Today I have stumbled across the book ‘House of Leaves’ when actually looking for another novel based on the video game ‘Control’.
I had the idea to adapt this game into a novel as a bit of fun to do in my spare time but wanted to see if anyone else had already attempted it or even if there was an official novel or other official material.
In my search Google brought me to an existing Reddit post where someone was asking if a book had been released based on the game etc etc (the answer to this question is no for those who are curious) but someone did suggest reading ‘House of Leaves’. Enter the rabbit hole 😐
This book was first published in 2000 and doesn’t appear to be like anything else I’ve read. Taken from Amazon the first part of the books description says:
”THE MIND-BENDING CULT CLASSIC ABOUT A HOUSE THAT’S LARGER ON THE INSIDE THAN ON THE OUTSIDE • A masterpiece of horror and an astonishingly immersive, maze-like reading experience that redefines the boundaries of a novel.”
Now, that alone doesn’t really detail the full structure of this book and how it has been crafted. It appears to contain a mystery that you, the reader, are trying to understand through evidence compiled by characters within the book. I’m honestly pretty confused but my interest has been peaked.
**TLDR; Has anyone read House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski? Would you recommend it and why?**
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by danwillysxi
7 Comments
*Tons* of people have read House of Leaves; it’s a very polarizing book, but it’s extremely popular. Personally, I really enjoyed it, and I’ve barely scratched the surface of the book and didn’t do the kinds of deep dives that you can find in 30 seconds on Google.
The Amazon description is a pretty good short synopsis.
It’s well worth reading. I highly recommend it because it’s mind-bending and paints an intensely interesting and complex world. It also truly plays with the format in interesting.
For example, make sure you read all the footnotes. They’re a fun journey in their own right and sometimes go for several pages on their own.
I picked it up on Prime day but haven’t read it yet.
Yes, a lot of people have. It’s a cult classic. It has its own Wikipedia page. There are even fangames that draw from it (search YouTube for myhouse.wad), although these are not direct adaptations. On that note, please don’t adapt someone else’s novel unless you’ve bought the IP rights from them to do so.
I love House of Leaves but bear in mind that it’s not for everyone. There are two main narratives and some people are put off by the Johnny pov. He’s an unlikable character and tbh his sections aren’t as interesting as the other one.
The footnotes and strange formatting are either going to be part of the fun for you or a point of frustration. Personally, I really loved it.
But please give it a go. There’s nothing really like it and it brings some fascinating concepts to the table.
Yes and I love that book!
I read it, I loved it, it’s real weird and metatextual. I read it based on a lot of recommendations and thought it would be really pretentious and dense but I actually found it really enjoyable to read. Just feel free to skip the footnotes about architecture and random lists of thousands of names.