I couldn’t figure out why Zampano wrote a nonfiction book about a house that didn’t exist with references to articles no one wrote. I did sense the metaphor at the heart of the Navidson Record: the house as the self, containing the dark hallways of the unconscious where the source of our deepest pain is hidden. But why all the annoying analysis? Why were there so many opinions and theories on what everything meant, almost none of them in agreement? And then it hit me, hard.

That’s exactly what most of us do when faced with our inner demons: we analyze our behavior, trying to logically work out what it means that we feel this way. We think a lot. And just like those endless scholarly articles, it rarely solves anything. It creates a lot of chaos and shifting walls.

(Spoilers Ahead!)

It’s rare that we go deep into ourselves to experience what’s there, exploring it without trying to alter it, letting it show us what it is instead of guessing. When Navidson does that, everything changes. Healing starts to occur, a window appears, and ultimately he is reunited with his beloved — finally free and outside of himself.

Johnny Truant is freed in the same way, setting fire to his obsession once he looks at his own darkness, once he finds it was “just a foyer and maybe not dark at all.”

This only scratches the surface of what I’m finding in the pages of this book. Each new understanding changes the meaning of what I read before. I want to read the whole thing again, right now! But then, is that missing the point? Maybe I’m really still stuck in the footnotes.

I got this book because I received my school’s Excellence in English Award at my graduation. My English teacher told me I would enjoy it – and I did. If I had to describe it, I’d say it’s trippy, experimental, and all together very interesting. It’s about the human mind’s response to true terror, the ethics of art, and how just a book can change your life. We see in glimpses Zampano’s reaction to this fictional documentary, how it consumed his life and how he wrote such a staggering book though blind. We see that perhaps the book was his escape from loneliness, but in the end it was also his undoing. When the house in the documentary becomes a labyrinth, the pages of the book he writes become a labyrinth – twisting and hard to follow. The text mirrors the action.

Also we see Johnny Truant’s mental breakdown as a result of reading Zampano’s work. His entire life collapses because of a work that turns out to be fiction.

Anyway, I’m going to stop analyzing this book and just encourage you to read it. Yes, it is intimidating. Yes, it is going to take you awhile to read. But hopefully, like me, you’ll be absorbed and absolutely love it.

This is, without doubt, the most amazing book I’ve ever read. It’s not even a book, really; it’s a mind-trip in 700+ pages.

Strangely, even though I couldn’t put it down and was eager to share it with friends, every single person I’ve given it to has been unable to get through it.

this book is pretentious crap. don’t tell me it’s the greatest book you ever read, because it’s not – it’s just confusing and you think it’s deep.

the graphic design is awesome, but wicked design does not a plot make. if you want an awesome book with awesome deisgn, read “The Cheese Monkeys” by Chip Kidd. I will finish this book though dammit. because i’m stubborn like that.

I was given this book as a Christmas present. I’ve wanted to read it for a long time, and I’m excited to finally own a copy.

I’m more than halfway finished but putting in on the back burner to read my new Steve Martin novel.

The “easy” book for the contemporary fiction class

It was a good story but I’m not sure it was worth the pain of flipping the book around, reading the margins, etc. It was all I could do to finish it was so annoying.

Constructed as an essay on an imaginary film, with additional commentary by someone who found the essay, House of Leaves is an impressively bizarre work of meta-fiction. It jumps between horror and academic exposition on topics such as the symbolism of mazes. I think I’m glad I read it. (8/21/04)

I don’t often read books more than once by choice, but this is one I could read a million times over. In fact, I’m probably quite close to that number now!