House of Leaves review and analysis

House of Leaves is the most ambitious novel that I have ever read. This is a tour de force of effort and grandiosity. The book was written in 2000 by Mark Z. Danielewiski as his debut novel. The novel is a story within a story about family of four that moves into a home in Virginia where there is a mysterious room that is larger on the inside than the rest of the house is on the outside. Even more confounding, the room grows into a labyrinth that inexplicably grows exponentially. Will Navidson, a photojournalist and patriarch of the home, films the house as him and a recruited team explore this inexplicable anomaly.

The documentary becomes the Navidson Record, which serves as the crux of the novel. A blind man named Zampano (first name unknown), writes an analysis of the documentary. This is the main story of the novel. A third man, Johnny Truant, stumbles across Zampano’s work, initially hoping to edit and finish what Zampano started but he soon begins to fear an unidentified threat and descends into madness, which he documents alongside his edits to Zampano’s work.

House of Leaves is an extraordinarily layered work with many different interpretations, meanings, and purposes. The novel is highly polarizing. This polarization stems from the reader’s view of the novel. There is even debate on what genre the novel falls under. Danielewiski himself categorizes the novel as a romance, but I personally don’t see anything romantic with it, but who am I to disagree with the author?

There are multiple interpretations on how to read and understand this novel; and just like a labyrinth, your destination is determined by the route you take. How you decide to view this novel will determine if you love or hate it; understand or are confused by it; see it as a romance or horror. Etc. etc. etc. Compounding things further is that there is even debate within and outside the novel on whether the Navidson Record is real or not.

Before I go into my review and analysis, I’ll state my interpretations. First, the only way, in my opinion, to enjoy this novel is to see it as a satire. This novel would be absolutely unreadable if I didn’t view it as such. House of Leaves is a satire of overly academic and unnecessarily dense writing that goes onto non-sensical tangents that are totally beside the point. Zampano is both a criticism and satire of these types. The worst parts of the novel are Zampano’s try-hard scholarly writing. He frequently loses the reader with these long-winded esoteric tangents that are an obvious intent to posture himself as a scholar.

My biggest criticisms of scholarly writings are 1. The need to write a “certain” way to be published. It becomes clear to me that Zampano felt that he had to write this way in order to be published or taken seriously. Or maybe he is this pretentious and thinks that this is impressive writing. Regardless, Zampano takes this to the nth degree and it’s clear to me that it is a criticism of this writing style. It being the worst part of the novel seems intentional. 2. these academics go off on long-winded tangents making dubious flimsy parallels. The soliloquys Zampano pontificates on are terrible but I believe they are intentionally written terrible by Danielewski. This could dually be seen matching the maze of the house. These tangents come in inexplicably and ruin the flow of the plot when following Navidson. This parallels with the frustration of running into a dead end of a labyrinth.

The actual Navidson Record is the best part of the novel. Danielewski shines brightest when focusing on the people within the house. Zampano’s and later Johnny’s, tangents are intended to frustrate and take you off path, just like a maze. Just like the house.

Speaking of Johnny. Like Zampano, I think his exhaustingly verbose manifestos are meant to frustrate and distract to mimic a maze. I believe that this is also criticism of the artsy poet types. Some of those artsy philosophical types say a lot but say nothing at all. That’s how much of Johnny’s ramblings feel. They’re words on a page that are ultimately vapid and void of meaning. I think this is both an insight into a schizophrenic mind and a satire of the pseudo-intellectuals who believe that talking in circles makes their work “deep” or “profound” when in actuality it’s overly wordy and not making a point. Danielewski is too compelling in other areas of the novel for me to believe that Johnny’s ramblings were written to be taken as good writing. I fully believe that both Zampano and Jonny’s ramblings are meant to be read as satire that is intended to frustrate and annoy you to criticize intellectuals who are too smart for their own good and who can’t succinctly make their point.

Moving into the story. I think it’s pretty clear that the Navidson Record is a work of fiction. Initially I thought Zampano was lying about it but now I think that this is a fictional story and not a fabrication. It becomes clear that Zampano made up the citations. I thought that he did so in an attempt for acclaim and recognition but it’s apparent to me that this is intended to be a work of fiction that does a great job of convincing you that it’s real. There are moments that confirm to me that the Navidson Record is indeed fictitious but I’ll let readers determine that for themselves.

Where House of Leaves thrives is in its parallel between the house and Johnny Truant’s descent into schizophrenia. The inexplicability of the house reflects the brokenness of a schizophrenic mind. The house defies every law of physics, is impossible to predict, and is a dark and broken place where the missing can be lost forever. This to me parallels Johnny’s descent into insanity. Johnny’s distracted and nonsensical tangents reflect the confusing and completely illogical nature of the house and depicts his worsening psychosis and likely schizophrenia. There is a growl from an undetermined source that frequently emanates in the house. It’s never seen or confirmed what is making the sound but it’s theorized that it is the sound that the house makes as it is shifting. Johnny similarly feels an unseen and ominous presence similar to this growl. This presence deeply unsettles Truant and fuels his anxiety and general fear of his impending doom. This represents the paranoid aspect of schizophrenia.

The Navidson Record and the house, specifically the maze, is a metaphor for schizophrenia and insanity. Johnny’s descent and later succumbing to schizophrenia is a direct parallel to Navidson’s ascent into the maze of the house. The deeper Navidson - and anyone else who ventures into it goes - the more lost they become. It’s no coincidence that Johnny loses his mind as members of the search team become lost. I believe that Daielewski is using the house to depict severe mental illness. Everything about the maze in the house reflects schizophrenia.

