house of leaves (Alpha decay, 2000) is the first novel by Mark Z. Danielewski. It is an unusual novel, in which the creativity of its author and the falsification of erudition stand out. The literary references and creative play will captivate the reader and will only surprise them and make reading as enjoyable as possible.
Will Navidson is a renowned photojournalist who arrives at a house in Virginia with his family in the hope of recovering with them all the time that his work has stolen from him. But The secrets that that house buries will lead them to the most absolute confusion. house of leaves It is a great horror narrative plot.
House of leaves: the great narrative framework of terror
Mathematics doesn't lie
Although there is a narrative game with different characters and stories within other stories, house of leaves It forks into two large plots that end up coming together. On the one hand, there is the story of Johnny Truant, a drug addict tattoo artist who lives in Los Angeles and who, looking for an apartment, arrives at the old apartment of old Zámpanò who has just died. There he finds an academic book with labyrinthine notes and studies a documentary that seems to have never existed. Through this work the story of Will Navidson and his family is revealed. It is said that this family moved to a most strange house, since the interior dimensions do not correspond to the construction space of the house. This turns out to be much larger than you would actually think.
Mathematics does not lie but this story is a complex gibberish that is perfectly plotted by its architect, Danielewski. Despite the confusion that the form and content of house of leaves, the story is impeccably woven and takes place in two different times and spaces in an innovative and brilliant narrative structure. Throughout the novel there are multiple branches, as if it were a tree.. It is also a very visual text due to the approach to the story and the type of writing. Within ergodic literature, it is a book with images and codes that involve the reader to make them live the characters' experiences in the same way.
The fictional game
This experimental novel has very creative narrative resources that pursue the verisimilitude and rigor of a work of contemporary literature that delves beyond the conventional horror genre. Likewise, the construction of the novel does not make it overwhelming. The author seeks to help the reader and guides him with, for example, different fonts for each narrator, since there are multiple: Johnny Truant, Will Navidson, Zampanò through annotations, Will's twin brother when he makes a transcription of the documentary , quotes and interviews from other people, unknown editors of the book found by Johnny, and also epistolary texts from Johnny Truant's mother.
But nothing is left to chance. It is a very careful and measured novel; There is a complete meaning in the work that the author takes care of calculating so that the narrative part does not lose quality or focus or the pleasure of being read. It is therefore, a great fictional game: academic literature, non-existent bibliographical references, a plot within a plot and a great mystery that seeks to be solved.
It can be classified as a total novel, since it goes beyond being a typical horror novel. In it you will find fields of study of all kinds: philosophy, art, cinema, literature, or mathematics.. In fact, gender is also the subject of discussion. At first glance it is understood as a horror novel, but it is also a love story with fantastic overtones. Due to its indeterminacy and the compendium of knowledge with which the reader plays, it has also been read as a criticism of academicism.
Conclusions
house of leaves It is a novel that will not leave the public indifferent. Is a narrative effort that Danielewski fuses with the horror genre and leaves a surprising premise with academic investigations and a background of multidisciplinary knowledge. Only the reader will have the last word and will be the one who can discern the truth from the absurd. In addition, you must also be able to overcome the reading journey that is house of leaves. A unique novel not suitable for skeptics or for those who think that literature has some kind of limit.
About the Author
Mark Z. Danielewski was born in New York in 1966. He graduated in Literature from Yale University and then studied Cinematography in California. He is a prestigious writer within experimental and suspense literature with references to personalities such as Stephen King or Alfred Hitchcock.. His first novel, house of leaves, was applauded as a great work and quickly made him known. This is a benchmark for this type of literature and, more than twenty years later, it continues to make people talk. Other works by this writer are The Walestoe Letters, The sword of fifty years, Only Revolutions y The Familiar, a compendium of more than twenty volumes that are in progress.