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House of Leaves


Ryan.

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A while back there was a book thread. And someone recommended House of Leaves.

 

I've tried. But I can't get through it. {censored} is aggravating. Just don't have the patience.

 

Can someone explain to me what happens so I don't have to continue it?

 

Anyone?

 

Hello... ello... llo... lo... o....

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I feel the same way you guys did. My sister kept on telling me how amazing (and scary) the book was. I kept waiting for it to get good, and nine hundred pages later (yes, I read the whole thing*), it never happened. Every time the book started to get interesting, it would go into more pointless bullcrap. There's just too much filler and stuff that doesn't matter; maybe if the book concentrated on the house stuff and was a few hundred pages shorter it would be good.

 

*While defending the book, my sister told me that I wasn't supposed to read the whole thing - what the hell is up with that? Of course I skipped over the long lists of stuff, but I think "you're supposed to skip half the book" is a pretty poor defense of something. If that stuff isn't supposed to be read, it shouldn't be in the book. I know that it's supposed to mess with your head, but it didn't work on me, all it did is make me not like the book.

 

 

As for what happens...

Tom almost dies, but his wife saves him and the family leaves the house and become stronger and happier. Johnny (who might not exist) goes in search of his mother (I think; I don't remember a lot of his story because it was so pointless).

 

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You have to approach the book in a different way you would other books, it's as much a "concrete" piece as it is a piece of literature. Think of it as 3 novels wrapped up in one cover almost.

 

Also the book represents the house...

 

And no point in giving a synopsis since the journey is more important than the destination.

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I really did try.

Just couldn't make my way through it.

I thought everyone was gonna die, because I read some piece in one of the pictures in the book that talked about one of the walls chopping one of the kids in half.

I dunno, maybe one day I'll get back to it, but its just been so frustrating that I have to take a break and read other books.

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Still my favorite book, ever. I've read it four times :lol:. You literally can't summarize that book, and I dig that. It is indeed very time consuming though, each time I read it, it took me almost 2 months on each pass. I'm about to start Only Revolutions (by the same author) today, I'm hoping it's as good

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I really didn't get into all the extraneous {censored} in the book. I just skipped all the pages with sideways writing and stuff like that. I would have liked it better if it had just been the story of the house without the "story within a story" gimmick but I guess then it would just be a Stephan King book. I give this book 2 out of 5 stars.

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It's sorta niche...you have to be into that metafiction style stuff...borges, wallace, pynchon, eco, barth blahblahblah


I enjoyed it, some parts were truly terrifying.

I also enjoyed the concept of the unreliable narrator.

 

 

Yep, the whole thing is a bit esoteric, so it gets a lot of flak.

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he uses a lot of gimmicks which almost overpower the story itself, but i think the difficulty in reading it magnifies the struggles in the relationships between the characters. i read half of it in one night, spun. it creeped me the {censored} out. i guess Poe wrote an album that is based on this book. danielewski and Poe are brother and sister.

 

-unreliable narrator is exactly right. it was probably a pretty costly book to publish with the font changes/color schemes.

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I found House of Leaves to be the most intriguing book I have ever read, especially the Wahlestoe Letters. The utter paranoia, the depths of the houses despair, and the manuscripts effect on Johnny, just brilliant.

 

And the myriad of hidden affects, my fav being

 

The endpapers of the US hardcover edition of the novel contain hexadecimal characters, which are actually an AIFF audio file of an excerpt from Poe's track "Angry Johnny" when saved as a file in a hex editor.[6]

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I really enjoyed that book. It's one of the few books that really creeped me out. I had just moved to Virginia and was living in a 150 year old house 600 miles from anyone else I knew so that might have added to the effect. And the POE albums add to the experience.

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