. I think I'm saying that right. I have a small vocabulary, especially with literary terms.

Spoiler

Nothing in the book can be taken at face value, or as being true within the world of the book. This goes for Truant's comments, Zampano's manuscript, as well as the supplementary reading in the back of the book. There's plenty of evidence, but I'm too lazy and tired to look it up. If people are honestly interested I can maybe make another post later, but it's nothing you can't find by simply using Google. It kind of comes down to meta-commentary about Danielewski fabricating everything (because he's the actual author of it all).

Anyway, this got me thinking. I could be upset about this, and see it as a waste of time. Instead it changed how I view stories that use the "it was a dream" trope (or similar devices). I used to hate these kinds of stories as I imagine many people do. You feel cheated since none of it was real. That's where my views changed. Who cares if it's fake within the actual world of the work. The writer still penned it out with appropriate plot points and character development.

it makes plenty of sense partly because Johnny is an unreliable narrator due to his drug addiction and mental deterioration. zampano, in turn, is also unreliable as evidenced by his footnotes referencing both real and imagined sources. who's to say he didn't make the whole shit up?

 

[Incandenza]

Since people should be finishing up the book around now if you're following along (and not behind, heh), I thought I'd drop a few links that point out some of the more obscure codes and references hidden in the book.

http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/House_of_Leaves
http://forum.deviantart.com/entertainment/books/1100942/
http://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/1toimn/anybody_read_house_of_leaves_wondering_if_theres/

Personally I don't get too much out of the "who's the real author" question but I love seeing just how dense with secrets the whole book is. You can really tell what a massive effort it took to put this thing together.