Tom's Crossing by Mark Z. Danielewski
To address the elephant in the room right off the bat, this is a 1200-page novel that is certainly not for everyone. Set in 1982 in the fictional Orvop, Utah (the town name anagrams to Provo), the plot is rather simple for a novel of that length. Two boys who both love horses hatch a plan to save two neglected animals from being slaughtered by the richest man in town. One of the boys, Tom Gatestone, is the son of one of the town’s leading […]
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
Maybe you’re right, Johnny. Maybe you’re right. House of Leaves opens with these words, purportedly put there by Johnny Truant, a young sex lunatic who discovers a manuscript, put together by an old man called Zampanò, about a film that may or may not exist, made by a medium-famous middle-aged photographer named Will Navidson, about a house that he lives in that’s bigger on the inside, all annotated by editors who appear unable to make further contact with Johnny. As a journalism student back in […]
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
Do not start this book if you are looking for a light, fun read. Do not start this book if all you want to do while reading is scan a page and flip the page. Do not start this book if you are uncomfortable with feelings of unexplainable dread. House of Leaves is not an easy read. It took me a full two weeks to finish reading. Not only are there footnotes and footnotes that have footnotes, but the way the words are typed on […]
On page 147 of House of Leaves there’s a quote attributed to Sonny Beauregarde that reads: “Were it not for the fact that this is a supreme gothic tale, we’d have bought the whole think hook, line and sinker.” Which is really the only way I can think of to describe this book. House of Leaves has a complex narrative structure that makes it hard to describe what the plot is about, but here’s a rough attempt: after a lonely old man named Zampanò passes […]
I struggled with this rating and review. House of Leaves is different things to different people: for many (many, many, MANY) people it is mind-blowing, complex, and a richly rewarding treat if you take the time to completely parse it. This is not a small undertaking. Entire sections are printed like this — or this — and the visual impact of coming across pages like that — intended, obviously, to draw the reader into the mindset of the characters — is daunting. There are oodles […]
