A review by porcelainheart_
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I was interested in this cult classic after reading the blurb for it on Amazon - a line of which claimed that this book was the sole inspiration for the backrooms. Having finally read this for myself, I can honestly say the blurb and description don't do this book any justice whatsoever. In fact, I think it's intentionally misleading. It makes you think you're about to read something along the lines of Coraline, where things aren't what they appear on the outside as opposed to the inside. A morbid yet whimsical story with a happy ending.

What you get instead is a slow catalogued descent into catatonic madness. It starts innocently enough, albeit dark, but progressively gets worse the more you read
and subsequently, the more Johnny reads and gets involved himself
. I see why this book has received the praise and admiration it has over the years - it captures with disturbingly accurate and horrifying clarity someone edging closer and closer towards the brink of insanity, to be finally being pushed off that edge, all at the turn of the century. It is highly recommended (and almost required) to read a physical copy of this book, especially for first-timers. The rambling passages
from both Johnny and Zampanô, directly implying that the same madness that overtook him in life has been passed on to Johnny when he began transcribing his manuscript after his death
, crossed out/destroyed sections, small details added into each section, the footnotes and end notes, and bizarre formatting all add to the oppressive feeling of complete derealization of the self, the ever-slipping grip of mental stability, and the overwhelming dread that this story won't have a happy ending. For anyone.

The lucid moments of clarity are seamlessly integrated with the slow descent into utter mental chaos, making it extremely difficult at times to tell what's real and what isn't, what really happened and what didn't happen. Many times as I read this book, I started questioning whether or not some of the personal interjections written by Johnny Truant
more specifically, the sexual encounters he seems to have with every one of Zampanô's personal readers that he manages to get in contact with
were actually fabricated by Truant for reasons that weren't clear at first. Only to learn that Truant was truthful in his admissions and fully admits where he lies about events and where he doesn't, somehow managing to keep even that ability despite his crumbling mental state.

Ingeniously enough, this book also makes you think that everything you're reading about is also real.
The Navidson Record, all the reviews and comments about the film from celebrities and movie critics, the academic talks and papers analyzing and scrutinizing mundane aspects of the film such as Will Navidson's return to the house on Ash Tree Lane towards the end, all of it immaculately detailed to the point of exceptional plausibility. It feels like this actually happened
. It lends credence to what I'm sure is a popular fan theory about the story - everything in the manuscript written by Zampanô; the film, the house, the stories and all the key players involved, occurred in an alternate reality.

The frequent discrepancies of time that are present throughout the story are more than just a side effect of Truant's obsession that eventually leads to a severe damaging of his sanity. Zampanô's madness
and consequently, his blindness
were likely caused by somehow glimpsing into this reality where a house existed in the Virginia countryside that, as he put it, constituted "
a rape of physics
" by producing rooms and hallways totally invisible to the outside world. A reality where such a house needed to be photographed and documented visually, else no one on the planet would believe it actually existed. And a house where so much evidence was compiled, it was turned into a major motion picture premiering around the world. Except that world wasn't our own.

The existence of this alternate timeline and reality, as well as a sudden rift within time itself that would make this reality cross over into our current reality, would be sufficient evidence for the manuscript's contents
especially Johnny's encounter with the band that plays at the bar in Flagstaff. Their lyrics make mention of the Five and a Half Minute Hallway referenced in Zampanô's manuscript, and they have a published copy of the very manuscript he's currently transcribing, well before he is finished with it
. The idea that something this elaborate is totally made up, by someone who possessed no post-secondary educational degrees
and who had been completely blind for well over two decades
is practically inconceivable.

If you've ever thought of what it must feel like to experience a psychotic break in real time, look no further than this book. Believe the thousands of reviews left of it on Amazon, Goodreads, Google and everywhere else that chronicles book reviews.
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