I enjoy reading about Johnny’s day-to-life, his tangents aside. The novel loses me, however, when Johnny becomes introspective and looks inward and attempts to explain what is afflicting him. As stated, I believe that this is intentional and does make for a thought-provoking grander point, but on a much simpler entertainment level it makes the novel difficult and at times laborious to read. House of Leaves is no page turner, especially after the 50-page mark and Truant’s introspections is one of the culprits as to why.

Navidson’s descent into the maze is ostensibly the climax of the story but the style of the novel cuts the legs out from under what could have been a horrific, yet stellar culmination. We only see Navidson through the lens of his HI-8, so we’re essentially voyeurs to the terror of his trek. This labyrinth has to feel like what being lost in space is like. It’s dark, forever growing, large beyond human comprehension, and twisting and turning so much that it would take nothing short of God to help you find your way back. There’s a certain terror about being lost. There’s a level of existential despair being lost in a place that seems completely inaccessible to the people that love and miss you but have no way of getting to you. This transcends fear but instead moves into despair and hopelessness. Danielewski does a great job of transcribing these feelings but this would have been a beautiful opportunity to go inward and feel what Navidson feels. We know what he’s feeling but this ending could have had a 10 out of 10 landing had we gotten this from Navidson himself and not a third person POV via through the lens of his Hi-8 camera. Of course, this would not have been in alignment with the story but this is a large reason why even though I feel House of Leaves is highly impressive literarily, it is not exactly an enjoyable read.

The ending falls flat for me. It’s a happy-ish ending but happy endings only work when character arcs conclude and problems are resolved, two things that do not occur in House of Leaves. Karen returns to the house as a way of being connected to the missing Navidson, who eventually turns up after months in the maze. He’s both physically and psychologically destroyed by the incident. There is a silver lining, however, as the episode results in the two marrying, something Karen was vehemently against earlier in the novel. I can understand the emotional knee-jerk reaction following your loved one miraculously returning, so I’m not upset at the marriage or Karen changing her mind. However, Karen had indulged in another act of infidelity that Navidson knew about yet it’s never addressed. Again, this could be forgiven following his return, yet this isn’t spoken about at all between the two. Navidson entering the maze was a huge bone of contention for Karen which was the catalyst for the dissolve of their relationship, yet again this is glossed over. Lastly, Zampano asserts that Karen is overly dependent on Navidson, but again this isn’t resolved or addressed. I don’t see the neediness in Karen that Zampano does, but if it is present, she never states her devotion to Navidson yet her simultaneous need for autonomy making me believe Zampano was off the mark, which admittedly is clever writing on Danielewski’s part. This revelation from Karen, however, is never reached so this aspect of her character arc has to be seen as unresolved at least according to Zampano. This could be seen as another dead end of the novel. This is a strong example of how House of Leaves is impressive yet also frustrating and unfulfilling.

House of Leaves is a highly polarizing novel yet I feel like I fall somewhere in the middle. It drew me in initially, then lost me, then reeled me in again, then mostly lost me and I needed to trudge myself to a finish line which I largely felt pretty meh on. The novel has a ton of interpretations; too many to go over here. One theory is that Johnny died and is actually a creation of Pelafina, Johnny’s institutionalized mother. The theory is that she penned Johnny’s life as a way of imagining the years he lost and as a way of coping with the trauma of his death. There’s a short story towards the end of the novel that gives credence to this theory. More evidence is the way Johnny describes his sexual encounters/fantasies. It’s plausible to think that Danielewski wrote these improbable scenarios from a woman’s POV on what men’s hookups are like or how men would fantasize them being. These lurid encounters are random and a bit ridiculous, if not straight up fantastical in their spontaneous nature. As a man – and speaking pretty generally here – this isn’t how men would describe their sexual encounters nor is this realistic on how men (at least not this one writing) hooks up. But this could be how women think men hookup. This theory isn’t totally off the mark, but where it loses me is why Pelafina would writer Jonny as mentally unwell. It seems odd to write her son afflicted with a similar condition as herself. One would think that she would write a happy life for him if this is indeed a created story on her part. One could say that she is projecting her condition onto this version of Johnny but I don’t believe that she is consistently lucid and cognizant enough of her own condition to eloquently project it on to someone else. There are some similarities between Johnny and Pelafina’s writing style and proficiency that lends credence to that it is actually Pelafina and not Truant writing it, yet I believe that Johnny simply inherited this skill from his mother.

Another theory is that Zampano is actually Johnny’s father yet this doesn’t make any sense at all to me because Johnny was old enough to know his father and is aware that he actually died. There are other micro theories throughout the novel that are cool to converse about. The best thing about House of Leaves is the conversation that it spurs and all of the fan theories it has birthed. Danielewski deserves a lot of credit for creating a novel so coded with so many mysteries, potential theories, and meanings. This was a Herculean task by Danielewski and he has earned my admiration. The novel itself is clever, yet not incredibly entertaining. It frequently loses my engagement and it took me longer than average to finish. It’s not a book that I would recommend strictly off of its entertainment factor but it is for those who like to find multiple interpretations, and enjoy recognizing symbolism, parallels and hidden meanings within a piece of work.

-6.0/10